Kilkenny woman Mary Pierce shows the true spirit of Christmas

Every year we complain that Christmas has become more materialistic: more about consumption rather than charity and compassion. There are however exceptional people who still display the selfless generosity which is supposed to be the hallmark of Christmas. 

Mary Pierce of Kilkenny is one such person.  

Her charity Kilkenny Helping the Homeless feeds not only people in need in Kilkenny City, she also travels to Dublin every second Saturday to feed people on the streets of our capital. She does all this work with amazing energy and empathy yet does not look for any recognition or acclaim. Despite her modesty, she deservedly won the Gala Inspirational Hero award in 2021.  

Her charity work started several years ago with one homeless man who was living under the Ormonde Bridge in Kilkenny. Mary stepped up to assume the role of Good Samaritan, providing food and a sleeping bag and then helping him until he got a roof over his head in the Good Shepherd. 

Mary recalls, “We thought, ‘God, we love doing that but we didn’t know where to start or what to do so we just Googled up a food charity in Dublin and we joined up with a group there, and then eventually we got our own space there.” 

Now she, her husband Brendan and a small team of volunteers distribute food on Grafton Street on alternate Saturdays. She outlines: “We have a table up in Grafton St, just outside the Disney store. We bring up about 200/250 dinners ... We never have anything left, if anything we would run out of food. It’s been absolutely mental.”  

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“We have to fill up on a Friday, and then cook up on a Saturday and then on Sunday, we have to empty the van and wash down everything. And then the following week it’s our locals with the food bags.” 

In Kilkenny, she brings food and supplies directly to the homeless or those who need help. Mary says, “We go around to the areas where we know the boys are. It’s very rarely they would want to come into town.” They provide soup, sandwiches, tents, sleeping bags or any items the homeless need. 

December’s exceptional cold snap is a huge concern for Mary and her service users. She explains, “I know the options are there for people if they want to go in but a lot don’t want to go in. …. That’s their own personal choice.” 

“I don’t know how anyone can stay out at minus 5 degrees. I just don’t know and I don’t have an answer.” 

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Mary’s good works are not confined to homeless people: she is now finding demand is growing from all quarters. She notes, “It’s a lot of married couples with children. They’re paying for a car, they’re paying for creche, they're paying all these bills on top of a huge electricity bill that comes in. They are struggling big time.” 

Week in and week out Mary keeps multiple balls in the air to ensure that she doesn’t let the  people who depend on her down. During COVID, she and Brendan travelled to Dublin every single weekend without fail. 

She says, “ If we had to do it out of our own pockets, we’d do it out of our own pockets. We did it in the very beginning.” 

Mary has vital support from local retailers in Kilkenny. Both Supervalus in Kilkenny have trolleys permanently on display in their shops for customers to make donations, while Dealz in Kilkenny give her loads of chocolate. She says, “The lads in Dublin love the chocolate.” 

She also has accounts in both John Joe Cullen’s and Richards Kearns’ butchers whereby people can leave a credit in the account for Mary to get meat. She says, “So, we’re able to get meat from both of those for our local families and for Dublin. We never really run out.” 

Despite her dedication Mary does sometimes feel defeated by the scale of dealing with so much need. She explains, “You get overwhelmed. We’ve walked away several nights now lately and we’re saying ‘Jesus, how can we even do this … just staying what we’re doing? But you come home then and you do feel uplifted and you say, ‘Well, we’ll try to have extra the next time so we’ll cover everybody else.’

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“It’s too rewarding for your soul to ever not do it … It’s food for your soul. It’s just something that just gets you through.” 

For Mary, those she helps are never mere statistics. “I’ve actually become very fond of a lot of them”, she says.  

“We’ve a load of those elderly people that we’ve all kind of taken on. So, we’re able to give them that little bit extra.”

She is non judgemental about why people need her help explaining, “If someone asks us at the end of the night, ‘How many addicts had you?’, you wouldn’t know, because everyone is just a person. 

“You don’t look at someone as an addict. You just see them as a person and you talk to them and you get them through a rough patch.” 

For Mary, addiction is complex and “You have to look back at how it all started”.

“Some people aren’t addicts initially when they became homeless but addiction can follow homelessness.”

 She explains that difficulty sleeping and  the cold can lead people to use drugs and alcohol to make homelessness more bearable. Unfortunately violence can accompany addiction. Mary admits, “I’ve seen girls beaten to a pulp all because of drugs.”

She continues, “You can’t judge where they are, because how they got there is the important story.” 

Not all those Mary helps are without a home. She recalls, “Last night Brendan delivered a hamper to a girl and she sent a picture of her three children with the hamper - she had no electricity - saying ‘Thanks very much.’ 

“You just don’t sleep after something like that because it’s heart -breaking. She cried at the door to Brendan. This is so common all throughout Kilkenny. I feel for families who won’t ask … who will struggle through, That breaks my heart.” 

Mary recalls that her own struggles have given her empathy but that ‘we were able to do it’. 

“There’s families now not able to do it … they just don’t have the money, the extra money.” 

Mary is also distributing help to the Ukrainian community in Kilkenny saying, “There’s hampers going out to them today. We try to help everybody as best we can.” She also acknowledges that there are quite a number of foreigners sleeping in doorways in Kilkenny too. 

One of Mary’s biggest tasks is the annual Christmas dinner she distributes on Grafton Street. 

“We have a Christmas party on Grafton Street on Saturday night (December 17), The army barracks cook up the Christmas dinner for us … we do the turkey and ham, potatoes and veg, the whole works.

“That's a lovely occasion. We’re doing it a few years - it’s lovely. It’s great. All hands on deck.” 

For Mary and her husband Brendan, ‘it’s a full time job outside our own full time jobs’. 

She continues, “It doesn’t seem like a whole lot … maybe when I sit and talk about it, I realise it is. But, you know you manage, you do it.  And I wouldn’t do it if I couldn’t  give it 100 % - if I couldn’t give it 100 % tomorrow morning, I wouldn’t do it.”

For anyone who would like to contribute to Mary’s work with Kilkenny Helping the Homeless, they can contact her via the group’s  Facebook page or by  mobile on , 085 707 5348.