St Anne’s Shankill is one of two parishes in the Dublin archdiocese run by the Pallottine Fathers. The parish team is made up of Fr John O’Connor SAC as PP, assisted by Fr Michael O’Dwyer SAC, Fr Eamonn Monson SAC and Elaine Hogan, the parish pastoral worker.
Elaine says there are a number of parish groups servicing the community along with a busy resource centre managed by Melissa Tobin.
In terms of help and support the Bethany Bereavement Group provides support to those grieving the loss of a loved one, Equipes Notre-Dame is a movement to help married couples understand their vocation in marriage, and “we also have a support network for those who are separated, divorced or remarried”.
In the areas of prayer and faith development there is a Divine Mercy Prayer Group which meets in the Resource Centre to recite the Divine Mercy Chaplet once a month, a Faith Development Group provides parish-based programmes for adults and young people, there’s a Faith Friends for First Holy Communion and Confirmation children, a Family Mass Group which organises the 10.30am Mass on Sundays, a liturgy group and a prayer group that meets each Monday and Wednesday in the Resource Centre.
Courses
“We have a lot of different courses,” Elaine says. “At the moment, we’ve just finished The Big Picture– a book and a 12-week course based on Scripture. We’ve also done Life in the Eucharist and The Blessed Sacrament.”
There is also a parish pastoral council, a parish fundraising committee and St Anne’s Hospitality Group which provides light refreshments on special liturgical occasions.
The parish offers a programme for Transition Year students who are parishioners of St Anne’s and who attend secondary schools outside the parish. The aim of this programme is twofold: to offer a self-development programme to the teenagers based on the ‘7 Habits of Highly Effective Teens’, a confidence-building module, and secondly to maintain contact with young people who have to leave the parish for school and who may drift away from parish involvement. The course is run once a month from September to May by a trained member of the parish community.
S.A.G.E. (Shankill Action for a Greener Earth) was launched just last November and it seeks to raise awareness of the threats posed by climate change and to try to lower the carbon footprint within the area. SAGE is supported by a range of organisations within Shankill, including the three churches, the Tidy Towns Committee and Shankill Business Community.