71-year-old Irish Survivor, Margaret is an Irish Society client and volunteer that is appealing to the Irish community to support the Coventry Irish Society to find permanent premises.
Margaret is an Irish Survivor who had an incredibly difficult childhood in Ireland but has fought her way through life with great resilience and strength. She is very appreciative of the support she has received from Coventry Irish Society and wants the Irish community to know about the charity’s work.
Margaret said “I don’t think people realise the work the Irish Society does. They help so many people who wouldn’t get that help anywhere else. At the Irish Society I experienced a warmth and a friendliness that I haven’t experienced anywhere else, it enables you to talk about your problems and I know of many others that the charity has literally kept sane”.
Margaret wants the Irish community to be aware that if the Charity were to close through lack of funding it wouldn’t ever come back and that would be a great loss for the people the charity supports.
She added, “I don’t understand why people don’t support the Charity more, I can only assume that people don’t realise the great work that they are doing, or I wonder if people actually realise the Irish Society is a charity”.
Irish Society manager Simon McCarthy said, “For many people the charity is a lifeline, providing services that they cannot get elsewhere, such as specialist support for Irish Survivors, support with Irish pensions and Irish passports, a culturally sensitive Dementia support group, lunch clubs for the Irish elderly and social and befriending support to combat the growing isolation in an aging Irish born population in the city”.
The Charity needs to find a permanent building to host the charity’s services that will help reduce social isolation in the older Irish as there is increasingly less places for people to go now. The Charity’s Oral History exhibition ‘Irish Heart, Coventry Home’ providing a long-lasting testimony to the contribution the Irish community has made to the city, will be relaunched in March 2023 during the St Patrick’s Day Festival.
The amount of money raised can be boosted by 25% through Gift Aiding donations using the online funding page ‘Local Giving’. So, if you are kind enough to contribute, please ensure (if you are a UK Taxpayer) that you ‘Gift Aid’ your contribution.
Cash or cheques payable to the Coventry Irish Society can be made at our offices.
