CONGREGATIONAL STORY
A place of
sanctuary
William Hayes shares how Tullamore Presbyterian Church in Co Offaly – the first PCI congregation to receive a ‘Church of Sanctuary’ award – is helping to provide welcome and hospitality to refugees and asylum seekers in the town.
O
n the second Sunday in Advent in 2022 we had a very special service in Tullamore Presbyterian Church. Places of Sanctuary Ireland, an organisation that works to build a culture of welcome, hospitality and inclusiveness across the island of Ireland, presented us with a ‘Church of Sanctuary’ award. We were one of the first churches in Ireland to receive this award and the first Presbyterian Church on the island to do so. The service in which the award was given marked another step on what is now a 14-year journey for the congregation. Over that time, we have worked in Direct Provision centres, with government-led refugee resettlement programmes, families assisted by the Red Cross, informal refugees from the Libya conflict, Afghan families reunified under United Nations programmes and, most recently, families fleeing the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Our work with refugees and asylum seekers began in earnest in around 2009 when volunteers from the congregation started working in a nearby Direct Provision centre, helping families with young children to run a parent and
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Herald June 2023
toddler group. A Direct Provision centre is something akin to an open prison in which people who have applied for asylum in Ireland are assessed to see if their claim can be upheld and they can be granted ‘leave to remain’ in Ireland. These centres are often disused hotels and whole families share one room. If you have ever spent a week cooped up in a hotel room with an average-size family, you will have a small idea of the capacity for stress to build up in close quarters when that time goes from weeks to years. The parent and toddler group was something of a lifeline for young families, especially young mothers, and gave the children time to be children. After two years, the management of the Direct Provision centre received government funding to provide this facility on a daily
…we have only scratched the surface of the huge amount of work there is to be done here in Tullamore…
basis instead of the once a week that the church could offer. Consequently, we stepped back from the work but continued to help families on a one-to-one basis. This work set a pattern that would continue over the years in Tullamore Church. The congregation would see a need, they would respond and as the need would change or be taken over more formally by other bodies, the church would step back but continue to offer more traditional pastoral care. The most recent work in which congregation has been involved is what we have called the International Welcome Centre. It began in late 2013/early 2014, when the church was approached by Offaly County Council to be involved in a refugee resettlement programme for Hazara refugees from Afghanistan. The families had come to Ireland having originally fled to Syria. Our church’s role was to provide a meeting place every Thursday afternoon for the families to come together and meet Irish people from their own neighbourhoods. At the same time, ‘a good neighbour’ programme was started, involving people
