A Waterford man who proposed to his girlfriend over Christmas faced a long 20,000-feet walk down one of the world's most iconic mountains and a nine-hour flight home alone if she said no.
Thankfully for Kenny Barry, Alison Devine, from Enfield in Meath, said yes after her romantic husband-to-be popped the question on the top of Mt Kilimanjaro, the highest peak in Africa.
And while all's well that ends well, Kenny's good intentions nearly came undone.
Alison revealed: "We flew out on December 21, it was a long delayed holiday as we had our first date on February 29, 2020, and had intended making the trip to Tanzania that year but Covid shut the world down.
"We started the climb on Christmas Eve but I had a very bad reaction to altitude tablets and spent Christmas Day very unwell and we were not sure whether we would make the next camp up, never mind reach the summit.
"Kenny admitted to me afterwards that he had no plan B for the proposal if we didn't get to the top!
"I had no idea it was going to happen I was too busy concentrating on not being sick and getting up the bloody mountain, so if he dropped any hints I missed them."
Solicitor Alison, 34 and software engineer Kenny, 31, met through sport back in 2016.
Alison recalled: "We met through kick boxing in the Total Kick boxing club in Sandyford and we kind of hit it off together through sparring with each other, I still fight now and Kenny does my corner.
"It has been an unforgettable few days for all sorts of reasons, I had a memorable Christmas Day for the wrong reasons and then a few days later had a magical moment.
"I had to say yes - I couldn't refuse after all the effort he put into surprising me, I genuinely never suspected anything.
"It was a surprise but a lovely one."
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