Recent Visit to Ireland
We presented a check for $4,000.00 & Brendan Kenny from the Regeneration Agency matched the check with $4,000.00 check on Tuesday April 12, 2011. In the photo left former Mayor Cllr. Kevin Kiely, Deputy Mayor, Pat Hogan, Brendan Kenny, Principle Mary Blennerhasset, Billy Higgins, Boston City Councillor. Bill Linehan. And the Children of Southill Jr school.
Good sports help out in school fund-raiser
LOCAL sports stars teed off in aid of St Kieran’s Boys National School this week.
Former Clare senior hurler. All-star; and team manager Ger Loughnane, former physiotherapist of the Clare hurling team Colm Flynn and former Kerry footballer Mike Sheehy were amoung those who came on board to raise funds for St Kieran’s Boys School in the Billy Higgins Perpetual Golf Trophy on Friday.
The event is part of the Limerick-Boston Golf Classic 2002, organised in collaboration with Boston businessman Billy Higgins and sponsors of the event, Dromoland Castle.
State Senator Jack Hart of Boston travelled to Limerick as guest of honour for the event.
Showing there s a way out
S. Boston businessman helping kids of Limerick
When money was needed for air fare to bring 60 kids and a priest from Limerick, Ireland, to Boston for three weeks next July, Billy Higgins didn’t think twice about coming up with $27,000 of his own.
“I had a hard time growing up and I think it’s important to show these kids there is a way out,” Higgins, 44, now a South Boston businessman, said recently. “What we’re trying to do is to give these kids a better childhood and a sense of dignity. I think we can do that through sports.”
Rev. Josepth P. Young, a 32-year-old Catholic priest who has been working for the last eight years with disadvantaged boys and girls of Holy Family Parish in the Southill section of Limerick, is the reason Higgins has let his work slide at his various business interests – his Nautilus fitness center, his service station and his used car business – to organize a dinner to raise funds for the Father Joe Young Association on April 16th at Pier 4.
About the Gaelscoil Sheoirse Clancy School
Gaelscoil Sheoirse Clancy was founded in 1986. The demand for a Gaelscoil came from the local community and it’s success is a tribute to the people of Southill. Parents who exercised their constitutional right to opt for the education of their children through Irish have stood by the school through many adversities.
They wrecked our home and left us with nothing
I AM old now, old beyond my years. Exposure to violence, beatings, abandonment and abuse has scrawled lines on my heart and face that will never be removed. I am facing the end of my life with the most terrible memories suffered in city during our “Tiger” years. Little did I think that my life would end like this.
About the founder
IT HAS been 21 years since Billy Higgins first set foot in Limerick and since then his name has become inextricably linked to the development of Southill.
The friendliness and warmth of the people on the south side of Limerick city led him to begin a series of exchange programmes between Southill and his home city of Boston and to fundraise for community developments in an area, he says, that is like his second home.
Southill Junior School, Limerick
SOUTHILL Junior School was established in 1972 and caters for children from Junior infants up to second class.
It is located in Southill and is attended by many local children, who often start at age 3 by attending the preschool, which is on the same grounds. foto by Keith Wiseman www.kwisemanphoto.ie
Adare, Southill and Boston all singing form same hymm sheet
In a heartwarming tale of two cities and sweet Adare, three very different communities can now bound together through music,each community is now supporting and helping one another.
Billy Higgins puts together an Irish Golf Classic you can t Beat
South Boston’s Billy Higgins continues his efforts to support young people in Limerick, Ireland through the Southill Children’s fund which was formed in 1985. At that time, Billy Higgins and State Sen. Jack Hart shown at last year’s Limerick-Boston Golf Classic held in IrelandHiggins had gone to Southill, a section of Limerick and witnessed firsthand the problems kids were facing growing up in a housing project that much reminded Higgins of his own childhood grown-up in South Boston’s lower end.
Trauma of Southill kids as bad as in war zone
Southill children are as traumatized as children living in war zones according to a renowned education psychologist.
In an open letter to Limerick City Council, the parish priest of Southill, describes the shocking findings of psychologist Stuart Shankar, who spent time in the troubled estate last year.
