Mayo parish ‘stonewalled at every turn’ in fight to retain resident PP

THE LATEST efforts by representatives of Straide for the Bishop of Achrony to reverse the decision to remove their resident parish priest have been ‘stonewalled at every turn’, a public meeting was told.

It has been over a month since Bishop Paul Dempsey broke the news at a Mass in St. Peter and Paul Church that Fr. Stephen O’Mahony, the parish priest in Bohola, will also serve the parishioners of Straide from September. Current Straide parish priest Fr. Martin Convey will be transferred to Collooney, Co. Sligo, and the lack of communication over the announcement caused anger and shock among locals.

Another large crowd gathered at St. Peter and Paul Church for a third public meeting as representatives met with parishioners to speak about the recent meeting they had on August 11 with Bishop Paul Dempsey and Fr. Dermot Meehan, vicar general and parish priest of Swinford.

The meeting in question relayed the concerns and solutions offered by the parishioners of the Straide parish.

A number of presentations were made by each of the representatives to the bishop and VG detailing what the parish has done over the past number of years, from funding costs for repair work and developments inside and outside the church, to Straide winning Pride of Place in 2019.

There were also three options put to the bishop and VG.

They included implementing a pilot programme of a family of parishes similar to a programme used in Cork to help with the running of the church in Straide; for Fr. Martin to remain as PP of Straide or to recruit a priest from outside Ireland.

All options and presentations at the meeting, which lasted two hours and 20 minutes, were met with no response from the bishop and VG.

Another offer for the bishop to come to meet the parishioners of Straide - which the bishop said in the media previously that he would do so - was met with no reply while an offer to take a priest out of a school and place him as the PP of Straide was also rejected.

“Every offer was rejected, they weren’t interested in listening to us,” one representative revealed afterwards.

Suggestions of a silent protest at last weekend’s Mass did not have universal approval, with the majority agreeing to continue highlighting their plight with the media, including at national level.