One Hundred Years with the Clonard Redemptorists

In 1896 the Redemptorist monks were invited to assist in ministering to the large numbers of Catholics pouring into the thriving industrial city of Belfast in search of work. They were now able to pursue their primary vocation of preaching the Good News to those most in need. In an age of devotional Catholicism, they successfully developed and nurtured confraternities, novenas, and a wide range of popular religious services. Its location on the Falls/Shankill frontier ensured that it experience sectarian strife first hand, from the early 1920s right up to the major outbreak of violence in 1969. Regardless of the devastation they suffered because of the Troubles, they established a compassionate apostolate of mediation and reconciliation that became widely acknowledged and respected. James Grant grew up in the Falls Road area and has taught history on the secondary level.