26th April 2019
Today (26 April 2019) is the 200th anniversary of the birth of Vere Foster (1819 – 1900).
Vere Foster was INTO’s first President; our offices in both Dublin and Belfast are named “Vere Foster House” in his honour. He is also commemorated in the names of schools north and south of the border, including in his birthplace of Tallanstown Co Louth, and in the work of the Vere Foster Medical Group on both the Falls Road and in Sandy Row in Belfast.
Sacrificing wealth and position, Foster devoted his life to a range of socially positive causes – assisting emigrants in the wake of the Irish Famine, transforming the standard of national schools, raising the status of teachers, and striving for better medical facilities in his adopted Belfast.
It is appropriate that Vere Foster is remembered by INTO members on today.