In Pictures: President Higgins visits Limerick to honour Fr Peter McVerry

THE PRESIDENT of Ireland was in Limerick to honour the man who called upon Irish people who have “lost their outrage.”

Michael D Higgins was at Mary Immaculate College (MIC) on December 6, where he honoured Fr Peter McVerry with The McAuley Medal – the highest award that can be bestowed by the college.

With this award, Fr McVerry was recognised for his social justice activism with the Peter McVerry Trust, a national housing and homeless charity committed to reducing homelessness and the harm cause by substance misuse and social disadvantage.

In 1979, after getting into contact with young people who were sleeping on the streets because of their home situation, he opened a hostel for homeless boys aged 12 to 16. As he noticed most of the boys ended up back on the streets after leaving the institution, he founded the Arrupe Society in 1983, in a bid to tackle homelessness – it was renamed Peter McVerry Trust later on.

Limerick neighbours honoured with monthly Tidy Towns award

As he accepted the award, he spoke of the level of homelessness in the county: “We need to recover that sense of outrage, we need to get angry again, we need to be angry at the level of homelessness that exists in this country.”

Fr McVerry added that “we have become desensitised to homelessness,” and that even though numbers show a record figure of 11,300 homeless people in Ireland, “we have lost our sense of outrage.”

Over the years, The McAuley Medal was awarded to the late Eunice Kennedy Shriver, in recognition of her work in establishing the Special Olympics, and to artist Imogen Stuart RHA, for her contribution to the arts in Ireland.

After presenting Fr Peter McVerry with the medal, President Michael D Higgins visited the exhibition In Her Hands, highlighting Imogen Stuart’s works, who is one of the country’s foremost sculptors.