Shortage of Catholic priests.

Hotblack Desiato

The spiritualist weddings are basically whatever you want - you can have no mention of anything religious or 'spiritual' (whatever that means 😁) at all if you want.

They're more flexible with dates/times than the HSE, and easier to get hold of than the humanists who were having trouble recruiting/training up enough celebrants (especially as they do funerals too and the demand for humanist funerals is rising rapidly)

35% of weddings being RCC is a huge drop in the last ten years or so. Yet when these couples are looking for a school to enrol their kids in, 90% of them are RCC schools and most of the rest are Church of Ireland.

yagan

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122066745#Comment_122066745

Thanks.

I've an undertaker friend who told five years ago that by now it would be very hard to get a priest for every RCC funeral He recently told me the pandemic actually accelerated that trend and now many have what they consider a RCC sendoff in a purpose built funeral home. I was at one in Thurles last year, the funeral home was new and impressive, it was almost like a mini basilica.

If you brought along someone who had no experience of RCC services you could easily tell them that this was the norm.

Mrs OBumble

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122061924#Comment_122061924

Indeed. And a library in Oranmorewhich used to be a church and now has graves.

ChUrches often make bad concert venues, except for individual artists: not enough back stage space or front of house facilities. Nevertheless they are often used now, due to lack of alternatives. Many communities are going to miss having the spaces once they're sold and converted to housing.

Oscar_Madison

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122061785#Comment_122061785

no absolutely it will and actually I’m surprised it hasn’t happened already.

The big problem with a lot of the churches is that they need serious work and maintenance - so it will obviously be location location location in the first instance for those that will be rescued and converted into something else.
I do find myself looking at churches wondering what sort of grand designs concept could be applied here and just how many apartments could you make? 😀

I’d love to convert a small country church into a home - high ceilings, some stained glass, thick walls - oh to dream .

I reckon a lot of the urban churches built in the last 100 years will simply be knocked and either a shopping centre or housing estate will replace them- hopefully some of the ones that are worth preserving from an architectural perspective can be saved and converted into something useful- probably a mosque going by some of the predictions on this thread 🤪

yagan

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122066889#Comment_122066889

All a lot of communities only need a hall that can hold bingo, weight watchers and a badminton court. In time they'll host community weddings and funerals too.

Mrs OBumble

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122066908#Comment_122066908

The problem is that a lot of communities don't have that hall. They just have a church, which gets used for all manner of things. Once the church is no longer available to the community, the only organisation with enough structure to run a hall in most places is the GAA, and their mission is football/hurling - not yoga, weight-watchers or badminton.

While we're at it: here's another one turning into a library. Apparently a "state of the art" library at that. https://www.independent.ie/regionals/louth/drogheda-news/plan-to-transform-former-louth-church-into-public-library-boosted-by-3m-grant/a876121037.html

downtheroad

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122061785#Comment_122061785

Knock them down and build apartments on the land

downtheroad

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122066077#Comment_122066077

There were 21,159 marriages in 2023 compared with 23,173 in 2022, a drop of 8.7%.

Dropping continuously year on year.

The shortage of catholic priests won't be an issue, the demand for their services is nothing like what it used to be.

eightieschewbaccy

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122069142#Comment_122069142

Depends on the structure, plenty of older churches are architecturally incredible and it would be a disservice to lose them tbh. And I say that as somebody who is not remotely religious.

downtheroad

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122069232#Comment_122069232

Classic Ireland.

We need more houses, apartments accommodation.

But not there!

Princess Consuela Bananahammock

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122069249#Comment_122069249

Classic Ireland, **** culture.

.

Might as well tear down Christchuch and Kilmainham gaol, too.

downtheroad

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122069256#Comment_122069256

Both of those venues are regularly used and full of tourists.

A huge difference to a church in 10 years time that has no priest and no "flock".

eightieschewbaccy

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122069272#Comment_122069272

I'd totally favour using such structures as venues or whatever else. Obliterating historical architectures that are notable is destroying history. Also plenty of them draw in tourists. Pretty sure there's no Western countries out there that will happily tear down historical landmarks for the sake of apartments.

downtheroad

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122069310#Comment_122069310

No tourist goes to a catholic church in Crumlin or Baldoyle, as 2 random examples

Princess Consuela Bananahammock

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122069272#Comment_122069272

Alernative uses were suggested by orher posters, doesn't have tonbe tourism

eightieschewbaccy

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122069337#Comment_122069337

And I'm guessing neither location currently has a church that's entirely disused. In the hypothetical scenario of it happening, event centers or whatever is an option. Also I'm doubtful Crumlin church would even be considered as historical, it's pretty modern fyi.

And also this is all assuming a scenario where the Church is actively getting rid of properties.

Question for you, would you favour replacing Cobh Cathedral or Saint Patrick's Cathedral or Whitefriar Streets Carmelite Church with apartments? They're all of immense historical value.

yagan

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122069256#Comment_122069256

You obviously had no gra for the churches around Dublin that have been demolished by their parishes in recent years to make way for parish housing.

