St Finian's Church Redecoration Fund

Presentation of Cheque for €600 to Fr Gilligan,
St Finian's Community Hall, Monday 15th May

At a Bealtaine Coffee Morning on the 15th May, Margaret Maher, Chairperson of The Ladies Social Group Newcastle, presented Fr John Gilligan with a cheque for €600 towards the cost of re-painting St Finian’s Church. A most enjoyable morning.  The ladies also presented a short comedy-musical sketch, ‘The Line’, as well as a musical ukulele rendition. Our local group of Ladies are certainly up to the mark with the Bealtaine Festival theme of ‘Celebrating Creativity in older age’. Well done to all involved!

Photographs are compliments of Cathy Weatherston Photography, Newcastle. And thanks to Bridget Breen who sent in the story.

Please click on photo above for full-screen view. Click the close button, top right of full screen, to come back here. 

For a slide-show of further photos please click here. (Use the controls at bottom-left of screen or simply click on the screen to move to the next slide.)

Bicentenary of Fr Andrew Hart, Died 20 November 1815

Fr Andrew Hart, 1785-1815

    This is the statue we know so well from seeing it every time we go to Mass in St Mary's, Saggart.  Or maybe we don't know it so well as we never really see it. The reason for this is because we know so little about the man whom the statue commemorates. All we have is the inscription underneath the effigy, an inscription written in Latin of a very elaborate kind that is 'all Greek (or Latin)' to us today. Our late P.P. Fr Laurence O'Sullivan had a small framed translation put up beside the memorial in 1999, on the occasion of the 150th anniversary of St Mary's. (For the text and a more recent translation of the inscription, see here.)
    The bicentenary of St Finian's in 2013 saw the publication of a book containing a chapter about the parish priest responsible for the building of that church (i.e. Fr Andrew Hart), thanks to which we know more about the man than ever before. In 2013 the parish of Newcastle marked the bicentenary of the church he built; now, in 2015, we in Saggart/Rathcoole/Brittas, have the opportunity to mark the bicentenary of the man himself in the church where he is buried. Now is the moment when the people of Saggart can pay him their own tribute. Let us do so in as fitting a way as we can, beginning Sunday 22nd, at 11.30 Mass in St Mary's.  

   
Donal McMahon (donalmcmahon@eircom.net)
and Liam Roche,
Andrew Hart Bicentenary Committee (new members very welcome!).

New NS of St Finian in Newcastle

A New Era Begins in Newcastle

No sooner did a new school open in Saggart in September 2014 than another new one is set to open in our sister parish of Newcastle a year later. In fact the very month that saw the opening of Saggart also saw construction work begin on Newcastle, with work scheduled to be completed in 32 weeks, i.e. the end of May -- less than a year, then. (See the architect's website for Saggart and Newcastle -- the same architect.)
A sign, indeed, of the parallel rapid expansion of both our parishes.

All the great celebrations now at an end, the bicentenary sign outside St Finian's church has been taken down.  We knew that Clonaslee (Co. Laois) and Booterstown celebrated bicentenaries with us in 2013, but St Mary's in Westport did also, something that we did not know at the time.  So here's belated bicentennial greetings to the parishioners of that beautiful town.

Dates for Cemetery Masses  Please see this week's Newsletter (3rd May) here.

St Mary's, Westport

               Newsletter  12.1.2014

Bishop Eamonn Walsh presided at Sunday Mass in St Finian's on the 12th, a Mass marking the end of the bicentenary year.  Though the great year is over, the fine book published in December (terrific value at 10 Euro) will serve as a lasting record of that year. None of us older parishioners will experience such an occasion again in our lifetimes, but our younger parishioners will certainly (D.V. of course) be there in 2049 for the bicentenary of St Mary's. And we have a lasting reminder already in St Mary's of St Finian's bicentenary, since that man on the wall, in white marble, on the right as you face the altar, is the priest who was responsible for the building of St Finian's, Fr Andrew Hart (1785-1815). The bicentenary book  has an interesting chapter on him.

                   In Your Local Shops Now!

Here is the cover of the book published to mark the bicentenary of St Finian's, Newcastle. A year in the making and compiled by a very active committee headed by Bridget Breen, it was launched in St Finian's Community Hall on Thursday 5th. It contains 254 pages about the church and the locality, covering a wide range of topics -- religious, historical, educational and cultural. Coffee-table-book in size and in richness of pictorial illustration it may be, but it will surely be pored over on all sorts of tables (hopefully not also 'poured' over by the over-engrossed reader!). Fr Pat Egan SDB deserves great credit for the high quality of the layout and printing. It costs 10 Euro, a very reasonable price for such a fine production.

 

Saggart residents will be interested in the article on the person who was responsible for the building of St Finian's, Fr Andrew Hart, P.P. of the 'United Parishes' from 1812 until his death in 1815. He is buried in St Mary's, below that fine effigy we all know so well. This book offers Saggart parishioners the opportunity to get to know the man they see, spiritually, every Sunday.

Another memorable occasion in the annals of our two parishes took place on Sunday, 1st December, when Rathcoole parishioners celebrated the 25th anniversary of the church of the Holy Family.

Celebrations all round, then, in the parishes at the end of the (liturgical) year.

See also the Newsletter 8.12.13