Fr Dick O’Riordan Receives Irish Award

by Admin · October 14, 2022

Fr Dick O’Riordan (left) speaks at the launch of his memoirs “Roots in Exile” at St Mary of the Angels church in Athlone, Cape Town, as Fr Peter-John Pearson listens. Photo: Günther Simmermacher. Inset: The cover of “Roots in Exile: Fifty years as an Irish priest in Africa”.

A Cape Town priest has been awarded an illustrious honour by President Michael D Higgins of Ireland.

Fr Dick O’Riordan, who is interviewed in the October issue of The Southern Cross, is one of ten recipients of the 2022 Presidential Distinguished Service Awards for the Irish Abroad. Other recipients include Teresa Lambe, one of the co-developers of the Oxford-AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine; Irish dancer Morgan Bullock; and Paralympic cyclist Katie-George Dunlevy.

Fr O’Riordan recently published his memoirs, Roots in Exile: Fifty years as an Irish priest in Africa, which recount his upbringing near Cork in Ireland, and his work in mainly township parishes in South Africa, especially Cape Town. He is now retired and lives in the city’s Nazareth House.

The awards, established in 2011, are presented to those who have given distinguished service in the fields of peace-building, charitable work, business, education, arts, sport and beyond, the Irish Times reported.

Irish foreign minister Simon Coveney said the awards “formally recognise the achievements” of people in the Irish diaspora.

Fr Dick O’Riordan’s interview with Mike Pothier in the October 2022 issue of The Southern Cross magazine

“Their service and commitment is a shining example to us all and I am delighted that they have been selected to be honoured by President Michael D Higgins in such a fitting manner,” he said.

“This is the 11th year of these distinguished and much-cherished awards and it is an opportunity each year to acknowledge those who have, through their work, helped in different ways to burnish Ireland’s reputation across the globe.”

Fr O’Riordan’s Roots in Exile is available from the Catholic Bookshop in Cape Town at R250. It can be ordered online at www.catholicbookshop.co.za or via , or call 021 465-5904.