Dublin parish ‘takes the plunge’ and moves to solar

A Dublin parish that has recently “taken the plunge” and made the move to solar has hailed the move to more sustainable practices not only for the practical energy and cost reduction benefits, but also because they’re directly responding to the call of the Pope and seeing it as their Christian duty.

Speaking to The Irish Catholic, parishioner of St Pappin’s Parish Ballymun Dara Moore said that “churches are closing down and I don’t think any church should close down for any reason … they’re struggling with costs. I ended up working for a solar company. I started work on the churches and started to quote them.

“The first man to take the plunge was Fr John in Ballymun, who runs three churches. He has given us the go ahead to do the solar so we installed the solar in the pastoral centre. We have it on the roof of St Joseph’s and we’re about to do the other two churches. The church can now partially eliminate their ESB bills from what we’ve done and it helps keep the church up and running, which is a great thing.”

Fr John Dunphy, Parish Priest of St Pappin’s Parish in Ballymun said that the recent moves to renewable forms of energy are underpinned by the parish’s desire to be more eco-friendly, a move that has seen the parish recognised for its commitment to the environment.

“We’re trying to be more eco-friendly,” he said. “We have a care for the earth group in the parish and we’re trying to look at sustainability and reducing our energy use and costs, particularly the harmful fuels.

“Our care for the earth group really came out of Laudato Si. The group are part of the Eco-Congregation and meet regularly and try to have initiatives. We’re actually involved in mentoring another parish to get involved in the Eco-Congregation award – we’re currently on a silver award and will be going for a gold award.”