Sooey community lend a hand for church fund
A big community drive has resulted in necessary works to Sooey church almost being completed.
The substantial cost of the works is in the region of € 300,000 and it’s expected to take up to six years to pay off, with the local people contributing to the church fund.
Parish priest, Fr AB O’Shea said the response from the community has been overwhelming. “Planning the works has been ongoing for a number of years as there’s various organisations involved.
“The church is a listed building and because of that we had to involve the heritage people, roads engineers and planners to make sure all were satisfied with what’s going on.
“So that took some time. The actual works themselves began on Easter Monday and there was a fundraising committee set up to organise the whole thing.
“The construction includes a lot of ground works, surface water works, putting in new toilets, cleaning the 90 foot tower, re- roofing the two sacristies, putting in new entrance and exit to the church and tarmacking the new car- park at the back as well.
“We have 50 car- parking spaces all tarmacked and all the grounds too.
“It’s close enough to finishing, another week or that and it’ll be completed,” Fr O’Shea added.
He said the response has been huge from the local parishioners. “With the fundraising committee set up, we were looking at ways to raise the € 300,000 which is a lot of money.
“We felt having various fundraising events takes so much time to put together and it needs lots of effort. People can get fed up with them.
“Instead, we set up a monthly Restoration Fund, where people could contribute money every month.
“Envelopes were sent out to every house and people then are giving whatever they can, as long as necessary.
“The response has been very, very good and I thank those from the Sooey and Gleann areas who have made really generous contributions.”
With the cost in the region of € 300,000, it’s expected the to take a number of years to reach this.
The necessary works are almost finished, with Fr O’Shea adding it’s been the result of a lot of planning and organising from everyone involved.
The finishing of the works is timely too as the church has a big celebration coming up at the end of the year. Fr O’Shea explained: “The church will be 75 years old in December so it’s ideal that the restoration has been taking place.
“We are planning a big event for then, more than likely in early December when we’ll celebrate that,” he added.
The people in Sooey and Gleann can now look forward to a new- look church for the community.