Peter McVerry | |
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| Born | 1944 (age 79–80) Belfast, Northern Ireland |
| Nationality | Irish |
| Occupation | Activist |
| Known for | McVerry Trust |
Fr Peter McVerry, SJ (born 1944) is an Irish Roman Catholic priest and founder of the Peter McVerry Trust, notable for battling homelessness in Ireland. [1] According to one report, the Peter McVerry Trust helped 3,600 homeless people in Dublin in 2013. [2]
Born in Belfast in 1944, McVerry grew up in Newry. [3] He was educated by the Christian Brothers in Abbey Christian Brothers' Grammar School, [4] and later attended Clongowes College. He entered the Society of Jesus in 1962.
He received a BSc in Chemistry (1968) and a Higher Diploma in Education (1996) from University College Dublin in 1963. He studied philosophy and theology in the Jesuit School of Theology in Milltown Park.
After his ordination as a priest in 1975, McVerry lived and worked in Summerhill, North Dublin. During these years he came face to face with the problem of homelessness and deprivation. He set up a trust to help struggling young people. [3] He first worked in Ballymun and the North Inner City during the 1970s when he found young homeless people in the streets. [3] [5] In 1983, he founded a charity to tackle homelessness called The Arrupe Society after Jesuit leader Pedro Arrupe, but it was subsequently renamed the Peter McVerry Trust, which began as a three-bedroom flat in Ballymun.
We started working with young people and opened a youth club and a craft centre and then I came across a kid sleeping on the street aged nine-years-old ... We decided we better add a hostel to the services we were already running for young people so we opened a small hostel down in the inner city for six boys, as it was all boys then, there were no girls on the streets in the 1970s.
— Fr Peter McVerry [3]
The trust grew from one flat over the years, to include eleven homeless hostels, over 100 apartments, a residential drug detox centre and two drug stabilisation services. In 1979, he opened a hostel for young homeless boys aged between twelve and sixteen. He focused on those deemed too difficult to deal with by other agencies. McVerry recently opened a residential drug detox centre in County Dublin for homeless drug users. McVerry has lived in Ballymun since 1980. [ citation needed ]
The homeless in Ireland are not a problem, they are simply people who have come upon difficult times and circumstances.
— Fr Peter McVerry [1]
In 2013, the charity worked with almost 3,600 vulnerable youths. There was controversy in 2014 when a candidate for political office used images of McVerry in campaign leaflets, and McVerry denied that he was endorsing any particular candidate. [6] He appealed to the government to buy more housing for the homeless. [7] He advocated greater spending to help reduce inequality. [8] In 2014, he stated that the crisis of homelessness was threatening middle-class and working-class families. [9]
In 2015, Trinity College Dublin awarded him with an honorary doctorate. [10]
In 2015, he was awarded the UCD Alumni Award in Science. [11]
The Peter McVerry Trust (known previously as The Arrupe Society) was founded in 1983 as a charity to reduce homelessness in Ireland. [12] The organisation was a continuation of work Fr. McVerry had been doing in Ballymun. The Arrupe Jesuit community in Ballymun involved itself directly with missionary work on the ground in one of Dublin’s poorest districts; working to scaffold community-building among socially disadvantaged people. [13]
In 2023, the Approved Housing Bodies Regulatory Authority (AHBRA) appointed inspectors from Mazars to carry out a review of the financing and governance at the charity. Their findings indicated that the organisation was facing serious and immediate cash flow pressures. [14] [15]
Ballymun is an outer suburb of Dublin, Ireland, at the northern edge of the Northside, the green-field development of which began in the 1960s to accommodate a housing crisis in inner city areas of Dublin. While the newly built housing was state-of-the-art at the time, comprising high-rise tower blocks and flat complexes, residents were moved in years before shops, schools and other infrastructure were fully ready, and the area became well known for both a strong community spirit and considerable social challenges. Ballymun has several sub-districts such as Sillogue, Coultry, Shangan and Poppintree, and is close to both the Republic of Ireland's only IKEA store and to Dublin Airport. The area is the source of one Dublin river, and parts lie in the floodplain of another, and there are a number of parks.
