The recipient of the 2013 Hall of Fame Award is Mr. P.J. Harvey, a native of Bealaha, Doonbeg and a resident of New York for almost fifty years. He is being honoured for his enormous contribution to Co. Clare charities over the years including St. Clare’s School in Ennis. After emigrating to New York in 1960, he joined the Carpenters’ Union and rose to become its president. During his time in the Union, he helped many Irish emigrants to settle into their new environment in the USA and was instrumental is providing them with work and giving them a start in life. Now retired and living in Long Island, he has organised many golf tournaments in New York over the years which have benefited charities in County Clare.
Pictured left to right: Mr. Pat O’Donnell, Ms. Ann Norton, Clare Person of the Year 2013 and Mr. Liam O’Looney. Photograph: Ruth Vaughan
Clare Crusaders Children’s Charity co-founder Ann Norton is Clare Person of the Year 2013. Clare Crusaders is a registered charity (No. 16966) which was founded in 2005 by a group of parents of children with special needs to provide much needed therapy to children living in County Clare with special needs in the areas of Cerebral Palsy, Autism, Down Syndrome and other conditions. Ms. Ann Norton manages the Clare Crusaders Clinic at Barefield, Ennis on a voluntary basis. For more information on the Clare Crusaders please see clarecrusaders.ie
Pat and Neilus O’Doherty are the recipients of the 2012 Hall of Fame award for their work for various charities over the years. Their activities have included helping to arrange visits to County Clare for children from Belarus and on a local level assisting with sporting activities for children in Co. Clare.
Currently they are working with the Pembra support group in Tanzania which they helped to co-found and have helped to arrange to have volunteers from County Clare and beyond working in that area. For more information see: pembasupport.org
Legendary concertina player Chris Droney from Bellharbour, County Clare is the recipient of Clare Person of the Year award 2012. Born in Bellharbour in 1924, his father James and grandfather Michael played concertina and Chris learnt to play by ear from them from an early age. He played with many Céilí bands down through the years including the Bellharbour, the Ballinkill, Aughrim Slopes, Kincora, Four Courts and Kilfenora, toured the USA and Britain with Comhaltas Ceoltóirí Éireann and made a number of recordings in his own distinctive style. He was All-Ireland Senior Concertina Champion nine times and still plays regularly throughout Ireland and abroad.
A missionary nun who has devoted her career to looking after the sick in Africa has been conferred with the Clare Person of the Year award 2011 by the Clare Association in Dublin at its annual dinner dance in the Carlton Hotel. Sr. Maura O’ Donoghue (pictured) from Lickeen, Kilfenora, who is a medical doctor and member of the Medical Missionaries of Mary, received the honour after coming to the Association’s attention for her pioneering work in Nigeria and Ethiopia. She has served terms on the general council of Mother Mary Martin and as her order’s regional superior for Europe.
Sr. Maura was one of four children of the late Andrew and Katherine (Baby) O’Donoghue. Both of her parents came from Lickeen and her mother was the former Katherine O’Brien. Her father, Andrew was in charge of the North Clare IRA Brigade during the War of Independence. Her mother and aunts were also were also involved and took great risks during that time. Their children were Sr. Maura; Anne, who is in Cleveland, USA; Jimmy in Lickeen and Paddy, in Gortown.
Sr. Maura went to primary school in Kilshanny where her uncle’s wife, Mary O’Brien née Williams was teaching. Her secondary school education was in Mountmellick after which she entered the medical missionaries of Mary in Dublin. Her first year was spent studying medicine in university and she interrupted her studies to do her novitiate year. She returned as a second-year novitiate to continue her medical studies. In 1958, she went to Nigeria where she worked in a hospital and made her final profession there one year later. Also in 1959 she was appointed to the General Council of the Medical Missionaries of Mary. Mother Mary Martin then asked her to accompany her during an extended visit to many countries where the Medical Missionaries had been invited to establish new missions.
Later assignments included Spain – where she had to re-sit all her medical examinations through Spanish which was followed by a period when she was Regional Superior of Europe. She returned to Ethiopia in 1971 where she suffered resistant malaria over two years before being assigned to Gambo, Ethiopia which was free of malaria but where leprosy was a serious problem. Some time later, Sr. Maura spent a year at the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine studying for her Master’s degree in Community Health and then returned to Ethiopia to head up a team working on Community Health, as well as being medical co-ordinator for Catholic Mission projects. In 1984, Sr. Maura moved the Catholic Secretariat in Addis Ababa to co-ordinate the Famine Relief Programme.
In presenting her with her award at the annual dinner dance, Liam O’Looney, then chairman of the Clare Association, told guests that Sr. Maura joined the Medical Missionaries of Mary at a time when it was still unusual to have religious sisters practising medicine and surgery. However under the direction of the Medical Missionaries of Mary, nuns started to qualify in medicine. He said Sr. Maura had a distinguished career in missionary work, mostly in Africa and other developing countries. She initiated welfare schemes and clinics for the hungry during famines in Africa. She was also to the fore in starting up AIDS clinics and HIV treatments for sufferers.
In accepting her award at the Clare Association function, she spoke of her experiences in Nigeria and Ethiopia and said that she was accepting the award in appreciation of the people who supported her in her work.
Sr Maura spoke about first going to Nigeria in 1958 to work in a hospital and later to Ethiopia where, in 1974, the semi-communist ‘Derg’ regime came to take power. She recalled that this represented a serious challenge to foreign missionaries in the country with the new regime hostile to both foreigners and anyone associated with a church. “They were troubled times – I was interrogated by them for four hours every Friday. This lasted for 18 months, but I held tough” said the North Clare-born missionary, who spent 14 years in Ethiopia.
During that time she was medical superintendent of a hospital that had 54 out-reach clinics. She supervised all of the out-reach clinics while living in tents. On behalf of the Catholic Secretariat in Addis Ababa, she also co-ordinated famine-relief work and organised control of serious cholera epidemics.
On returning to live in the Congregation Centre and Communications Department of the Medical Missionaries of Mary in Ireland at Booterstown, she commenced working with the Catholic Agency For Overseas Development, CAFOD, the official aid agency of the Catholic Church in England and Wales. Since 1986 she was responsible for the HIV-AIDS desk on their behalf, a position that took her to 72 different countries for training workshops and project assessment. In retirement, she undertook the work of countering human trafficking, a worldwide problem, and a task that also took her to many countries all over the world. All in all, her work took her to 83 different countries but she always remained close to her family who supported her in every way.
Sr. Maura O’Donoghue, Medical Missionaries of Mary, died on 5 May 2015. Ar dheis Dé go raibh a h-anam dílís.
