Caitríona Twomey, volunteer and long-time trustee of Cork Penny Dinners

For Caitríona Twomey, family is everything. She has five sons, two daughters, 15 grandchildren and what she describes as a loving extended family. She also has another large family — the many people she has helped in her role as a co-ordinator at Cork Penny Dinners and the volunteers she has worked with at the charity, which offers food and support to those in need, in a welcoming space where everyone is treated with dignity and respect. According to Caitríona, just as important as offering people material comforts is responding to their need for connection: “somebody to talk to, just to say hello”.  

She regularly meets people who have turned their lives around thanks to the help they have received, and they in turn have become a support network that she can now call on when required.  

Caitríona, the eldest of six children, grew up on the northside of Cork, and attended school at North Presentation across the road from the family home on Peacock Lane. She was a sporty child, playing camogie, basketball, volleyball, handball, and table tennis; she is also a soccer fan and lifelong ‘Toffee’, a supporter of Everton F.C. Her family were active in the community and she credits them with her impulse to help others. She recalls stepping on a snail — or a ‘Tom Tivey’ in old Cork parlance — when she was a small child and her grandmother then introducing her to “his mother, father, brothers, sisters, auntie and uncle”. It was a lesson in kindness and caring that has stayed with her ever since.  

Her father was the cook sergeant at the local barracks, later running several chip shops, while her mother worked in an office and her grandmother was a supervisor in a local business. It was a comfortable childhood by the standards of the time, and Caitríona was encouraged to share what they had with the less fortunate from an early age. She brought in parcels wrapped in brown paper to school, which she later discovered were clothes and food for people in need. She would often accompany her father when he would donate food from the takeaways to Cork Penny Dinners or the Simon Community.  Her father would disappear every Christmas Day, much to the chagrin of a young Caitríona, who couldn’t eat her selection box until after he had returned for dinner. She discovered what he had been doing when he brought her along to help with the dinner for the poor and elderly which he helped organise on Christmas Day. It was an eye-opening experience for Caitríona, who was put to work early on Christmas morning peeling carrots, making desserts and putting up decorations. She begged him to take her home but by the time dinner was served and the music and singalong started, she didn’t want to leave.  

It was the start of a journey that in 2006 led her to become a full-time volunteer at Cork Penny Dinners, the city’s oldest charity, which was established in 1888. It was a role which she juggled with raising a growing family, as her father did. Throughout her time at the charity, she has been a voice for people experiencing homelessness, mental health issues and addiction. She has been involved in securing a new premises for the charity at James Street in the city and has done significant work in terms of making facilities available for those attempting to recover from addiction. Caitríona has been involved in many initiatives over the years but one that is particularly close to her heart is the Penny Dinners High Hopes Choir, inspired by the original choir set up under David Brophy of the RTÉ Concert Orchestra. The choir is composed of people who have been affected by homelessness, addiction and mental health issues, and is 10 years in existence this year. She describes them as “rock stars”, saying the choir has been a hugely therapeutic endeavour for those involved. They have travelled abroad and performed in locations from the European Parliament in Brussels to the Lough in Cork.  

Caitríona has stepped back from the day-to-day running of Cork Penny Dinners as she approaches her 70th birthday but she remains on the board as a trustee and her outreach work continues, as demand for help and support grows. She could be doing anything from helping people with literacy issues to arranging clothes for someone who has been admitted to hospital in an emergency. She believes that people come to her for help because she won’t judge them: “I'm privileged to have had the life experience I’ve had, because I don't get fazed by anything anybody tells me and they feel comfortable with me.” 

As well as completing a diploma in youth and community work at UCC, she also has a qualification in psychotherapy from UCD, which she was inspired to undertake by a friend who had lost a son to addiction. When she was conferred with an honorary doctorate at UCC in 2018, she spoke about how every day in Penny Dinners, she learned something. “I learn ‘We Are One’. When you have the great privilege of being of service to your fellow human beings; when you are humbled by the kindness, generosity and caring of all who keep our doors open, it is then you understand life.”