Level 3 Covid-19 Restrictions announcement, 6th October 2020

As announced by the government, at midnight on Tuesday 6th October 2020 (i.e. morning of Wednesday), the whole country will move to Level 3 of the ‘Plan for Living with COVID-19’ for a period of three weeks. Sadly, this means that for the duration that level 3 is in place, Church services will have to move to online only, without the congregation, and funerals and weddings will be limited to 25 people. Places of worship will be allowed to remain open for private prayer, so St Joseph’s Church in Kinvara and St Colman’s Church in Ballinderreen will be open during the day for personal prayer, observing the requirements about distancing, etc. Mass will be live-streamed on the Ballinderreen and Kinvara Parishes Facebook page on Sundays at 10.30am, and on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Thursdays and Fridays at 7.00pm. (The Mass intentions booked for the Sunday 9am and 12 noon Masses will be combined into the 10.30am Mass, but if you wish to arrange differently, or, for Sunday or weekday Masses, if you prefer to postpone a booking until you can be present in person at the Mass, please contact the Parish Office by telephone 086 85 77 644.)

Therefore, 6pm Adoration and 7pm Mass in Ballinderreen Church this evening, Tuesday 6th October 2020, will be our last public gathering in Church until the level 3 restrictions end.

Any further guidance from the Church or public authorities relevant to our situation will be announced here too as they arise.

Let’s all continue to cooperate in keeping everybody in the community safe. Thank you to our wonderful stewarding and sanitising volunteers who have worked so hard in these weeks to make our Churches very safe so that we could celebrate Mass publicly. Hopefully, you can get a good rest during these weeks, and it would be great if more volunteers would come forward now so as to spread the task fairly. Please contact Fr Hugh, or Catherine at the parish office telephone line or by email, to volunteer.

We continue our prayers to God that the COVID-19 virus may be brought to an end and we ask his protection on everybody in our community, in our country, and in the world.