His Holiness the Dalai Lama concludes
Ireland visit with public talk in Limerick

[Friday, 15 April 2011, 9:53 a.m.]

His Holiness the Dalai Lama arriving at the University of Limerick, Ireland, on 14 April 2011/Photos by Speirs

His Holiness the Dalai Lama has
concluded his visit to the Republic of Ireland and left its people with
the message that they must respect all religions and look within for
happiness.
 
DUBLIN: The Tibetan spiritual leader’s last address was to an audience
of 3,000 people at the University of Limerick and he remained standing
throughout it, seemingly inexhaustible at 75 years of age.
 
He spoke about the power of forgiveness and stressed the importance of
being compassionate and affectionate to all.
 
“Think more of others, extend your sense of concern, not only to your
friend, but to strangers, and then to your enemy or troublemaker. Then
that compassion is genuine compassion, unbiased, limitless, infinite,
that we can do,” he told the audience.
 
The event was the final engagement in His Holiness the Dalai Lama’s
two-day trip during which he met and spoke to thousands of people in
Dublin and Kildare.
 
It was his third visit to the Republic although he had not been in 20
years.

His Holiness the Dalai Lama greeting the over 3,000 people who came to listen to his talk at the University of Limerick, Ireland, on 14 April 2011

The leader of Tibet’s Buddhist people had
been invited to speak by Derryman Richard Moore who founded the charity
Children in Crossfire of which the Dalai Lama is patron.
 
Mr Moore was blinded at the age of 10 by a rubber bullet fired by a
British soldier and told the audience at Limerick University that he had
never felt any anger or bitterness towards the man responsible for
taking his sight.
 
The retired army major, publicly known only as Charles, was in the
audience and Mr Moore welcomed him.
 
He arrived by helicopter and landed on a sports field on the university
grounds. As he walked across a running track with his entourage His
Holiness the Dalai Lama spotted an earthworm in their path and asked one
of the men to pick it up and move it to safety.
 
His Holiness the Dalai Lama spoke for more than an hour and received two
standing ovations.

His Holiness the Dalai Lama greeting some of the young performers at the University of Limerick, in Limerick, Ireland, on 14 April 2011

Among those who attended the talk on the
power of forgiveness was the husband of a woman from Northern Ireland
who was murdered on her honeymoon in January.
 
John McAreavey discovered his wife’s body in their bedroom at a
luxurious hotel on Mauritius. Police on the island believe she was
killed when she disturbed thieves. 

Also in attendance was the mother of murdered Limerick man Shane
Geoghegan.
 
The 28-year-old rugby captain was shot dead in a drugs feud in a case of
mistaken identity in 2008.
 
The event ended with 30 school children singing a song about forgiveness
accompanied by the Irish Chamber orchestra.
 
His Holiness the Dalai Lama departed Ireland for Sweden today and is due
to begin two days of engagements in Sweden on Friday.
 
–Report filed by Maeve Connolly

His Holiness the Dalai Lama applauding the group of 30 young children who composed a special song about forgiveness for visit to the University of Limerick, in Limerick, Ireland, on 14 April 2011