Martina Purdy
A CELTIC Carol service in West Belfast has raised around £6,000 to feed hungry children.
Around 500 people filled St Michael the Archangel Church on behalf of Mary’s Meals for more than an hour of music from Ireland, and other Celtic nations.
The Celtic Carols by Candlelight was an initiative of Patrick Davey of Davey music and involved nine musicians as well as vocalists Róise Ní Mhurchú and Clare Galway who also played violin.
Marcas Ó Murchú, a woodwind flute player originally from Belfast who lives on the Derry-Donegal border, was narrator, describing the unique ways that Christmas traditions are honoured by the Celts.
Songs included The Wexford Carol, Oíche Chiúin (Silent Night in Irish), and The Dark Glens of McCance, an original composition by Patrick Davey, recalling the persecution of priests and Catholics in the Penal Times and the mass rock in Colin Glen Belfast
Four hundred candles were lit throughout the service.
Parish Priest Fr Ciarán Feeney described the evening as a “prayer and beautiful musical feast.”
Una O’Callaghan of Mary’s Meals, which works to feed and educate children in sixteen countries, paid tribute to Mr Davey and the musicians for sharing their talent and thanked the parish for its generosity.
“Fundraising really does make a lasting difference to the lives of the children that we feed, bringing them hope for a better future and showing them equality and love as fellow human beings.”
“Mary’s Meals is named after our blessed mother to reflect her song of joy so let us fill the starving with good things and send the rich away empty and may we all go home with empty pockets this evening!”
After learning that £5,628 had been raised in an hour, she told the crowd: “You have just fed 284 children for a full school year.”
Mr Davey said he was overwhelmed with the response. ‘It was just great to bring together a team of some of my closest musical friends and to share some of the most beautiful Celtic Christmas music and to perform it for such a good cause. So many people said to me afterwards that it was a chance to slow down and be still and escape the craziness of Christmas and that was the inspiration for the event.”
Before passing the collection around, he joked: “You don’t have to pay to get in but you have to pay to get out!”
Fr Feeney and Mr Davey, a parishioner of St Michaels’, now intend to make the event an annual one in the church.
Among the musicians were parishioner Grace Rainey on violin, Fionnuala Faga-Thiebot, who also played the violin, pianist Kathy McKeagney, and harpist Bronagh Rea.
Mr Davey played the uilleann pipes, flutes and whistles.
Fr Feeney thanked everyone on behalf of the Black Mountain Family of Parishes in West Belfast, which also includes St Agnes, St Teresa of Avail, Holy Spirit, St Matthias’, St Joseph’s and St Peter’s Hannahstown, St Oliver Plunkett, and Holy Trinity.
