An Augustinian priest who walked from Cobh, Co. Cork, to Dublin as a gesture of protest and restitution for sex abuse scandals in the Church has been named as one of County Kilkenny’s People of the Year. Fr Michael Mernagh was one of eight winners in the 13th annual 2009 Rehab Kilkenny People of the Year Awards.
Other recipients of awards included Dr Bill Cuddihy of the Good Shepherd Centre, Danesfort Development Group, and Brian Cody, manager of the All-Ireland champion Kilkenny hurling team, who won the overall award.
Some 260 people attended the dinner in the Newpark Hotel at which the eight people were honoured.
Fr Mernagh, who was ordained in 1963, received the award under the ‘Social Justice’ category. A native of Glenmore, Co Kilkenny, he worked in Nigeria and in the Liberties area of Dublin. He also served as director of the National Combat Poverty Committee in the 1970s and was sent to jail in 1984 for standing in front of bulldozers in Dublin to try to prevent a family of travellers from being evicted from a council site.
Fr Mernagh spends four months each year in South Africa promoting community development.
Earlier this year, Fr Mernagh walked the 210 miles from St Colman's Cathedral in Cobh to St Mary's Pro-Cathedral in Dublin, carrying a placard calling for atonement. The purpose of his journey was to make peace with himself and draw public awareness to the victims of abuse.
Speaking after he was presented with the award by Brian Phelan of Glanbia, Fr Mernagh said that it was “a physical walk and an intense spiritual journey” and that the trip was a “very humbling experience.”
He said his personal motto in life was that “this and this alone the Lord God asks of you: act justly, love tenderly and walk humbly.”
Proceeds from the event went to Rehab Kilkenny, which works with local communities and people with physical, sensory and intellectual disabilities and mental health difficulties, autism or acquired brain injuries.
People of the Year organising committee chairman Declan McCann said the awards played an important part in recognising our local heroes.
"These awards are to recognise and thank the people around us who have made an extra effort to contribute to our local community," he said.
The 2009 Rehab/Kilkenny People Person of the Year were honoured at a banquet in the Newpark Hotel at which RTE presenter Ronan Collins was Master of Ceremonies.
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