Archive News
Immigrants giving ailing Church a new energy
Date Published: {J}
It’s been a bad few years for the Catholic Church in Ireland. An institution that was already in decline, with fewer vocations and more members opting to ignore Rome’s decrees, has been rocked by child abuse scandals and terrible tales of official cover ups.
But the Lord works in mysterious ways and, in some areas at least, the Catholic Church is thriving, with new energy thanks to the involvement of immigrants from India, Eastern Europe and Africa.
Nowhere is this more obvious than in the suburbs of Roscam and Doughiska on the eastern side of Galway city, where the Good Shepherd parish was established four years ago under the auspices of the Bishop of Galway, Dr Martin Drennan, to cater for this rapidly growing part of Galway.
A survey carried out in 2009 showed the area had a population of some 7,300 with over 70 per cent of the adults being Catholic. And the fact that the parish has 111 boys and girls for First Communion this year tells its own story
Seventy-six per cent of the Massgoers in the Good Shepherd parish are Irish. That’s followed by Indians, Africans, Polish and other Eastern Europeans. The mix is obvious at a packed Sunday Mass on May Day in the parish’s temporary accommodation at the Castlegar Sports Centre. The altar servers are African, one of the readings is given by an African, the other by an Eastern European, and the church ushers and Ministers of the Eucharist are Irish. It is a real melting pot, with people from 33 different nationalities in the parish. There are kids everywhere and the ceremonial dresses of the African women add a vibrant flash of colour to proceedings.
The hall where Mass is being said – rented from the Castlegar GAA – is spartan, with plain walls and tape markings on the floor that identify its intended purpose as a sports hall. But the atmosphere is upbeat, with everybody joining in the singing – the words of the hymns are projected onto a large screen beside the altar so everybody can take part.
Mary Okafor from Boireann Beag, is three years in the parish, having come here from Nigeria.
While Irish people celebrate Mass differently, “this is the nearest thing to home”, she observes of the Good Shepherd Mass. She is accompanied by a friend from another parish in the city. “I keep telling her this is best,” says Mary.
Certainly the Good Shepherd has an energy that many places would envy.
After Mass, tea and biscuits are served in an adjoining room and many people stay on for a chat, making Mass a real social event, which it traditionally was in Irish parishes. The difference here is that these Catholics come from all over the world.
“Faith brings people together; they share that common entity and they start to get to know each other,” says Nuala Keady, who is in charge of the rota for the Mass readings. She feels the Good Shepherd parish is playing a valuable role establishing a community in this city suburb.
The people charged by Bishop Drennan with setting up the parish were Fr Martin Glynn and Sr Laura Boyle. Fr Martin, who was initially appointed as chaplain to the area by Bishop Drennan’s predecessor, Bishop James McLaughlin is still here. For him, the defining aspect of this parish is the input of so many nationalities.
“The diversity of cultures is one of the big differences; people’s willingness to participate and their readiness to sing. For instance, there is no choir as such, it’s congregational singing.”
Another worshipper, enjoying the post Mass cup of tea thinks that Ireland’s newest Catholics “are a lot more religious than we are”.
For more, read this week’s Galway City Tribune.
People’s living conditions less than 100 years ago were frightening. We have come a long way. We talk about water charges today, but back then the local District Councils were erecting pumps for local communities and the lovely town of Mountbellew, according to Council minutes, had open sewers,” says Galway County Council archivist Patria McWalter.
Patria believes we “need to take pride in our history, and we should take the same pride in our historical records as we do in our built heritage”. When you see the wealth of material in her care, this belief makes sense.
She is in charge of caring for the rich collection of administrative records owned by Galway County Council and says “these records are as much part of our history as the Rock of Cashel is. They document our lives and our ancestors’ lives. And nobody can plan for the future unless you learn from the past, what worked and what didn’t”.
Archivists and librarians are often unfairly regarded as being dry, academic types, but that’s certainly not true of Patria. Her enthusiasm is infectious as she turns the pages of several minute books from Galway’s Rural District Councils, all of them at least 100 years old.
