Tag Archives: liam o’meara

THE Russian invasion of Ukraine has presented new problems for the Burren Chernobyl Project, which has worked to help victims of the Chernobyl disaster. Spokesperson Liam O’Meara said, “It’s a challenge in several areas. We’ve been working away with the orphanages, a load was sent there at the end of January, it got as far as Lithuania and was held up in a port, which meant we’d be paying more every day it was in the port. We thought it might never get through, but luckily it did.” Burren Chernobyl Project provides support to Belarus, and there are concerns that the vulnerable there will not get support. “A friend of mine in Belarus said will we be North Korea? Will we be shunned and people not want to help, will people think differently of the country?” The war may mean less resources for the orphanages there, he feels. “They’re just coming out of Covid, they were very much locked down …

To mark the 30th anniversary of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster, Burren Chernobyl Project is holding a fundraising walk in Ennistymon next Sunday (April 24, 2016). Nicola Corless spoke to Brother Liam O’Meara, director of the project, about the organisation’s work and his full-time involvement with it for the past 15 years.   Brother Liam is a Limerick man, reared on the border with Tipperary close to Galbally. He studied primary teaching at Mary Immaculate College and taught for four years in Limerick before becoming a Christian Brother in 1981 and working in schools in Cork. He moved to Ennistymon in 1986, the same year as the worst nuclear power plant accident in history, in Chernobyl, Ukraine. Liam taught happily in the three-teacher CBS primary school in the North Clare town until 1999, when he dedicated himself fully to working with the Burren Chernobyl Project. The organisation was founded in 1993, with projects kicking off the following year. It was then …