COLIN Farrell has paid a moving tribute to a close friend marking her "miracle" 40th birthday – and revealed he is running a marathon with her. Emma Fogarty is Ireland’s longest-surviving person battling the most severe type of agonising skin condition, epidermolysis bullosa (EB). The Laois woman’s parents were told she would not live a week beyond birth but she reached her 40th birthday last month and has survived cancer twice in the interim.
Now the actor, who stars in next year’s A Big Bold Beautiful Journey opposite Barbie star Margot Robbie and is also filming Netflix thriller The Ballad of a Small Player, is taking on ‘Emma’s Run to 40’ by completing October’s Irish Life Dublin Marathon. Emma, who celebrated her milestone with a reception in Killashee Hotel and Spa in Kildare on Tuesday, plans to join him in a wheelchair for the final stages of the 42km race. Farrell hopes their run, with the public’s help, will raise €400,000 for Debra, the national charity helping 300 people living in Ireland with EB.
The Banshees of Inisherin star, 48, said: “Emma Fogarty is not only the strongest person I’ve ever met and a true warrior, I’m lucky enough to call her a friend. “For years now, I’ve been fortunate enough to bear witness not only to her courage and her vulnerability, but her humour, her stubbornness and her great, great heart too. “The fact that I’m getting to run the Irish Life Dublin Marathon with my friend to celebrate her 40th birthd.