05.07.2021
Langton Award for Community Service presented to Dr Margaret Kennedy
By Peter Cheney, Church of Ireland Press Officer
Decades of service on behalf of those who are most marginalised in society, including victims of clerical abuse, were recognised on Wednesday, 30th June, when Dr Margaret Kennedy was presented with her Langton Award for Community Service by the Church of Ireland Archbishop of Dublin and Primate of Ireland, the Most Revd Dr Michael Jackson, at St Patrick’s Church, Greystones.
The award is among the Lambeth Awards given by the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Most Revd Justin Welby, to acknowledge contributions to the Church and wider society.
Dr Kennedy’s award is for rendering outstanding service to victims and survivors of Church–related sexual abuse through founding Minister And Clergy Sexual Abuse Survivors (MACSAS), an organisation run by survivors, in the late 1990s following requests from survivors with whom she had worked through Christian Survivors of Sexual Abuse (CSSA), which she had also founded in 1989.
Dr Kennedy recalled the work of CSSA and MACSAS to date and paid tribute to the organisations’ supporters and those whom it supported in a slide show of their events over the years. “I did it out of real care and love for the people that I worked with,” she remarked. “We loved each other; we faced the horrors together and it was absolutely fantastic.”
Archbishop Jackson remarked: “I am privileged to meet Dr Margaret Kennedy and to learn more of her work in a most vital and sensitive area of human life. Margaret tells her story with openness and conviction, with dedication and altruism. Her positivity is infectious.
“The Church of Ireland seeks to uphold and develop good practice, positive care and the dignity of those affected by abuse through its safeguarding support, its dedicated staff, and its consistent raising of awareness of safety as a primary right for all associated with its activities.
“Margaret has shared with us her rich experience and capacity to change structures. In the present day, she gives us hope in the future.
“I have great pleasure in conveying to Margaret the good wishes of Archbishop Diarmuid Martin who knows both Kennedy sisters and who would have been with us had he not been elsewhere unavoidably today.”
MACSAS continues to fight for changes in safeguarding practice and improved responses to survivors of abuse across all Christian denominations. MACSAS has played a significant role in the Church of England’s journey to offer a professional and compassionate safeguarding service, and offers individual advocacy and support to victims of abuse, a helpline staffed by trained volunteers, and advice and assistance to survivors.
Her commendation notes that Margaret’s contribution to society “goes well beyond” her work with MACSAS and includes campaigning against disability inequality and abuse, inadequate housing provision for disabled people, and inadequacies in the Health Service Executive. Her advocacy strongly continues despite her experience of a very rare neuro–muscular degenerative disease (which she shares with her identical twin sister, Ann), being in constant pain and using a wheelchair.
A former nurse and social worker, she prides herself on her ability to stir things up. When she received her PhD she was also presented with a symbolic wooden spoon and, as she herself says, “I’m still stirring things up from my wheelchair.”
