Two priests are among those nominated for the honour of being 2007 Offaly Person of the Year. Popular singer Fr Liam Lawton and a former missionary to New Zealand Fr Lorenzo Bracken were among 21 people nominated for the award.
The winner will be announced this week and the award will be conferred at the Offaly Association’s annual dinner dance on April 5th in the Regency Hotel in Dublin.
Fr Lawton, who is based in Edenderry, is an internationally renowned singer and composer.
In 2003 he was signed to the EMI label and his first album in 2004, ‘Another World’, was hugely acclaimed and featured Brian Kennedy, the Celtic Tenors, Fionnuala Sherry, Moya Brennan, Eimear Quinn and Roisin O'Reilly.
The album went double platinum in sales and Fr Lawton has since released two further albums, ‘Time’ and ‘Christmas Song’.
His nationwide tours have been hugely successful and he has sold out the National Concert Hall on numerous occasions.
Fr Bracken, who is from Tullamore, celebrated his golden jubilee last July.
After his ordination as a Mill Hill missionary, he was assigned to work with the Maori in New Zealand.
He returned to Ireland in 1984 and was appointed to the Irish Region collecting Mission boxes.
He now celebrates healing Masses and assists several parishes in a number of dioceses.
Since the award was established in 1988, winners have included Fr Tom Scully in 1989 and Brother Denis Minihan in 1997.
Last year’s winner of the award was local historian Sr Oliver Wrafter.
Other winners have included current Tanaiste Brian Cowen in 1992 and former PD junior minister and IFA leader Tom Parlon in 1998.
The other nominees for the award this year include playwright Marina Carr, businessmen Vincent and Brendan Cleary of Glenisk Organic Ireland and Josephine Pender, who works with a Bereavement Group in Tullamore and whose son Mark and husband Sean died tragically after the unsolved disappearance of her daughter Fiona in 1996.
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