Jehovah’s Witnesses buy old PMPA office

August 1987

The Jehovah’s Witnesses congregation in Wexford have bought the Ferrybank building that was formerly occupied by PMPA insurance.

The building will be officially dedicated next month as a Kingdom Hall of Jehovah’s Witnesses for meetings and bible study sessions, which up to now have been held weekly in White’s Hotel.

Several Wexford families have converted to the faith and the local congregation now numbers more than fifty members. Other congregations also exist in Wexford and New Ross. ‘There are a lot of other people interested too,’ an elder of the community said this week.

It is now nearly 35 years since the first Jehovah’s Witness missionary set foot in Wexford and began knocking on doors and preaching to locals.

A few years later, representatives of the faith were forced to leave the town following an assault on one missionary by a Catholic priest.

After the incident, Gardai told the Jehovah’s Witnesses that they would be unable to afford them any more that forty-eight hours’s protection, and they left town.

Field service, as it is called, was resumed again in the late sixties and in recent years many Wexford people have been baptised into the religion.

The former PMPA building, which has been renovated to comprise a meeting room and library to serve as a focal point for local Witnesses, has been bought and paid for by the Wexford congregation.