Dublin nun (94) honoured for years of service in addiction treatment

Columban Sister Catherine Lillis (94) has been presented with a special papal award following decades of helping people suffering with addiction issues in Dublin’s inner city and at Tabor House, an addiction treatment centre in Navan, Co Meath.

Having trained in addiction counselling in the US, she worked at the Rutland Centre initially then in Dublin’s Teresa’s Gardens during the 1980s and 1990s and other depressed areas in the city, often accompanying children to the morgue to identify recently deceased mothers. She also attended hearings with children at juvenile court hearings, working closely with the compassionate Judge John Delap.

While working in Dublin she provided counselling in Navan at weekends, eventually moving there. With a small group of supporters and friends, she set up Tabor House, an addiction treatment centre there which involves one-to-one counselling.

A breakthrough took place in 2003 when statutory authorities agreed to help fund work at Tabor House and it was officially opened by President Mary McAleese in 2005.

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A five bedroom en-suite detached house with three reception rooms, kitchen, living room and three offices on its own grounds it is a 10-bed residential secondary treatment centre set up to help men in early recovery develop and maintain an abstinence-based lifestyle while improving quality of life. A centre for women is in the final stages of preparation while much needed therapy and support will soon be available for women.

Sr Catherine began her missionary life in Burma, now Myanmar, where she directed the Columban Sisters’ medical clinic in the town of Manbaw. When the military took over she went to Hong Kong and worked there in the Columban TB hospital. In the early 1980s she helped set ip a rehabilitation hospital in Egypt which treated soldiers left paralysed in the conflict between that country and Israel.

From Querrin, Kilkee, Co Clare, where both parents were teachers, Sr Catherine’e late brother Jimmy and her sister Sr Camillus were also Columban missionaries who spent their lives in the Philippines.

At the weekend Sr Catherine was presented with the papal medal and parchment `Pro Ecclesia et Pontifice’ by Bishop of Meath Tom Deenihan at St Mary’s Church, Navan.