'Chornobyl is forever' says Adi Roche on 40th anniversary of disaster

ADI ROCHE HAS said the impact of the Chornobyl disaster remains ongoing 40 years after the explosion, warning that its effects continue to shape lives across generations.

Speaking to The Journal ahead of a commemoration at Áras an Uachtaráin, Roche described 26 April 1986 as a moment etched into global history.

‘It’s a bit like when people ask you, where were you when JFK was shot’, Roche says. ‘The 26th of 1986 April is a little bit like that.’

Roche is the founder of Chornobyl Children International, a charity that provides humanitarian and medical aid to children and communities still affected by the disaster.

President Catherine Connolly will receive Roche in Phoenix Park, as well as a Ukrainian refugee choir, Ukrainian opera singer Olga Doroshchuk, and first‑hand testimonies from witnesses and survivors.

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Roche described the explosion as the ‘greatest environmental catastrophe in the history of humanity’, and that it remained so 40 years on.

She said the explosion in northern Ukraine had devastating consequences across the region, particularly in Belarus, where ’99% of their entire landmass was covered with radioactivity’.

Roche said the long-term consequences are still emerging, particularly through genetic damage.

She describes how it has ‘leached across the generations’, adding that doctors now refer to a Chornobyl lineage, now passing onto the third generation.

Roche also pointed to the secrecy surrounding the disaster at the time, saying that the KGB tried their best ‘to try to keep the truth from seeping out’.

‘As in all wars, the first casualty was the truth’, she said.

Roche said the war in Ukraine has brought Chornobyl back to ‘centre stage for all the wrong reasons’. 

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‘One of our greatest fears has always been that the next Chornobyl will be Chornobyl itself’, she said, warning of the dangers posed by Russian military activity in the exclusion zone.

She described such actions as a form of ‘nuclear terrorism’ and called for nuclear sites such as Chornobyl to be declared no-war zones.

Roche said Ireland’s response to the disaster in 1986 has been extraordinary, describing it as ‘a four-decade-long love story of resilience, of compassion and really of radical kindness’.

She added that Ireland has given more per capita to the tragedy of Chornobyl than any other country in the world.

A sculpture called Chornobyl Mother, by Irish sculptor Sandra Bell, was unveiled in Cork earlier this week.

The Ukrainian spelling of Chornobyl was ratified by the United Nations in December 2025.

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