Philomena Neary sent us this update:
Our parish team are very engaged with promoting environmental issues in the parish and are actively working on encouraging parishioners to be aware of the environmental needs in our area and indeed in the church grounds and houses. We celebrate all the events in the Care for the Earth calendar such at Earth Day, Laudato Si week and Creation Time in September and conclude with the blessings of pets which is the highlight of the month.
The parish team attended the Dublin Diocesan conference held in November, 2023. Following this conference, biodiversity became our main focus and we engaged with the local ‘Connecting Cabra’ project who are funded by Dublin City Council for education and practical action in our area. With the help of this group, we had a biodiversity festival in May, 2024 where we had a prayer experience of the importance of caring for our common home, where we learned about the importance of insects, bats, swifts, various plants and shrubs that would improve our local wildlife.
Following this, swift and bat boxes have been placed on both churches. Part of the church grounds have been sectioned off for rewilding. Trees have been planted to mark various occasions such as the 90th anniversary of Christ the King Church and the 70th anniversary of Precious Blood Church and the golden jubilee of Fr. John Joe Spring.
Along with the schools we have created leaf moulding baskets, have sown wildflower seeds and crocuses marking the November month of remembering our deceased loved ones. The biggest venture was creating a pond in the church grounds of Precious Blood. The boys from the local school helped dig out the area and planted biodiversity plants. Eventually, after many attempts the pond retains water and to our delight, tadpoles from the local river placed in the pond became frogs!
‘Connecting Cabra’ had the official opening of the pond on Sunday 9th March with the cutting of the ribbon and a tree giveaway of 50 apple trees, a selection of soft fruit black, red, white current, gooseberry, rhubarb, strawberries, raspberries. Parishioners were delighted heading home with their apple trees and fruit bushes to plant in their gardens.
