Keshcarrigan Peace Garden to honour memory of 9/11 priest
Keshcarrigan Development Association will unveil a memorial and dedicate a peace garden near the village to the memory of the first official victim of the September 11 terrorist attacks on the Twin Towers, New York, on the fourth anniversary of the tragedy.
The special ceremony on Tuesday, September 11, honours Fr Mychal Judge, Chaplain of the New York City Fire Department who died in the aftermath of the destruction of New York's Twin Towers.
Fr Mychal's father was a native of Keshcarrigan who emigrated to America in 1926 where he met and married Mary Fallon from Drumkeerin.
Fr Mychal had a great love of Co Leitrim and visited the village of Keshcarrigan, where the original Judge homestead still stands, on a few occasions prior to his death in 2001.
The peace garden and memorial will be located on land owned by the Judge family on the picturesque shores of Kesh Lake on the outskirts of the village.
Fr Mychal's twin sister, Dympna Jessich, will be travelling from the US to unveil the memorial. She will be joined by Fr Chris Keenan, Fr Mychal's successor as Chaplain to the New York City Fire Department. They will also be accompanied by Michael Daly, a journalist with The New York Daily News.
Dympna has kindly donated the flag which draped Fr Mychal's casket to the people of Keshcarrigan.
This project has been funded under the EU Programme for Peace and Reconciliation, administered by the Leitrim County Council Task Force.
The event will commence at 3pm with a walk from the village to the garden followed by the unveiling ceremony and dedication of the peace garden.
It is hoped that the garden will become an oasis of peace, meditation and reflection and will help to encourage a sense of reconciliation, which in turn may spread a message of hope throughout the world.
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Weather for Carrick-on-Shannon, Ireland
Thursday 23 May 2013
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