Proud day as handball champ Mikey scoops Traveller Pride Award
The 12-year-old, a member of Loughrea Handball Club, last year scooped the world under-11 title at an event in Calgary in Canada and yesterday he picked up both the sport award and the overall prize at the ceremony held in Dublin.
The event was addressed by Minister with Special Responsibility for Equality, Immigration and Integration, David Stanton.
Mr Stanton congratulated the various winners and called on Travellers and their organisations to focus on reaching out to the wider Irish society to explain the case for ethnic recognition and to win support for this step.
Other winners included Mary Kate Nevin, who took the youth award after the Navan teenager had previously become the first Traveller to win the Irish Girl Guides’ prestigious Gold Award; TJ Hogan, who won the education award and who is undertaking a BA in community development; a youth project attached to the West Cork Traveller Centre in Skibbereen; and the Spring Lane Community from Ballyvolane in Cork City who took the community award.
David McCarthy accepted the music award on behalf of Pavee Ceoil.
Those attending the awards included musician Finbar Furey, former senator Jillian Van Turnhout, and Love/Hate actor John Connors, who presented the culture award to representatives of PHC in Cavan.
The awards ceremony, which was held in the Rotunda Hospital in Dublin, is the lead event for Traveller Pride Week which begins next Monday and includes an event outside the GPO in Dublin on June 8.
