Franciscans to sever 700-year link with town

A SHARP decline in religious vocations is set to sever the Franciscan Order’s 700-year link with the south Tipperary town of Carrick-On-Suir.

The Friars will announce their departure date within the next two months, while the order is also planning to take its leave from neighbouring Clonmel before the end of 2008. The Friary Church building in Carrick-On-Suir is to be donated to the Respond Housing Association, which is promising to do its utmost to preserve the artifacts, including the stained glass windows.

That decision has been lauded by the town’s mayor, Syliva Cooney-Sheehan, who said it reflects what the Franciscans are all about.

The order says its decision to leave Carrick-On-Suir, where it has had an uninterrupted presence since 1306, is a “very painful experience”.

The Franciscans Minister Provincial, Fr Caoimhín Ó Laoide, said they desperately want to stay everywhere they have a presence but their age and health profiles are working against them.

In a statement the order says it cannot sustain the commitments they were able to manage with ease when they were 400 strong and had plenty of vocations.

“We don’t know what the future holds, any more than did our confreres who left here in earlier centuries, thinking perhaps that they were writing the final page of Carrick-On-Suir’s Franciscan history. We must entrust the future to God.”

The statement says the Friars are not going to benefit financially from their departure because the people of Carrick-On-Suir had been their benefactors, and everything they have had was given to them by the community.

“We want to return what has been entrusted to us, and we desire to do so in a way that will best honour the values we have learned from St. Francis and benefit those most in need in the community”, the statement continues. “The diocese of Waterford and Lismore was offered the property but did not feel able to accept it.”

The Friars say that as a consequence they decided to give the friary to Respond, which has to date supported housing for more than 700 elderly people nationwide. They were confident, their statement added, that Respond will use the friary for similar accommodation for the people of the town.

Sylvia Cooney-Sheehan said she is very saddened that such a long established institution is about to come to an end in the town and the departure of the Friars truly will mark the end of an era.

“The Friars have been there with us when times were tough and when people needed them. They have always been extremely accommodating they were never intrusive, and relied on the charity of the townspeople.”

She said it is a reflection of the times that something that was really good had ceased to be of need and it showed people’s concept of religion has changed.