Pew Sheet – 24th April 2022
The Rector writes ‘The Cork Choral Festival returns this year after a gap of two years because of ‘you know what’! We are delighted that on Sunday 1st May at 11am in St Mary’s Church, the 46 member Vaskivuori Upper Secondary School Chamber Choir from Finland will be singing at our Service and will stay for light refreshments in the Parish Hall after the Service.
Madeleine Geary, who looks after the Tea & Coffee Rota in the Parish Hall would love some offers of a plate of sandwiches or a cake for the day. When we were in lockdown, it seemed that we’d never get back to the welcoming of visitors to our churches – be careful what you wish for ! with 46 hungry Finnish teens, I think we’ll need a lot of sandwiches and cake! So please let Madeleine know if you can help 087-4189811.
Thank you!’

Monday 25th April 8pm in St. Mary’s NS, Waterpark, Carrigaline
Owenabue Garden & Flower Club welcomes Gill Weyman, co-founder of Cork Nature Network who will give a talk on the lifecycle of the ladybird and other beneficial garden insects that we find in our gardens. Gill created a citizen science project looking for information on the many different types of ladybird across Ireland, both good & bad and is a researcher with the Fota Wildlife Park and UCC where she is working on a PhD studying Ladybirds Visitors welcome. €7 entry.
Wednesday 27th April at 3pm in the Parish Hall.
MU Meeting, Irish Guide Dog trainers along with a dog in training will show us how it’s done. Tea & Coffee & Cakes etc will be served. All welcome.
Sunday 1st May at 5am in Currabinny Woods
Ecumenical Dawn Chorus. Bring warm suitable clothing and a flask of something hot!
Sunday 1st May at 11am in St Mary’s Church
Cork Choral Festival The 46 member Vaskivuori Upper Secondary School Chamber Choir from Finland will be singing at our Service and will stay for light refreshments in the Parish Hall after the Service.
Sunday 8th May at 7pm in St John’s Church
Choral Evensong with commissioning of the new Select Vestry for 2022/2023
Friday 13th May 11am-12:30pm in the Parish Hall
The Friendship Club will resume at last. While we are no longer meeting in the Rectory, we think it will be just as much fun in our newly refurbished Parish Hall.
Random Notes CDXXI
It may perhaps be of some interest to readers of these notes to learn that next year, 2023, marks both the tercentenary of the first service being held in the previous Church at Carrigaline, on Friday, 17th December, 1723, and the bicentenary of the construction, one hundred years later, of the present Church, and with these anniversaries in mind a small group of parishioners has been formed to attempt to arrange a few events throughout the year, events which it is hoped will culminate in a service on or around Wednesday, 7th February, 2024, that day being the anniversary of the date of first service having been held in the present Church.
For the 150th anniversary of the first service in February of 1974, a brief history of the Church was compiled by T. G. F. Stoney, of Currabinny, for use on the back of the order of service, and the following not uninteresting transcription is taken from that:
‘The oldest minute book of Carrigaline Vestry still in existence [now languishing in the R.C.B, library in Dublin] starts with the minutes of a meeting held on 19th July, 1722 at which the following resolution was passed, ”That the Parish Church of Carrigaline being very faulty in the Walls and Roofe it was deemed necessary to rebuild the same, and it was ordered accordingly that the Parish Church should be pulled down early in the next spring ensuing”. Later a note has been inserted in the minute book which reads ”By the great care and diligence of the Church-wardens the Parish Church was rebuilt and finished and Divine Service was first performed in the New Church on 17th December 1723”.
In the year 1821 the vestry decided that a new Church was again needed, as the old one was too small for the congregation. They appointed a committee to select a better position, as the old site was too low and damp.
The present Church was then built on a site between the old one and the road by messrs G.& R Paine [ George Richard Pain (1793-1838), and his elder brother, James Pain (1779-1877)] at a cost of £1,782 [ the cost quoted in Brady’s ‘Clerical and Parochial Records of Cork, Cloyne, and Ross’ is given as £1,846.3.1] and was licensed for Divine Service on 7th February, 1824. To help raise funds for the rebuilding the three front seats in the gallery were sold, two of them by auction for £50 and £40 respectively.
In the year 1835 ”owing to lack of accommodation for the poor”, it was decided to add a transept on the northern side and Mr. W. Hill [ William Hill (1798-1844)] was engaged as architect. The eight pews in this gallery were sold for a total sum of £98. 10. 0. After the Act of Disestablishment the custom of selling pews, in reality the right to sit in the pews, led to doubts as to whether the Representative Church Body, or the person who paid, owned the pews. It was finally decided in 1884 that the pews were part of the Church and therefore the property of the Representative Church Body.’