Anger in Tagoatas Papal Cross felled

October 1980

A fifteen-foot high cross erected in the south Co. Wexford village of Tagoat last year, to mark the Pope’s visit to Ireland, was cut in two last weekend.

Rosslare Harbour gardaí are investigating the cutting, which has outraged and incensed people of all denominations in Tagoat.

They are particularly angered because the damage was done on the first anniversary of Pope John Paul II’s visit to this country.

The cross was put up last year as the Pope was arriving to Ireland. It was not intended at the time to be permanent, but local people grew attached to it and believed it would be a suitable commemoration of the visit.

One of the men primarily responsible for erecting it, Mr Pat Stafford of Tagoat Community Services Council, said this week that there is ‘ high indignation’ at its destruction last Saturday night.

He went on: ‘We were very proud of the cross. During the three days of the Pope’s visit, it was floodlit and people placed flowers beneath it. Six months ago, we had a meeting to decide what to do with it, and the general feeling was that it should stay.’

Mr Stafford stated that when the people of Tagoat were travelling to Dublin one year ago for the Papal Mass in the Phoenix Park, there was no other cross erected anywhere along the route.

‘It’s a crying shame that someone had to cut down the only Papal Cross between here and Dublin. Dublin Corporation has even decided to keep the cross in the Phoenix Park,’ said Mr Stafford, who added that the Tagoat cross greatly impressed many tourists travelling from the ships in Rosslare to Wexford.

Last week, church leaders asked if, one year on, the Papal visit had left any lasting effect on Irish people.

This week, the cross erected in Tagoat to mark the visit, lies on the grass just off the main Wexford/Rosslare Harbour road, sawn in two. Two weeks later: