Kathleen (66) will cut her long hair for two charities after an amazing 36 years

LAOIS woman Kathleen Culliton has been growing her hair since 1990. “It was shoulder length at that stage, and now I can sit on it”, she says.

She was living in Saudi Arabia at the time. Women in the country were not permitted to play sports prior to the early 2010s, so Kathleen used it as an opportunity to start growing her hair. “I couldn't really grow it before then because I was playing basketball and it would get in my way”.

A paediatric physio, Kathleen uses her long hair as a bargaining tool.

“Some of the kids call me Rapunzel, and I've used it to get them to work hard because some of them like to see the hair down. I say, ‘well, if you work hard, you can see my hair down’”.

Kathleen will soon have to think of a new bribery tactic, as she is set to cut her hair for two notable causes: the Rapunzel Foundation, which takes hair donations to make wigs for children who have lost hair due to chemotherapy, and the Cuisle Cancer Support Centre in Portlaoise, which provides free emotional and practical care to people and families affected by cancer.

“Cuisle get no government funding, so it's completely dependent on donations and fundraisers like this, and they do great work,” says Kathleen.

“I have friends and family who have availed of it. It's a place where, when you go, people understand what you're going through.” Although Kathleen had been planning this donation for a time, her recent uterine cancer diagnosis has become motivating factor. She underwent surgery for it in December 2025 and will soon undergo radiotherapy.

“I'm heading to the next phase now. I was hoping I wouldn't have to do that, that the surgery would be enough, there's nothing you can do about it, so I just get on with it”.

“You can only deal with things as they come”, Kathleen says. A very grounded attitude.

“You don't waste time then being all upset,” she says.

Kathleen’s big supporters, outside of friends and family, are her three dogs.

“One of them definitely knew there was something wrong”, she says.

“She's been very clingy. She always lays with her head on my pelvis … I thought she was just being affectionate. She's a sweetheart, but afterwards, I think because she's not doing it as much now… they say that some dogs can sense cancer, so I figured she might be able to.

“Anyway, but they've given me great support, and they snuggle up and expect me to give them pats.” When doctors did a histology, Kathleen was handed a booklet that said her cancer diagnosis and recovery was a ‘journey’, which made her laugh.

“I've been to 92 countries, so this is not a journey for me. My journeys are different.” Kathleen instead prefers to view this as a ‘crusade’, one against a parasite: “A crusade to get rid of it, not a journey anywhere. A journey sounds way too gentle for what I feel about this thing”.

So, what is a journey to Kathleen? Perhaps the answer lies in one the many places she has journeyed to: North Korea, Syria, Antarctica, Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, Easter Island, Yemen, and the Galapagos, to name but a few.

“Still haven't seen the Northern Lights yet though”, she says.

Kathleen was based in Saudi Arabia for nine-and-a-half years, working in healthcare. It was there that she met her future husband, André, under the sea. Well, almost.

“The first time I met him… I was in the same room with him, but I didn't remember him. I still don't. He was there with a friend, the guy who taught me how to dive, a brash Texan American called Victor”.

Kathleen was in the apartment visiting friends. “Victor was there because in Saudi at that time you could only get [TV channels] Saudi 1 and Saudi 2, but there was a little enclave that had American forces in it, so we were getting the [Armed Forces Radio & Television Service], so he used to come over … to look at the TV because he'd get to see the football”.

Victor was a big personality; all attention was on him. It was no surprise she did not notice the quiet André.

Later, André organised a party on Victor's boat for his birthday. To avoid having the night devolve into a drunken male stupor, he asked a military friend to invite some of her women friends. Kathleen attended.

“We were chased by the Saudi coast guards”, she says.

The group were in a lagoon but had drawn the attention of the coast guard because they were partying late into the evening. Victor turned off the engine and allowed the boat to coast along while they group divested themselves of the alcohol onboard.

“We were covered because Vic's wife was there, Marilyn, for the fact that there were men and women on the boat, but the alcohol would have been terrible, we would have been deported. The women would have been deported with ‘prostitute’ stamped on their passport”.

Kathleen tried speaking to André, but “it was like trying to get words out of a turnip”.

Later, after they were married, Kathleen asked André if he had fancied her at this time “He said, ‘I couldn't stand you,’” she laughs. A very good start.

However, Kathleen believes she and André were meant to be together, because their story is punctuated by coincidence.

“Coincidences that happened that meant that I would meet him, that we were definitely meant to be together”.

It is easy to see why Kathleen would say that. When she missed out on her diving qualification because she had been sent to Medina to treat the King, she was placed in a new diving group on her own. André happened to be on the same boat.

There was something wrong with his diving equipment, so he had to surface to fix it. “Now, he was a dive master, so that was weird,” she says.

The dive masters who were supposed to instruct students never arrived. “Another strange thing”, she says. So, Victor asked André if he would act as the dive master.

“I remember sitting on the rock under the sea, the first time I'd been under the sea, looking at the surface on the wrong side ... It’s just another world. It is a wonderland when you go down, just being under the water like a fish, it's just lovely”.

When the group surfaced, André asked Kathleen if she would be his diving buddy.

“I said, ‘well, fine,’ and I never ever did any other exam in scuba because I was mostly diving with him”.

Three weeks later he asked Kathleen if she would think about getting married some time. The pair did indeed marry, in Sharia court. At the wedding, Kathleen was left sitting by herself while André looked over paperwork. A group of men, linked in groups of threes and fives by chains clipped over their legs, were sitting nearby awaiting trial.

It was “the most unromantic wedding ever”, she says. This was 1992. The pair were married for eight years.

They left Saudi Arabia in 2000, but André later returned. Kathleen remained in Ireland. “I was talking to him on a Thursday evening, and he sounded weird … They worked really long hours; I thought he was tired.” André was going down to the south, where there was little-to-no reception in the early days of mobile phones, so Kathleen called him on Sunday. She found he was ‘talking nonsense’.

She says she could diagnose that he had suffered a subarachnoid haemorrhage through the telephone. His doctors, however, had sent him home with a sleeping tablet after he had collapsed.

André saw a doctor again on Monday. They tried to put a stent in his head, which involves putting a catheter into the legs, into the heart, and out again.

“One of the classic problems when it comes out is that it can pierce the artery, and it did”, Kathleen says.

André died not of a brain haemorrhage, but of an abdominal bleed. The consultant who treated him would not answer Kathleen’s calls. She had to ask a friend to pull a favour with another consultant to convince him to speak with her.

“[The consultant] told me not to worry”, Kathleen recalls. “He had looked the procedure up on the internet and he got advice”. He then told Kathleen to ring him back if she had any more questions, but he never picked up the phone again.

On her relationship with André, Kathleen says: “I was meant to meet him, and he was a lovely, lovely, lovely man”.

Kathleen’s birthday is the day after we speak. She is about to turn 66. “The new 36”, she laughs. She says she wants to see all 195 countries in the world. Maybe one day she will see the Northern Lights.

In the meantime, she has not yet set a date for her haircut, but Kilminchy Hair Design KHD in Portlaoise will do the honours. She has set up a GoFundMe for her designated charities, and at the time of writing has raised €2,235 of her €2,600 goal.

“I'm doing this in the hope that I'll increase the amount of donations that come in … At the rate that cancer is in the world now, you'll at least know somebody [who has it], but the possibility is pretty high that you might have it yourself at some stage “People in the area may need Cuisle’s services, and if they do, we want it to still be there.” 

Donations can be made at: https://www.gofundme.com/f/one-cut-two-causes