Dalai Lama lauds centre
A letter he sent was read out at the centre on the Beara Peninsula as it was visited by President Mary McAleese.
Her tour of west Cork yesterday focused on events touching on themes of spirituality, hospitality, caring and history.
Hundreds showed up to greet Mrs McAleese and her husband Dr Martin McAleese as they arrived in Rosscarbery to open a housing project for elderly people and returned emigrants.
Immigrant Bangladeshi hotel worker Yousuf Junabali and his three-year-old daughter Margan were spotted by Mrs McAleese fervently waving Irish flags. She took time out to talk to them before touring the 12-house complex.
Mrs McAleese complimented the community’s caring spirit.
Her next stop was in Ballydehob where she was greeted by another large crowd and treated to music and Irish dancing by local schoolchildren.
She had come to open a €120,000 extension to the community centre and told community council chairman Mark O’Mahony that he and his co-workers were selfless people.
Mrs McAleese’s cavalcade then arrived in Allihies for two engagements. First she toured the Dzogchem Beara Tibetian Buddhist Retreat and Spiritual Centre.
She was shown plans for a €4.5 million care centre for the terminally ill, construction of which is already under way.
She was shown around by centre manager Matt Padwick and the spiritual director Sogyal Rinpoche.
Before leaving she unveiled a plaque to the memory of Harriet Cornish, who founded the centre in 1974. She died of cancer in 1993 and became the inspiration for the new care centre.
Mrs McAleese’s last duty of the day was to officially open the Allihies Copper Mine Museum.
The museum, housed in an old Methodist church, details the history of copper mining in the area from the discovery of rich veins of the metal in 1812.
Cornish miners were initially brought in to extract it and the mines flourished up until 1884.
The mines were worked again for a short period in the 1920s. Further exploratory work was undertaken from 1957 to 1962, but it was decided that they were no longer viable.
