Sister Eileen is honoured for a lifetime of treating people with dignity at Cahir addiction treatment centre

For the thousands of people, and their families, who were facilitated in putting their lives back together it will come as no surprise to them that Sister Eileen Fahey has received another accolade.
Sister Eileen, the founder of the addiction treatment centre Aiséirí won the prestigious President’s Award at the County Tipperary Chamber of Commerce annual business awards.
In 1983, she set up the treatment centre for those struggling with addiction and their families.
To this day, Aiséirí is a place where there is a wealth of understanding, care and experience that can help those living in the despair of addiction take the first vital step to recovery.
“I am overwhelmed if I’m honest but so very grateful to receive this award from the County Tipperary Chamber of Commerce.
“I really feel that I am accepting this award on behalf of all the people who have been involved in Aiséirí since the early days, this award is for them,” she said.
“If this award helps to raise awareness that there is help available to anyone struggling with addiction and they take the first step towards recovery as a result of it then it will be all the more special indeed, a miracle no less and I have seen many great miracles happen at Aiséirí,” said Sister Eileen.
Sister Eileen grew up in Bansha, went to school in Cahir and trained as a nurse and a councillor.
The treatment of those suffering from addiction was to become her greatest passion after witnessing the effects of the life destroying disease when she worked as a psychiatric nurse in St Michael’s Hospital in Clonmel.
She was unhappy with the “revolving door” manner in which people were dealt with as there was no after care or pathway available for integration into employment or further education.
“All we were doing with alcoholics was drying them out. We were sending them back out to encounter the same problems again and we were not equipping them for the long term,” she said.
Unhappy with the treatment in place she set about introducing a new way to help addicts and their families.
She went to America for advanced training in addiction treatment and returned to Ireland to set up her own foundation in Cahir.
The organisation has flourished and developed and now has additional treatment centres for adults in Wexford, Waterford and Ballyragget in county Kilkenny for young people.
Sister Eileen paid tribute to the staff and the passion they had for the work that they do at Aiséirí. She described the role of the volunteers at the centre as being absolutely crucial to the delivery of the service.
“Without the volunteers we would not be able to survive,” she said.
Sister Eileen said she was proud to accept the award and said that the objective that she set out with in 1983 remained the same today.
“We set out to treat people with dignity and respect so that they could discover their own goodness and their own self esteem,” said Sister Eileen.