Glenageary Pentecostal Evensong; Clogher Pentecost service; 3,000 Presbyterian women commit; BBC NI’s Catholic Church exposé beats Jimmy Savile documentary to BAFTA; Stormont free speech move a threat to our universities; Child poverty in Derry; Charity urges end to Cork homelessness
Glenageary Pentecostal Evensong
In the newly restored building of St Paul’s Church Glenageary on Sunday 19 May at 7pm the combined choirs of Monkstown Parish and St Paul’s will sing Choral Evensong for Pentecost. The service will be led by Revd Gary Dowd and Canon Patrick Lawrence, with music directed by Derek Verso and Raymond Russell.
Clogher Pentecost service
On the afternoon of Sunday 19th May 2012 at 3.00pm, the Day of Pentecost, the annual open–air service which has customarily been led by both Bishops of Clogher will take place this year at the Centenary Garden within the grounds of Sacred Heart Church in Irvinestown, and afterwards at St Patrick’s Parish Church, Castle Archdale.
The Church of Ireland Bishop of Clogher, the Rt Revd John McDowell, and the Most Revd Dr Liam MacDaid, Roman Catholic Bishop of Clogher, will lead this special open–air service.
During the service young people from the local area will lead the prayers, and the singing will be led by Irvinestown Community Choir. Bishop Mc Dowell will deliver a talk on the Holy Spirit and the Churches.
3,000 Presbyterian women commit
News Letter – The outgoing President of Presbyterian Women Valerie Tweedie from the Orangefield congregation in east Belfast has handed over the badge of office to incoming President Elizabeth Moffett from Donacloney Presbyterian church in the Iveagh presbytery who will hold the office for the next year.
The hand-over took place at the annual meeting of Presbyterian Women held in Presbyterian Assembly Buildings, Belfast on Thursday and Friday last week.
Upwards of 3,000 women attended a series of meetings on the theme ‘God is Able’.
The speaker at the Thursday afternoon and Friday evening meetings was incoming Methodist President the Rev Dr Heather Morris, who is an academic at Edgehill thological college in Belfast and will take up presidential office next month. Coleraine author Catherine Campbell addressed the Friday afternoon seminar.
Presbyterian Women has branches in virtually every church congregation in Ireland, both north and south, and members are involved in fund-raising projects for mission work overseas, particularly in Africa and India where Irish Presbyterianism has had a significant presence for many decades with a succession of missionaries.
BBC NI’s Catholic Church exposé beats Jimmy Savile documentary to BAFTA
Belfast Telegraph – BBC Northern Ireland has won a BAFTA for its powerful film investigating sex abuse priests in Ireland – beating ITV’s controversial Jimmy Savile documentary.
The Shame of the Catholic Church – part of BBC Two’s This World strand – won the Current Affairs category at the prestigious annual TV awards ceremony.
Directed by Alison Millar, the documentary saw Darragh MacIntyre reveal new evidence about the role of the leader of the Catholic Church in Ireland, in the failure to protect children from child abuse.
MacIntyre tracked down the children and revealed Cardinal Sean Brady, the Primate of All Ireland, had the names and addresses of children who were being abused or were at risk of being abused by Ireland’s most notorious paedophile Fr Brendan Smyth, but failed to ensure that they were protected.
The documentary beat the controversial ITV Exposure programme The Other Side of Jimmy Savile, Panorama’s Britain’s Hidden Housing Crisis and Al Jazeera’s What killed Arafat? to the BAFTA award.
Stormont free speech move a threat to our universities: peer
News Letter – A leading historian has warned that Stormont’s veto of a law to strengthen freedom of speech will undermine the work of academics, as well as hampering responsible journalism.
Lord Bew, Queen’s University’s professor of Irish politics, told the House of Lords that he had been “disturbed” by the veto of the Defamation Bill and said there are “very important reasons to be disturbed by this development”.
The Ulster peer has previously warned that some British publications are “jumpy” about circulating in Northern Ireland after Stormont’s veto of the bill.
Last week UUP leader Mike Nesbitt revealed that he was working on bringing forward a Private Member’s Bill at Stormont to reform Northern Ireland’s libel laws.
Lord Bew said that the Province’s exclusion from the bill’s enhanced protections for academic freedom of discussion would undermine university work “fundamental to the economic success of a region such as Northern Ireland”.
He added: “It sends out a bad signal if the local Assembly displays itself as fundamentally indifferent to the tone or substance of academic freedom as an issue.”
Lord Bew repeated warnings that Belfast could become a “libel capital”, placing “enormous and, I suspect in some way unfair, burdens on the local judiciary” and would “send out a signal that again would be disturbing”.
Child poverty in Derry
Belfast Telegraph – Two thirds of children are living in poverty in parts of Londonderry, shocking figures have revealed.
While Derry City Council has the highest level of child poverty in all 26 council areas of Northern Ireland at 35%, within this, the figures for the wards of Brandywell, Creggan South and Creggan Central soar to 61%, 63% and 59%.
In the neighbouring council area of Strabane District there is a similar sorry tale where the child poverty rate is 32% second only to Derry, while in Limavady the figure is 25% which is the fifth worst.
The staggering statistics were revealed by children’s charity Barnardos which has just appointed a full-time director for the North West area.
Less than a month into her new job, Liz Kavanagh said there is compelling evidence supporting the need to target jobs at areas of clear deprivation and disadvantage.
She explained: “There is no single solution when it comes to the problem of child poverty but it is caused generally by long-term unemployment which may stretch back generations.
Charity urges end to Cork homelessness
Irish Examiner – Helping people out of homelessness and into permanent accommodation not only ends a cycle of misery but results in a huge cost saving.
That was the claim made by Threshold as the housing charity discovered that, in Cork, it costs €15,000 more to provide emergency housing.
The annual cost of maintaining a person in emergency accommodation in Cork is around €23,000, it was revealed.
However, the cost of delivering a permanent housing solution in the city is €8,000 — made up of a rent supplement for a single person, together with tenancy support.
The Access Housing Unit, operated by Threshold in Cork, was launched yesterday.
It has been operating since September and, in the first six months, helped 38 people move into private accommodation.
Of those helped by the service, 24 had previously been in emergency hostel accommodation. Only two of the 24 tenancies created had failed after both individuals suffered alcohol addiction and disengaged from the service.
Threshold chairwoman Aideen Hayden said more of the State’s homeless budget should be diverted away from emergency accommodation and moved towards solutions like the Access Housing Unit.