It seems that even the church heads for the beach when the Irish weather hots up. Clonea beach, near Dungarvan, Co Waterford, fills to capacity the minute the sun shines as do the caravan parks.
It is as if a small town, with a population of a few thousand, springs up out of nowhere.
On the Bank Holiday weekend just past, the first mass of the summer season was held in Clonea.
The nearest church, St Laurence’s in Ballinroad, is not adjacent to the beach and does not have the capacity for the crowds. So Fr Richard Doherty, who was the parish priest in 1992, had the idea of bringing the mass to the beach.
A room was provided by Anne and John McGrath at Clonea Strand Hotel, and parking by Dan Casey at the caravan site. Now during the peak summer season the vigil mass is celebrated there at six o clock.
“Some are coming up from the beach at that time, and they drop in. They are superb, the respect they have. They want to be there and they respect the mass,” Fr Doherty tells ciNews.
“The same families keep coming back for holidays every year - from Cork. Tipperary, Dublin and Laois, and I know many of them at this stage.”
These regulars, who had been a familiar sight at local mass in the Parish of Abbeyside, Ballinroad and Garranbane, are delighted to avail of the vigil mass, and some even go again on Sunday. Families with young children like the vigil great as they do not have to mobilize everyone to travel a distance to mass.
Local people from the countryside around are also regular attendees. One local family even walk across the beach to get to mass.
There is a vigil mass on the June bank holiday and then during all of July and August. At the peak times there can be up to 500 attending.
The mass usually lasts half an hour, with readers coming from the congregation, introducing themselves and saying where they are from.
Music is a regular feature of the mass too, all of which builds the beach side community.
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