Facebook stunt at Louth shrine mocking death of Pope Francis branded ‘appalling'
She described the post on the Official Protestant Coalition page, which read 'celebrating the antichrists death at the grotto in Calvary, Omeath', as 'appalling'.
The post shows photos of a poster of a Red Hand and the word 'Ulster' along with a handwritten message with the words 'No Pope in Rome' and the Union Flag being held up at various locations around the Catholic Shrine.
Commenters on the post gave it the thumbs up saying "Oh dear. Now folks do you remember how much piss taking and disrespect republicans gave Queen Elizabeth. Well I'm sure we can return the favour' while another said that Pope Francis would 'be replaced by ANOTHER New World Order antichrist.'
Cllr MhicConchoille has condemned the social media post by the group which also shared links to anti-immigration protests in Belfast last summer.
"I was deeply disturbed to learn that our Shrine at Calvary in Omeath, a place of prayer and devotion for many, has been misused as a platform for deplorable acts of sectarianism.'
She said that it is 'profoundly troubling to witness certain individuals mocking the death of a highly respected religious leader whose contributions will have a lasting impact on the world. This behaviour goes beyond mere insensitivity; it represents a crude and alarming lack of respect that has no place in a society that should promote understanding, tolerance, and coexistence. It is essential that we unite to condemn these actions and advocate for an island that values diversity and fosters harmony among all its citizens.'
The Calvary at Omeath, which is located at Ballyoonan, has been a place of pilgrimage for many years. The site includes an oratory, the historic way or stations of the Cross, the Shrine of St. Jude, a Lourdes Grotto, the crypt of Fr Luigi Gentili the founder of the Rosminian Order in Ireland, and a reflection garden of remembrance on the shores of the Carlingford Lough.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
RTÉ News
2 days ago
- RTÉ News
Record number of schools seek emergency Govt assistance
The Catholic Primary School Management Association (CPSMA) has said record numbers of schools have been obliged to seek emergency financial assistance from the Department of Education this year, as they struggle to meet dramatically increased running costs with inadequate funding. As the primary school year draws to a close, the management body has said an urgent increase in State financial support for primary schools is needed so that they can meet basic running costs. The CPSMA carried out a review of the accounts of 90 schools which showed that between 2019 and 2024 school costs increased by between 60% and 70%. It says insurance costs have increased by up to a third, cleaning is up by around 80% and utilities have risen by 49%. Meanwhile, the capitation rate for primary schools - at €200 per pupil per year - is the same as that paid in 2008. School capitation was cut in 2009, and recent annual Government Budgets have focused on restoring it to 2008 levels. The Department of Education has pointed to the once-off cost-of-living payments that have been made to schools this year. At primary level they amounted to an additional €36 per pupil according to the CPSMA. The department also points to the fact that capitation for primary schools will increase to €224 next year. But the body that represents the bulk of the country's primary schools, its Catholic primary schools, is concerned that next year's increase is nowhere near enough. "If it hadn't been for [this year's once-off payments] schools would be underwater now," CPSMA General Secretary Seamus Mulconry said. The CPSMA has said the immediate financial pressure that many schools are facing now needs to be addressed as a matter of urgency. "We have never received as many queries about school finance as we have this year, and we have never made as many representations. It is unprecedented; record numbers of schools are asking us to request the [Department of Education] for financial assistance," Mr Mulconry said. "What is emerging is a massive increase in costs between 2019 and 2024. While these 90 schools are not a representative sample, I think they are pretty indicative of what is going on." 'Schools unable to meet their running costs' Four primary schools in Co Louth spoke about their struggle to make ends meet. They are among a network of 23 schools across the county who say they are facing serious financial problems. "Schools are unable to meet their running costs. The only way we can do it is with the support of the wider school community and contributions from parents", said Principal of Scoil Aonghusa in Drogheda, Edel Ní Bhroin. The principal of this gaelscoil has gathered information across 23 Louth primary schools in her local network. She says all are facing unprecedented financial challenges due to basic costs that have risen. "Schools are under real financial difficulty. Schools that never before ran a deficit are now going into debt and that is very worrying". St Joseph's CBS is next door to Scoil Aonghusa. In this DEIS school, a huge plastic bag filled with empty plastic bottles sits in a corner, waiting to be exchanged for cash via the deposit return scheme. "This is one of the ways we are funding our school at the moment, one of the many ways," Principal Sarah Bradley said. "Our amazing children, and their families, are bringing in plastic bottles to help fund their education, and I think this is a really sad state of affairs." What she finds most frustrating about this financial struggle is that "you can't plan and you are constantly having to say 'no' to educational opportunities that three years ago weren't a consideration; 'Can we afford to hire that bus? Can we afford to go to that football match? Can we do the things that we used to take for granted". These four Louth schools all itemise cleaning costs that have "skyrocketed", insurance costs that have risen by up to a third, lighting, heating, bin and water charges, toilet roll, soap. "The list goes on and on and what annoys me is that there is so little if anything left for learning and teaching, for resources for children with special needs, resources for children in special classes," the principal of Naomh Feighín NS, Bryan Collins, said. He has been a school principal for 29 years. "We are the canaries in the coalmine, a decade ago we were warning about the prospect of teacher shortages, now we are saying that schools are coming to the end of the line [financially], that schools are going to be in serious trouble and we are trying to highlight this as best we can." Eileen Pike is the principal of Tullyallen National School, which is an unusually large rural school catering for more than 400 pupils. "We have probably spent most of our capitation this year on insurance and cleaning," she said. "This is a very big struggle for us. The cost of cleaning has just skyrocketed, even the cost of cleaning supplies. It is just impossible at the moment." These four Louth principals represent very different kinds of schools, smaller and large, rural and urban, one DEIS and one gaelscoil. They and the CPSMA say the problems they are facing are shared by primary schools across the country. They have called for systemic change to how primary schools are funded; they point to the fact that post-primary school capitation is significantly higher. But they also say schools need immediate financial support to bail them out now. What will happen if this support does not come? There is talk of primary schools being forced to close their doors. Seamus Mulconry says schools "will do everything in their power not to" have to close. He said schools will be obliged to turn to parents - that is, the schools that can. "If there isn't real and substantial investment by Government we are going to see parents on the hook for all of these costs and charges," Mr Mulconry said.
