New church to be built over a single weekend

July 1991

PLANS are at an advanced stage to build a Jehovah’s Witnesses Kingdom Hall in Listowel and the entire structure will be constructed over a single weekend by 200 volunteers.

The hall is to be built at Ballinruddery on a 0.8 acre site just one and a half miles from the centre of Listowel. When constructed it will have room for 120 worshippers.

Johan Bruers is one of two Jehovah’s Witness elders in the Listowel area. Practising Jehovah’s Witnesses are called publishers and there are 21 in the Listowel area along with their families.

Mr. Bruers who is a native of Holland has lived in Ireland for the past seven years and moved to Listowel six months ago.

Mr. Bruers told The Kerryman that the new hall will be built as part of a “quick build” programme utilised by the Jehovah’s Witnesses in Ireland. Already seveal Kingdom Halls have been built in this way. The first was built in Listowel’s twin town of Downpatrick in 1984.

The local group prepares the site by laying a concrete base and then fellow Jehovah’s Witnesses from all over the country come to the site at their own expense and.build the new hall.

“It all happens in a single weekend. The outside walls are brick built and most of the building comes in kit form. There will be 200 people involved. All will be working in different teams with some looking after the electrics, others the sound system, others the plumbing and pipes and so on,” explained Mr. Bruers.

Planning permission is currently being sought and it is planned to do the actual construction in March or April of next year. It would be built sooner but the quick-build teams are committed to constructing halls in other parts of the country.

All the construction work outside of the price of the site will cost in the region of £22,000. This money comes by way of secret donations as the Jehovah’s Witnesses go by the bible saying not to let your left hand know what your right hand is doing.