Address by Sally O’Neill at the opening of this lasting tribute to Blessed Oscar Romero martyred in El Salvador in 1980
To find out more see – Trocaire Oscar Romero Family award which is linked with the preparation for World Meeting of Families 2018
Sally O’Neill
Sally O’Neill was the former Head of Region for Latin America for Trócaire. Within weeks of joining Trócaire in 1978, three bitter civil wars broke out in El Salvador, Guatemala and Nicaragua. Sally led delegations of politicians and bishops to Central America, so they could see the suffering, translating for Archbishop Oscar Romero six weeks before he was murdered.
She oversaw humanitarian aid to more than two million refugees in the Central American region in the following years. Her distinguished 37 year service to Trócaire included Ethiopia during the famine in the mid-eighties and played a central role in Trócaire’s response to the famine in Somalia in the early 1990s, establishing its programme in Gedo, which still operates today.
Sally was appointed by the President of Ireland as a member of the High Level Panel for the Presidential Distinguished Service Award for the Irish Abroad in 2012 and awarded the Hugh O´Flaherty Humanitarian Award in 2011.