Tabor House founder presented with human dignity award
Founder and director of the Tabor House Addiction Treatment Centre in Navan, Sr Catherine Lillis, received the 7th Oireachtas Human Dignity Award yesterday from the Ceann Comhairle, Seán Ó Fearghaíl, following a request by the Oireachtas Life and Dignity Group.
The Human Dignity Award was established by the Group in 2014 to honour individuals or groups whose contribution to the cause of human dignity has been inspiring.
A fundraising dinner for Tabor House was held later that evening in the Oireachtas for a dedicated women’s facility at the centre.
Originally from Kilkee, County Clare, Sr Catherine, now 94, joined the Columban Sisters and began her missionary life in Burma, now Myanmar, where she directed the Columbans’ medical clinic in the town of Manbaw.
After the military took over in Myanmar, she worked at a Columban TB hospital in Hong Kong. She later established a rehabilitation hospital in Egypt for soldiers paralysed in the conflict with Israel.
Sr Catherine trained as an addiction counsellor in the US during the 1970s. In the 1980s, she worked in Dublin’s Saint Teresa’s Gardens for the Health Board and in Navan as a volunteer counsellor. This weekend work led her to establish Tabor House in Navan.
“Sr Catherine is being honoured for her service to humanity on four continents,” says Ceann Comhairle Seán Ó Fearghaíl TD. “It seems like many lifetimes of good work have been packed in to just one life. Certainly not an easy life but she’s had a wonderful life.”
Independent Senator Rónán Mullen, who proposed Sr Catherine for the Award, described her as a “a living lesson to people tempted to despair over the problems in the world”.
"She is a heroic figure, whose motto seems to have been ‘Do as much as you can, for as many as you can’, for as long as you can,” Senator Mullen said.
“In nominating Sr Catherine for the Human Dignity Award, we are honouring the woman herself, but also the work of Columban and other missionaries and many lay Irish people worldwide for their superhuman efforts in the cause of human dignity over the years.”
Previous recipients of the Human Dignity Award were Sr Consilio Fitzgerald of Cuan Mhuire, Barney Curley, founder of Direct Aid For Africa, Magnus MacFarlane-Barrow founder of Mary’s Meals, Gina Heraty of Our Little Brothers and Sisters Orphanage in Haiti, Ronan Scully of Self-Help Africa and Br Kevin Crowley of the Capuchin Day Centre.
Sr Catherine received the award in the presence of family, Columban colleagues, friends and associates of Tabor House, and the Papal Nuncio to Ireland Archbishop Luis Mariano Montemayor. Members of the Dáil and Seanad, including Peadar Tóibín TD, Mattie McGrath TD and Senator Shane Cassells were also in attendance.