Booklet and DVD marks 150th anniversary of St Anne’s church
By Aideen O'Flaherty
OVER 60 people attended the launch of a booklet and DVD marking the 150th Anniversary of the founding of St Anne’s Church in Bohernabreena on Sunday, with the materials cataloguing the experiences of people in the parish over the years.
The parish held a mass in St Anne’s Church last September, in recognition of it being 150 years since the blessing of the foundation stone of the church by Cardinal Paul Cullen in 1868, and shortly afterwards Roisin Alexander-Pye, Suzanne Jones and Fr Michael Hurley started collecting memories and stories from parishioners.
Shane Kenny, Martin Donaghue, Roisín Alexander-Pye, Deirdre Dee and Fr Michael Hurley at the launch on Sunday
In recent months, the stories and memories were gathered through interviews and written submissions, while videographers Martin Donaghy and Shane Kenny set about capturing footage of notable events in the church throughout the year to create the 150th Anniversary DVD of the parish.
Ms Alexander-Pye told The Echo: “We invited parishioners to tell us their stories and memories. It’s more than history or architecture, it’s more of a personal take on people participating in the community and how they’ve been linked with the church over the years.
“There’s a great breadth of experiences and stories being told, from all parts of the parish.”
These stories and memories are catalogued in the commemorative booklet, and are also a feature of the DVD – which is a collation of key events in the parish over the year, people sharing their memories and stories of the parish, and local schoolchildren are featured too.
“The atmosphere at the launch was very positive,” explained Ms Alexander-Pye. “People were delighted to see the fruits of their labour, and the kids were tickled pink to see themselves in the preview of the DVD that we had.
“We wanted to make the booklet a keepsake, something that people can look back on in years to come.”
When asked how she feels about these items becoming artefacts in part of the history of church, Ms Alexander-Pye said: “I think how we practice our faith is evolving, so things in 50 or 100 years could be very different.
“Now we have lay people who do the readings and who are Eucharistic ministers, and boys and girls can be altar servers.
Noirin Pye and Fr Piaras
“Who knows if we will have altar servers in years to come, so we thought it was important to document the experience of altar servers in 2018.”
Years from now, Ms Alexander-Pye hopes that the DVD and booklet will help people to understand how things were done “in the olden days”.
The full colour booklet costs €10, while the DVD costs €15, and anyone who’s interested in purchasing can contact the St Anne’s Parish Office on Wednesdays or Fridays between 10am and 12.30pm on 01 462 6893.
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