Pioneering GP and Lakeside community honoured with Mayo awards
By Tom GillespieMulranny GP, Dr. Jerry Cowley has been selected as the Mayo Person of the Year for 1999 for his 'exceptional and selfless work for his local community and for the people of Mayo'. The 1999 Meitheal of the Year Award goes to the Carragorru residents on the shores of Lough Conn whose "selfless displayed of humanity and generosity succeeded in breaking down both political and religious barriers between people from two different traditions.' Both awards will be presented at the Mhuintir Mhaigh Eo annual dinner dance which will be held at the Burlington Hotel, Dublin on Friday February 5. Dr. Cowley has highlighted the plight of many elderly people in rural areas, lonely and unable ro cope in their isolated homes. Time and time again he saw them uprooted from their communities and dispatched to faraway institutions where nobody came to visit. He resolved that everyone should have a place in their own community and in 2984 he set up the Mulranny Day care Centre and then formed a housing company to build fifteen sheltered units for the elderly. Later he established St. Brendan's Village project, offering high support accommodation to people who are too incapacitated for sheltered housing. His initiative is viewed as a model for community care of the elderly. Last Spring two young eel fishermen from Enniskillen went missing on Lough Conn and the locals from Carragorru immediately joined in the search. They spent long days and nights looking for the missing men, undertaking a grim search of the waters and the lakeside for 49 days, their efforts never flinching until both bodies were recovered. Daily they met and prayed at the lakeshore and when the search was scaled down the locals organised a rota to ensure that every inch of the shoreline was covered on an daily basis. The villagers opened their homes and their hearts to the relatives and friends of the victims. They travelled to the funerals in Enniskillen and later accompanied the families to the inquests in Ballina. |
