The Bishop of Achonry Paul Dempsey is to join in a special walk taking place in Mayo tomorrow to highlight the plight of Irish emigrants in London.
Bishop Dempsey is the chairman of the Council for Emigrants of the Irish Catholic Bishops Conference and will join the walk between Mulranny and Newport tomorrow morning.
Funds raised on the walk will go to support the Seniors Project of the Irish Chaplaincy in London.
Bishop Dempsey says he saw at first hand in recent months how many of the emigrants of the 50's and 60's still living in the UK can be very isolated and need to be acknowledged by the Irish community as still being part of their country.
He says it also has to be acknowledged that even in a good economy another form of 'forced migration' is happening right now for many young people.
'I saw that first-hand myself when I went out there in May to visit many of the Irish people there, and y'know it's wonderful to see the Chaplaincy service there reaching out to them , so that we say, you're not forgotten, you're still very much part of the Irish family.
I also think it's important to make the point that emigration is not something from the past either, I think we have a new generation today who are highly educated and are emigrating because they need maybe to get a home , so in a sense there's another kind of a forced emigration today.'
