The Finucane brothers were unstoppable forces, seeing no such thing as an unsolvable problem. There was a sense of immediacy about them…a kind of raw humanity,” president of Ireland Michael D. Higgins said in response to the plans to erect a bench in memory of Aengus and Jack Finucane along the banks of the River Shannon in Limerick City, where the brothers were born. Aengus and Jack’s history with the Irish relief organization Concern goes back to Concern’s inaugural mission, when they coordinated the famine relief effort in Biafra in 1968. In the decades that followed, the brothers, both Holy Ghost Fathers, were the heart and soul of Concern, delivering lifesaving and life-altering interventions to the world’s poorest and most vulnerable people, often at great personal risk to themselves.
The total budget for the memorial bench is €56,000. Of this, €30,000 has already been donated to the project by private donors. Concern is now actively fundraising to raise the balance of €26,000 so that this project can be successfully completed in memory of Aengus (d. 2009), and Jack (d. 2017). To donate: contact Dara Burke at dara.burke@concern.net. ♦
Leave a Reply