Irish Examiner
6 days ago
- Irish Examiner
Will there be another 'Battle of Rochestown' for €1.5m well-set Woodview?
THERE is deep Civil War history, sweeping harbour views and a hobby farm all wrapped up in Woodview, a one-off home in an enviable, sentinel position at the end of a cul de sac land and at the top of a wooded glen at Cork's Upper Rochestown. Views from Woodview It's changing of the guard time now after the best part of half a century at Woodview, the family home high on a hill for decades of the late Richard (Dick or Richie) O'Brien and his wife Elizabeth, where they reared a family of five and where the income from the cattle hobby farmer Richard kept put the couple's children through the costly college years. Farm functions too... 'The builder told me I wouldn't last a night out here, it was so dark and isolated,' laughs city born (Ballinlough) Elizabeth all these happy years later, albeit admitting 'back then there wasn't a light at night it was pitch black.' Outstanding in its fields In the years since, house development has come all the way out from Douglas to Rochestown, while visible across the waters of Cork harbour now is Litle Island, Carrigrennan and homes inched along the hills east of Cork city from Glounthaune, while shipping plying a route to and from the city quay also hoves into view, day and night. This is a quite fateful spot too in Irish Civil War terms as bitter battles (skirmish is too small a description) in the Battle of Rochestown of the Battle of Douglas took place in the woods here back in August 1922, with Free State troops landing an amphibian assault from Passage West to retake Cork city and other Munster anti-Treaty strongholds from Republican IRA forces. It was one of three timed Bank Holiday landings to banish rebel Cork, the other were at Youghal and Union Hall: here, the pro-treaty forces prevailed, taking the high land above Douglas later Cork city, with dozens injured and as many as 17 killed between both sides: Elizabeth O'Brien recalls finding unspent cartridges on the lands now bordering Woodview. Bullet-proof future location The O'Briens family story is one of a love of land, and farming, as Richard (who died in 2019) grew up in Kilmurry/Lissarda, studied Agricultural Science in UCC in the early 1970s and ended up playing key roles in the milling sector among some of Cork's oldest milling families, including for owners of Protestant and Huguenot stock, eventually becoming MD of the 1930s-founded Southern Mills, now Southern Milling, the largest milling company in the south of Ireland. While running mills was Dick O'Brien's day job, hobby and cattle farming was a passions and every day some or all of his three daughters and two sons raised here would be pressed into overalls, and into service, feeding and cleaning and farming at the O'Brien family homestead. Bright lights The home, substantial, two-storey and extended in the mid-1980s to its present 250 sq m size, was designed by architect Tony Dennehy and built by Forde & Meaney, is set at the end of the loveliest leafy farm lane between stone ditches alive with greenery. The private entrance is by a slatted shed and the family's nine acres of grazing also near the top of an old, grassy market road which runs from Upper Rochestown/Meadowlands down to the main Passage West road, the scene of Civil War hostilities back in the day, some of the bitterest fought outside of Dublin. Since the O'Briens came to the area, Meadowlands has filled in with up to two dozen one-off detached homes (inc ten in a circle cluster built on serviced sites) along the cul de sac road which they still bookend with the O'Briens' proudly-titled 'hobby farm. Kitchen by House of Coolmore Making the decision to 'right-size,' but to stay relatively locally in Rochestown, Elizabeth O'Brien has given the sale of Woodview and its eight acres (greenbelt for now and on the high hill between Rochestown and Passage West) to auctioneer Anthony O'Regan of Keane Mahony Smith, who guides the immaculately kept 2,500 sq ft family home at €1.5m, saying next owners can do as little, or as much, with it as they wish. Woodview is comfortable inside Some of the neighbours are into horses, and future interest in Woodview is likely to come from some of that ilk, animals and space lovers, perhaps into horses, perhaps cattle or even rare breeds. Rare breeds? When the Irish Examiner visited Woodview last weekend, visible to the east was the 35m high ferris wheel and its 24 spinning gondalas at Fota Wildlife Park, finishing its panoramic rounds above the 100 acre park and its zebras, ostriches and giraffes for now, on Sunday June 8. VERDICT: Free Staters and ferris wheels? Whatever next for Woodview?
RTÉ News
06-06-2025
- RTÉ News
Protests as Muslim community marks Eid al-Adha in Dublin
Over 300 members of the Muslim community have gathered in Dublin to celebrate Eid al-Adha. The feast of the sacrifice is regarded as the holiest festival in the Muslim calendar and is being celebrated indoors at Croke Park. A group protested outside the venue as attendees arrived. Imam Umar Al-Qadri went out and wished them a good morning. Inside, as the call to prayer began, a woman stood up holding a rosary beads and began to recite the Hail Mary. She was escorted from the venue by security shouting "shame". She said the grounds were for games and not prayers. Only Catholic prayers. There was no reaction from members of the Muslim Community who have gathered, which includes children. Addressing them, Umar al Quadri said the tactics were "not nice or respectable". He said the doors of mosques are open for Irish people to visit. He also noted that organisers of today's event include Christians.