Part of her role involved cataloguing all the records of the Councils – Ballinasloe, Clifden, Galway, Gort, Loughrea, Mountbellew, Portumna and Tuam. These records mostly consisted of minutes of various meetings.
When she was cataloguing them she realised their worth to local historians and researchers, so she decided to compile a guide to their content. The result is For the Record: The Archives of Galway’s Rural District Councils, which will be a valuable asset to anybody with an interest in history.
Many representatives on these Councils were local personalities and several were arrested during the political upheaval of the era, she explains.
And, ushering in a new era in history, women were allowed to sit on these Rural District Councils – at the time they were not allowed to sit on County Councils.
All of this information is included in Patria’s introductory essay to the attractively produced A4 size guide, which gives a glimpse into how these Rural Councils operated and the way political thinking changed in Ireland during a short 26-year period. In the early 1900s, these Councils supported Home Rule, but by 1920, they were calling for full independence and refusing to recognise the British administration.
“I love the tone,” says Patria of the minutes from meetings. “The language was very emotive.”
That was certainly true of the Gort Rural District Council. At a meeting in 1907, following riots in Dublin at the premiere of JM Synge’s play, The Playboy of the Western World the councillors’ response was vehement. They recorded their decision to “protest most emphatically against the libellous comedy, The Playboy of the Western World, that was belched forth during the past week in the Abbey Theatre, Dublin, under the fostering care of Lady Gregory and Mr Yeats. We congratulate the good people of Dublin in howling down the gross buffoonery and immoral suggestions that are scattered throughout this scandalous performance.
For more from the archives see this week’s Tribunes here
Date Published: 23-Jan-2013
SLIGO 0-9
GALWAY 1-4
FRANK FARRAGHER IN ENNISCRONE
GALWAY’S first serious examination of the 2013 season rather disturbingly ended with a rating well below the 40% pass mark at the idyllic, if rather Siberian, seaside setting of Enniscrone on Sunday last.
The defeat cost Galway a place in the FBD League Final against Leitrim and also put a fair dent on their confidence shield for the bigger tests that lie ahead in February.
There was no fluke element in this success by an understrength Sligo side and by the time Leitrim referee, Frank Flynn, sounded the final whistle, there wasn’t a perished soul in the crowd of about 500 who could question the justice of the outcome.
It is only pre-season and last Sunday’s blast of dry polar winds did remind everyone that this is far from summer football, but make no mistake about it, the match did lay down some very worrying markers for Galway following a couple of victories over below par third level college teams.
Galway did start the game quite positively, leading by four points at the end of a first quarter when they missed as much more, but when Sligo stepped up the tempo of the game in the 10 minutes before half-time, the maroon resistance crumbled with frightening rapidity.
Some of the statistics of the match make for grim perusal. Over the course of the hour, Galway only scored two points from play and they went through a 52 minute period of the match, without raising a white flag – admittedly a late rally did bring them close to a draw but that would have been very rough justice on Sligo.
Sligo were backable at 9/4 coming into this match, the odds being stretched with the ‘missing list’ on Kevin Walsh’s team sheet – Adrian Marren, Stephen Coen, Tony Taylor, Ross Donovan, David Kelly, David Maye, Johnny Davey and Eamon O’Hara, were all marked absent for a variety of reasons.
Walsh has his Sligo side well schooled in the high intensity, close quarters type of football, and the harder Galway tried to go through the short game channels, the more the home side bottled them up.
Galway badly needed to find some variety in their attacking strategy and maybe there is a lot to be said for the traditional Meath style of giving long, quick ball to a full forward line with a big target man on the edge of the square – given Paul Conroy’s prowess close to goal last season, maybe it is time to ‘settle’ on a few basics.
Defensively, Galway were reasonably solid with Gary Sice at centre back probably their best player – he was one of the few men in maroon to deliver decent long ball deep into the attacking zone – while Finian Hanley, Conor Costello and Gary O’Donnell also kept things tight.
For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.
Date Published: 23-Jan-2013
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