A 94-year-old nun and Clare native has been awarded the Oireachtas Human Dignity Award for her impressive missionary work.
On Thursday December 14, Sr Catherine Lillis, founder and currently director of Tabor House addiction treatment centre in Navan, received the 7th Oireachtas Human Dignity Award from the Ceann Comhairle, Seán Ó Fearghaíl, at the request of the Oireachtas Life and Dignity Group.
Originally from Kilkee, Co Clare, Sr Catherine 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, and 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, and this weekend work led her to establish Tabor House in Navan.
Sr Catherine received her award in the presence of family, Columban colleagues, friends and associates of Tabor House, and members of the Dáil and Seanad.
An evening fundraiser in support of Tabor House was also organised to help raise funds for a dedicated women’s facility at the centre.
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.