Paul KeenanPaul Keenan visits one of Ireland’s oldest community development groups
Fr Michael Mernagh is a driven man. That much is evident even before The Irish Catholic visits him in his offices in the Liberties neighbourhood of Dublin.
Among the Augustinian’s credentials is his 2009 walk from St Colman’s Cathedral in Cork to Dublin’s Pro-Cathedral, a personal act of reparation for the Church’s mishandling of the child abuse scandals.
Five years on from that much publicised undertaking, the energy and passion have very clearly not dimmed. Though the work he now carries out for other vulnerable people is less headline-grabbing but no less worthy.
Fr Michael’s links to the Liberties, and specifically to the South Inner City Community Development Association (SICCDA), pre-date the famed walk, going back to 1982, a time when communities in the city felt neglected by those in power.
“Geographically, the Liberties is at the heart of the city of Dublin, but was forgotten by the city fathers and Government,” Fr Michael explains of the neighbourhood. (The historical Liberties covers one and a half square miles approximately, east-west from Whitefriar Street to Heuston station, and north-south from the river Liffey to Clanbrassil Street.)
What the Government was not doing for areas like the Liberties, the ordinary residents decided to do themselves, Fr Michael explains of SICCDA.
Social
inclusion
“It was founded by local people, mainly the women of the neighbourhood,” he says. “A response to various needs in the area, it was envisaged as a comprehensive social inclusion programme from the cradle to the grave.”
Fr Michael’s part in the workings of SICCDA came shortly afterwards as a result of a combination of factors.
Having returned from Nigeria in 1974 after 10 years of missionary work, Fr Michael was on hand when Dublin’s then-Archbishop Dermot Ryan asked the Augustinians to take responsibility for the Liberties’ Meath Street parish.
At the same time, Fr Michael points out, the founders of SICCDA, although armed with a history of social activism as tenants of the city’s flat complexes, had no professional qualifications in pursuing their aims, a reality which led to an approach to the Augustinians.
“I was originally invited to join in an advisory capacity,” he recalls “given that I had a specialism in community development”.
With a mission “to create a community in the Liberties where all, particularly the most excluded, feel valued and welcome”, SICCDA got to work, identifying both the needs of its community and those that could be met by its efforts.
“In 1982, the focus was on children at risk, teens, the unemployed, women in the home, the elderly and, given the prevalence of derelict sites and vacant land at that time, the environment,” Fr Michael explains. “In-depth local surveys were undertaken of all these categories.”
He goes on to offer an illustrative example of the benefits of one such focus.
“One of the first surveys resulted in a report, When Day is Done, on the challenges facing older residents in the Liberties. At the time, many people had moved from the area out to the new developments in Tallaght, leaving old people alone and in fear, especially of the emerging drugs market.”
There was a strong reaction from the Government to this report, he adds.
Emergency
call
“The emergency call system was set up by Minister Barry Desmond and linked to St James’s Hospital nearby. That scheme is still going.”
SICCDA today, covering the parishes of Meath Street, High Street and Francis Street, is coordinated and run by 40 staff, many offering their time as they pursue their own employment schemes. The staff also reflects the changing face of the Liberties, with a number of foreign nationals on board.
“Skills are being offered, training and upskilling,” Fr Michael says, leading The Irish Catholic on a tour of the SICCDA offices in the former curates’ residence to the rear of Meath Street church. From the numerous offices, SICCDA helps, for example, 150 school children who have been identified as at risk of dropping out of education unless supports such as those offered by SICCDA exist.
“If the Church and State don’t have early and positive intervention programmes pre-school, it can be too late,” Fr Michael says, based his own years of experience. “You can try to help youngsters from 16 to 20 in education but by then, in many ways, it is too late. We have to start with the mothers as kids are born. That way we can get them past the critical period of early education even if their home lives are a struggle.”
For those who might have already ‘slipped through the net’, SICCDA also offers a range of schemes from technical training to personal development, and some 60 young people are currently enrolled.
This is in addition to young mothers who have been guided into work experience towards upskilling, perhaps with an eye on further education in addition to employment aspirations.
SICCDA also operates a drop-in facility for the unemployed, geared towards appraising them of their rights and providing CV preparation help.
This facility is further bolstered by the Jobs Club, a free service geared towards helping people back into employment. Another free service is the legal advice centre, staffed by lawyers.
Guidance
Beyond the bustling offices, another feature of social cohesion is the annual Liberties Festival, an event which has grown in scale under SICCDA’s guidance.
Described as a ‘tool of involvement’, the festival provides twofold opportunities, Fr Michael explains. For those who live in the Liberties, it is a chance for long-time residents to meet the newly arrived families, while at the same time, the neighbourhood is able to welcome outside visitors and tourists.
This last point is illustrated by the fact that the Guinness Storehouse, in the heart of the neighbourhood, attracts one million visitors every year, tourists who travel through the Liberties en route to the attraction.
Farther afield, and in the shadow of the old city walls within which the Liberties grew, the local community training centre is a hive of activity as young adults undertake further training. Now linked to the Community Employment scheme, the centre was originally set up by SICCDA and caters to young adults transitioning from the Leaving Cert Applied to skills in woodworking, pre-apprenticeship engineering, catering, office work and fitness for sport.
The descriptions of Fr Michael as a passionate and driven man become more evident when he sums up the gains hard won by SICCDA over the years in cooperation with a congregation of the Church, and the very real value he sees in continuing that Church link to the community he works with.
“A good model of the Church is one of social inclusion,” he stresses, clearly enthused by the opportunity he is afforded as a priest via SICCDA.
“This is the Church in action.”