Visiting president honours Irish quake victims

The visiting Irish President has laid a wreath at the Canterbury National Earthquake Memorial and met with the widows of two Irishmen tragically killed in the February 2011 quake.

President Michael Higgins and his wife, Sabina, are in Christchurch as part of a State visit to New Zealand.

Irish President Michael Higgins lays a wreath at the earthquake memorial.

Escorted by Acting Mayor Andrew Turner, he visited the Canterbury National Earthquake Memorial this afternoon to lay a wreath and to meet with the widows of Owen McKenna and Joseph O’Connor.

Mr McKenna, a trained psychiatric nurse from the town of Monaghan, in Ireland, was in his car at the intersection of Lichfield and Manchester streets when the February 22 earthquake struck.

His car was buried under the rubble of the Ruben Blades Hair Academy building. Nearby construction workers, police and members of the public rushed to remove the rubble and free Mr McKenna but he died of his injuries.

Mr O’Connor, an accountant from Abbeydorney, in Ireland, died while working on the first floor of the five-storey Pyne Gould Corporation building.

President Higgins inspected the memorial wall where the men's names are inscribed, along with the names of the other victims of the earthquake, before stopping to touch the 265kg pounamu stone near the entrance to the memorial. 

After visiting the earthquake memorial President Higgins was given a private tour of the Quake City musuem. He was then taken by tram on a tour of Christchurch’s city centre.

President Higgins is in New Zealand at the invitation of the Government.  An estimated 13,000 Irish citizens live in New Zealand and some 600,000 people in New Zealand have Irish ancestry.