Aside from a few notables like cathedrals most of the small and medium RCC churches around the counties built since catholic emancipation aren't really that notable. A lot of the CofI built in the previous century are just the one same plan, most notably those built under the Church of First Fruits plan.

If anything I feel that a lot, not all but a lot, of heritage objections during the bubble era were vexatious and as we are now aware may in some cases have been taken by profiteering professional objectors.

maik3n

I wouldn't be so sure about churches being sold off for housing but I can certainly envisage some Diocese selling off Parochial Houses or land that they own.

They will need to consolidate some parishes, so you might have 1 priest covering 3/4 churches and he can only stay in 1 residence, lol.

yagan

If we imagine that the RCC didn't get that 2002 abuses liability cap then they would have been forced to sell land where there was need for urban housing during the bubble era, rather than houses being built in commuter distances because that's where permission was easiest to obtain.

Hotblack Desiato

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122066906#Comment_122066906

In Dublin there were a good few monuments to McQuaid's ego, the aircraft hangar in Cappagh/Finglas and the one in Bird Avenue, Clonskeagh for example.

The former one could never be heated, had serious design defects, and has now been demolished and will be replaced with one one-tenth of the size (probably still too big tbh)

The latter was supposed to have been built following an architectural competition, McQ didn't like the winning entry so forced this extremely ugly yoke to be built instead. It must have cost an absolute fortune given that it's brick-built. But he clearly didn't care about the cost of the monuments to his ego (he built an observation tower in the grounds of his residence, which was in addition to the official archbishop's palace) or that such money could, in a much poorer Ireland, be put to far better use especially given that much of it came from those living close to poverty in the first feckin' place.

Almost all churches built in the 1960s and 1970s are awful, and would be missed by nobody if they were detonated.

Hotblack Desiato

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122068342#Comment_122068342

They have a hall alright, built and paid for by the community, the problem is that the RCC owns it and vetoes anything they don't like.

Almost all repurposed churches are CoI. The RCC maintains a death grip on churches. They're happy to sell off former convents etc. for vast sums. I used to live on a housing estate built on former convent lands in south county Dublin, they must have made an absolute fortune when they sold it, they kept a small proportion of the lands for the convent which in effect became a nursing home. This was in the mid 90s.

Mrs OBumble

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122072062#Comment_122072062

Almost all repurposed churches are CoI. The RCC maintains a death grip on churches.

Evidence suggests otherwise.

The one in Oranmore was Catholic : https://www.buildingsofireland.ie/buildings-search/building/30409508/oranmore-library-main-street-oran-more-oranmore-galway

The Dominican one in Drogheda was "the Dominican church" - I'm 99.9995% sure that means Catholic:

https://www.independent.ie/regionals/louth/drogheda-news/plan-to-transform-former-louth-church-into-public-library-boosted-by-3m-grant/a876121037.html

The current Limerick Museum was a Franciscian friary + church

https://limerickslife.com/franciscans-r-c/

The former St Joseph's in Belfast is used as a community space as part of a community regeneration (I have no personal experience of this one, but that's what the website says)

https://www.sailortownregeneration.com/

There's one in Ardee that was a furniture store in 2010

https://www.archiseek.com/2010/1829-former-catholic-church-ardee-co-louth/

There's a former pro-cathedral in Galway that now houses a range of shops (Protestant bookshop, shoe repairs, barber, phone-repair, tattoo parlour) and an office complex. No links for this one, but I walk past it most days, and I know people who went to Mass there when they were kids.

And that's with only a small bit of googling.

The RCC in Ireland knows full well that it does not need and cannot afford the maintenance on the buildings it has, and that it's sitting on a financial timebomb. We will see more churches deconsecrated and repurposed in various ways. There is plenty of international experience with this (though of course Ireland is loathe to learn from elsewhere!)

What we don't know is who now OWNS the buildings listed above. Is the church leasing them to the councils etc, or were they sold. If they were sold, what sort of price did they fetch? My guess is that at times it will be little more than the land value, because of the cost of repair and maintenance of old buildings.

yagan

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122072232#Comment_122072232

Some of those may have been RCC before the henrician reforms. Smithwicks brewery in Kilkenny traded as Francis abbey long after the last dedicated chapel there was suppressed by Cromwellians.

A lot of CofI sites could also be called RCC if applying an elastic timeline to the debate.

Generally it true that there were more Anglican, Methodist and Presbyterian premises being sold on whilst the RCC was building new churches in the suburbs from the 60s onwards.

osarusan

Scotland has seen loads of churches closing, and either just sitting derelict or being repurposed.

Oran Mor in Glasgow is an example of what can be done:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%92ran_M%C3%B3r

They can be converted into flats too:

https://www.the-gazette.co.uk/news/24163977.flats-sale-within-transformed-paisley-church/