Sabina Higgins has said Ireland’s Catholic missionaries have played a key role in providing for the health, educational and spiritual needs of people in the developing world.
Mrs Higgins, President Michael D Higgins' wife, was speaking at a ceremony in Dublin at which 203 returned missionaries were awarded medals in recognition of their 40 or more years' service.
The unprecedented ceremony in City Hall was organised by the Irish Missionary Union on behalf of its 81 member orders.
IMU President Fr Michael Corcoran reminded the 203 returned missionaries present, most in their 70s and 80s, that some members of all the orders represented had had the courage to lay down their lives in foreign lands.
Mrs Higgins recalled the work of many relatives on the missions, including her own sister, Margaret Coyne, a Daughter of Charity of St Vincent de Paul who nursed in Ethiopia for most of her life and her late brother, Paddy, a Holy Ghost priest who served in Kenya.
Mrs Higgins said Irish missionaries have a great and well-deserved reputation overseas and praised their respect for the people they serve and live among.
She praised what she called the vital role they have played in providing for the health, educational and spiritual needs of people in the developing world.
They had also encouraged people to become aware of and demand their legal, social and political rights.
She said they had laid the basis for much of the Government's approach to development co-operation Mrs Higgins urged people to express their appreciation and gratitude for the missionaries' selfless endeavour and achievement and for their contribution abroad and at home.
She also thanked them for the great example they had provided and for the vision they had shared.
