A prominent Limerick priest has called on people living in all parts
of the city to take ownership of the notorious problems of its troubled
suburbs.
Fr Pat Hogan, who has been parish priest of Southill for the past
five years, said there is a regrettable attitude in other parts of the
city that what happens to the people of Southill and other areas, such
as Moyross, was “their problem” rather than one for the entire Limerick
community.
“I think it’s a big thing for Limerick to own the problem – that’s
the only way a city can progress and move forward,” Fr Hogan said.
He was speaking at a function in the Clarion Hotel at which he was
named Limerick Person of the Month for his humanitarian work and his
efforts to highlight social injustice, poverty and exclusion.
“We need to own the problem and ask what we are doing about it,” he told the people of Limerick.
Fr Hogan said that people living in the city’s troubled estates
“can’t open their mouth because they’ll get a brick through the window”
and there is “no law” to save them.
While he is “annoyed and angry” at
criminality, his faith is restored, he said, by the “resilience of good
people, their sense of humour and endurance.”
Fr Hogan said that of all the events in his troubled parish in the
past five years, he found two recent murders to be particularly
disturbing.
“That someone would go out on a Sunday morning and take two
people out, for whatever reason, is very hard to comprehend,” he
observed.
“We thought we were getting away from the insane evil acts of
violence, but this landed us back in misery and re-opened old wounds.”
SIC: CIN/IE