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Lost Futures Lourdes Fundraiser held in Mr Tait’s Café at Tait House

Tait House hosted a fundraiser for a local group of bereaved parents, Lost Futures on September 6 at Mr.Tait’s Cafe. Pictured are Cllr Marian Hurley, Daniel Butler, Metropolitan of Limerick, Limerick hockey player Roisin Upton, Tracey Lynch, CEO Tait House, and Mary Fitzpatrick, co-founder of the Lost Futures Group. Picture: Baoyan Zhang/ilovelimerick

Lost Futures Lourdes Fundraiser held in Mr Tait’s Café at Tait House

By ilovelimerick Correspondent Cathal Doherty

Mr Tait’s Cafe celebrated their new look Cafe and menu by hosting a fundraiser for a local group of bereaved parents, Lost Futures. 


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Guests of honour at the event were Roisin Upton and Daniel Butler, Metropolitan Mayor of Limerick. Roisin played a crucial role in propelling the women’s Irish Hockey team to the finals of this year’s 2018 Women’s Hockey World Cup.

Local leaders including lady Mary Fitzpatrick set up the Lost Futures Group in 2005 after many young people died in Southill from drugs and violence.

“I experienced a huge loss in 1999 when my son was brutally murdered. I wandered around for many years wondering if there was support out there,” Mary said at the event.

This support group was set up for all parents who were suffering another reversal of nature, that of outliving their children. The group supports any parent who has lost a child and provides one to one bereavement counselling.

Each October the group raises funds, which allows the parents of those children to travel to Lourdes to remember and pray for those they lost. Some of those parents gave emotional speeches at the fundraiser.

Tait House Community Enterprise supports this group each year in their fundraising efforts through a series of events and raffles. This year the organisation is hosting a fundraiser to once again raise funds for this wonderful group.

Lost Futures

During her visit Roisin spent time getting to know the Tait House community. Picture: Baoyan Zhang/ilovelimerick

Tracy Lynch CEO of Tait House spoke with ilovelimerick about the event, “I think it’s very important that we support the local community and in particular with the Lost Futures Group. Everybody experiences loss at some point in their lives and this event helped to start a conversation and raise some much-needed funds for the group.”

The event was held in conjunction with the launch day of the new look café. Mr Tait’s café has had a facelift and a major menu update. The space received a new lick of paint and offers a peaceful area for parents and their children to enjoy the many books that have been donated by the local community.

This comfortable space features large welcoming couches surrounded by books that range from popular classics like ‘Alice in Wonderland’ to a series of crime thrillers by Stephen King. It offers a library for people from every walk of life to enjoy.

The social mission of Tait House Community Enterprise is key to this café. The social enterprise focuses on supporting those who are long-term unemployed. The Community Employment Scheme is very successful in Mr Tait’s Café. Tait House offers part-time and temporary placements in jobs based within local communities via the Community Employment Scheme, one of which is this local café. The operations are overseen by the new café Manager, Simone Dillon, who is passionate about creating great food and a warm and friendly atmosphere.

For further details contact Kelly or Tracey on 061 415 340 or click here
For more stories on Tait House, click here

Pictures: Baoyan Zhang/ilovelimerick

Richard is a presenter, producer, songwriter and actor. He was named the Limerick Person of the Year (2011) and won an online award at the Metro Éireann Media and Multicultural Awards (2011) for promoting multi-culturalism online. Richard says that the ilovelimerick.com concept is very much a community driven project that aims to document life in Limerick. So, that in 20 years time people can look back and remember the events that were making the headlines.