Parish of Ardcath / Clonalvy / Curraha
| Parish Priest | : | Fr Philip Gaffney P.P. |
| Phone | : | Land line 01-8350136, Mobile 087 9258305. |
| Email Address | : | |
| Parish Newsletter | : | Parish Newsletter |
| Mass Times | : | Ardcath, St. Mary's - Saturday Vigil Mass 7.00pm Clonalvy, St John The Baptist - Sunday Mass 10am Curraha, St Andrew's - Sunday Mass 11.30am |
Senior Citizens Party 2012 - More Photos ...
Fashion Show in The Snailbox - 9th March 2012 - More Photos ...
Cross Country Run - 26th February 2012 - More Photos ...
Ardcath Church Choir 2011.
Ardcath celebrates reopening of church
The parish of Ardcath recently celebrated the reopening and rededication of its 150 years-old St Mary's Church, which has undergone a major refurbishment over the past six months. More ...The Bishop of Meath, Dr Michael Smith, oversaw the rededication ceremony in which members of the parish community took part and a relic of St Oliver Plunkett, as well as a time capsule containing local family histories, were placed in the altar. More ...
Local Author launches new book
Ardcath resident Liz Lyons has released her second book Come this way home.Liz Lyons writes with great sympathy and honesty about the complicated dynamics of family life and examines how people cope when life throws them their fair share of challenges. The characters in her novel struggle to deal with personal and post-celtic tiger issues while all the time battling with the familiar highs and lows of family life. There is a nostalgic tenderness to her descriptions of teenage life and her treatment of a couple dealing with tragedy is heartbreakingly realistic in its honesty. I can highly recommend this book. Review by Siobhan Hackett.
Liz Lyons is a graduate in English and History of Trinity College, Dublin. After graduation she spent ten years working in the Irish book trade as a bookshop manager. Come this way home is her second novel. A native of Cork, Liz now lives in Ardcath with her husband Noel Gough and three children. More ...
Fr Séamus Dunican a native of Ardcath dies suddenly.
The
death occurred suddenly on Saturday 23rd Junuary 2010 of Fr Seamus Dunican,
parish priest of Rahan in Co Offaly, who was a native of Ardcath and served in a
number of Meath parishes. Fr Dunican was parish priest of Moynalvey and Kiltale
for a decade prior to moving to Rahan in 2001.Aged 71, he passed away unexpectedly having taken ill at the parochial house in Rahan on Saturday last. Only last Wednesday, he had been playing golf with colleagues from the diocese. Fr Dunican was ordained in 1963 and initially served for brief periods in Navan and Rahan. The following year, he began his ministry in the Archdiocese of Westminster and from 1970 -1971, he attended Saint Mary's, Strawberry Hill.
He taught at Saint Patrick's Classical School, Navan from September 1971, and at the same time worked in Johnstown parish, until his appointment as chaplain to the Defence Forces at Gormanston in August 1981. While in Johnstown, he played football with and managed the Walterstown GAA team in the 1970s, and also served on the club committee. At this time, he also set up a youth club at St Martha's College. During his period in Gormanston, he served on three occasions with the United Nations in Lebanon.
Fr Dunican became parish priest of Moynalvey in September 1991 and, ten years later, he moved to Rahan. He was succeeded in Moynalvey by Fr Peter Mulvany, who passed away last October. Fr Dunican was a popular pastor in Kiltale and Moynalvey, with all generations. As well as carrying out his ministry, he was very involved in both schools as board of management chairperson, and in the building of a new extension to Moynalvey National School. He oversaw renovations of both churches and the extension of Moynalvey cemetery and church grounds. Fr Dunican was very committed to the parish and was thought highly of there.
Writing in the book to mark the fiftieth anniversary of the school last year, he recalled bringing pupils of Moynalvey to Gormanston beach to collect shells for the decoration of fountains in Larch Hill gardens, visiting Newgrange and Fourknocks, and taking in his old stomping ground at Gormanston Army Camp. He also recalled the only time a bishop's mitre was worn by a girl in Moynalvey Church, when the senior classes in the school were re-enacting gospel themes, scenes from the beginning of the Christian era and the confirmation ceremony.
Seeing joy on the children's faces when the Sam Maguire cup visited with Meath players, and the 'mayhem' of the Christmas party for servers in the parochial house were other recollections he had of the local schoolchildren. As a former PE teacher, Fr Dunican set up a basketball club for local youths on a Sunday evening in the winter months.
Fr Barry Condron, CC, Dunshaughlin, who served with Fr Dunican in Moynalvey, recalled that Fr Dunican, above all, would like to be remembered as " a good priest", for his basic work as a priest, and for his dedication to his parishioners. His work in Moynalvey and Kiltale laid a strong foundation for his successor to continue building on. In Rahan, he took on a lot of work and responsibility of an area of the parish called The Island, one of the three churches in the parish, along with Mucklagh and Rahan, renovating the church and opening a new cemetery, and reinvigorating that part of the parish.
Even on holiday, Fr Dunican continued to work, and on the island he holidayed on in Greece, there was an empty parish church which he opened to say Mass in for visitors and locals while he was there, and prepared newsletters which were translated into a number of languages.
Fr Dunican is survived by his brother, Míceal, Ardcath; sisters, Rosaleen Kelly, Limerick and Mary Teevan, Dublin, nephews, nieces, relatives and friends. Bishop Smith has offered his deepest sympathies to the Dunican family and celebrated the Funeral Mass at the Church of Saint Carthage, Killina, in the parish of Rahan on Wednesday 27th January at 12 noon.
Published in the Meath Chronicle on Wednesday 27th January 2010.
