Human Dignity Award for Sr Catherine Lillis

Founder of Tabor House addiction treatment centre in Navan, Sr Catherine Lillis, will be honoured at a ceremony Leinster House on Thursday, 14th December when she receives the 7th Oireachtas Human Dignity Award.

A Columban nun, 94-year-old Sr Catherine has also worked with child victims of drugs in Dublin, directed a medical clinic in Myanmar, and helped set up a rehabilitation hospital in Egypt for paralysed soldiers. She is a founder and currently a director of Tabor House, a ten-bed secondary treatment centre which helps men in early recovery to improve their quality of life through abstaining from addictive substances. Tabor House is also planning to open a similar facility for women next year.

Sr Catherine will receive the 7th Oireachtas Human Dignity Award from the Ceann Comhairle, Seán Ó Fearghaíl, at the request of the Oireachtas Life and Dignity Group. The Human Dignity Award was established by the Group in 2014 to honour individuals or groups whose contribution to the cause of human dignity has been inspiring.

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. 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. Through this weekend work, Sr Catherine recognised that for many people suffering from addiction, primary treatment as provided by the private treatment centres was not sufficient. She realised the need for extended secondary treatment and this led to her founding Tabor House with a group of friends and supporters.

“Sr Catherine is being honoured for her service to humanity on four continents,” says Ceann Comhairle Seán Ó Fearghaíl TD. “It seems like many lifetimes of good work have been packed in to just one life. Certainly not an easy life but she’s had a wonderful life.”

Independent Senator Rónán Mullen, who proposed Sr Catherine for the Award, described her as a “a living lesson to people tempted to despair over the problems in the world”.

“She is a heroic figure, whose motto seems to have been ‘Do as much as you can, for as many as you can’, for as long as you can,” Senator Mullen says. “In nominating Sr Catherine for the Human Dignity Award, we are honouring the woman herself, but also the work of Columban and other missionaries and many lay Irish people worldwide for their superhuman efforts in the cause of human dignity over the years.”

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.

Sr Catherine will receive her Award in the presence of family, Columban colleagues, friends and associates of Tabor House, and members of the Dáil and Seanad, on the afternoon of 14th December. There will also be an evening fundraiser in support of Tabor House, to help raise funds for a dedicated women’s facility at the centre.

Currentlythere is a ten-bed secondary treatment centre which helps men in early recovery to improve their quality of life through abstaining from addictive substances. Tabor House is now developing a similar centre to provide much-needed therapy and support for women recovering from addiction. A 100-year lease has been obtained on a premises on Navan’s Slane Road - made available by Boliden Tara Mines. It is planned to open the service in early 2024.

Earlier this year, Sr Catherine received a papal award, Pro Ecclesia et Pontifice, from the Bishop of Meath Tom Deenihan, in St Mary’s Church, Navan.