All Hallows College was a college of higher education in Dublin. It was founded in 1842 and was run by the Vincentians from 1892 until 2016. On 23 May 2014, it was announced that it was closing because of declining student enrollment. The sale of the campus in Drumcondra to Dublin City University was announced on 19 June 2015 and completed on 8 April 2016. The college closed on 30 November 2016, becoming the All Hallows Campus of Dublin City University.
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National College of Ireland (NCI) is a not-for-profit, state-aided third-level education institution in Dublin. It was founded in 1951 as a joint venture between the Jesuits in Ireland and Irish trade unions, and was originally named the Catholic Workers College, Dublin. It is now an independent higher education institution, offering full and part-time courses from undergraduate to postgraduate level, in the areas of business, computing, psychology and education.
Adam & Paul is a 2004 Irish buddy comedy drama film directed by Lenny Abrahamson and starring Tom Murphy and Mark O'Halloran. It follows a day in the life of two Dublin drug addicts, Adam and Paul, as they wander around Dublin trying to score heroin.
Darragh O'Brien is an Irish Fianna Fáil politician who has served as Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage since June 2020. He has been a Teachta Dála (TD) for the Dublin Fingal constituency since the 2016 general election, and previously from 2007 to 2011 for the Dublin North constituency. He previously served as a Senator for the Labour Panel from 2011 to 2016.
The Iveagh Trust is a provider of affordable housing in and around Dublin, Ireland. It was initially a component of the Guinness Trust, founded in 1890 by Edward Cecil Guinness, 1st Earl of Iveagh, great-grandson of the founder of the Guinness Brewery, to help homeless people in Dublin and London. It is not otherwise related to the brewery company.
Philip "Philly" McMahon is a Gaelic footballer who plays for the Ballymun Kickhams club and for the Dublin county team.
The Milltown Institute of Theology and Philosophy was a Jesuit-run institution of higher education and research, located in Dublin, Ireland. It was located in Ranelagh, County Dublin.
St Patrick's Church is an Anglican church in Hove, in the English city of Brighton and Hove. Situated on a narrow site at 3 Cambridge Road, off Western Road close to the boundary with Brighton, it is still in use as a place of worship. Since 1985 St Pat's developed a special ministry with homeless people, setting up a night shelter and a homeless hostel. In 2012, St Patrick's night shelter was closed. The homeless hostel continues to operate under new management, and is currently run by Riverside Housing Association. The church closed as a parish in 2015, and was then entrusted by the Bishop of Chichester to the Chemin Neuf Community under a Bishop's Mission Order. The leader of the Chemin Neuf Mission at St Patrick's is currently the Revd Tim Watson.
Gerard Mannix Flynn is an Irish Independent politician who has served as a Dublin City Councillor since May 2009.
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The St Mungo Community Housing Association, working as St Mungo's, is a charity registered in England to help homeless people.
Homelessness in Ireland is an evolving social issue. During the 19th century, homelessness was a pervasive impact of the Great Famine (1845–1852). During the 20th century, homelessness in Ireland was associated with older males who may have had addiction or alcoholism issues. However, since the 1990s and into the 21st century, it has been recognised that the homeless population includes increasing numbers of women and children. Commentators have attributed the ongoing events to the post-2008 Irish economic downturn and 'subsequent fiscal adjustments', and the parallel impacts of reduced familial incomes, mortgage arrears and rental increases which followed impacts to housing supply.
Squatting in the Republic of Ireland is the occupation of unused land or derelict buildings without the permission of the owner. In the 1960s, the Dublin Housing Action Committee highlighted the housing crisis by squatting buildings. From the 1990s onwards there have been occasional political squats in Cork and Dublin such as Grangegorman, the Barricade Inn, the Bolt Hostel, Connolly Barracks, That Social Centre and James Connolly House.
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