The parish priest of St Patrick’s Church in Wicklow which was damaged
by fire yesterday, said that Christmas would happen nonetheless, and an
army of helpers were going to try to get the church up and running for
the weekend masses and most importantly for Christmas day.Fr Donal Roche praised the fire services for their quick reaction to the alarm call which stopped the fire taking hold in the entire church. Two units of Wicklow fire service were present at the scene within minutes, and extinguished the fire which started in the Christmas crib.
Two caretakers were putting the finishing touches to the crib around 2.00pm yesterday and left the church for a short time.
When they returned to the church just minutes later, the straw in the crib was on fire.
They immediately alerted parish priest, Fr Donal Roche and the fire services.
“I didn’t believe it, when they told me,” Fr Roche told catholicireland.net. He said the gardaí were looking at CCTV footage from the church and suspected the fire had been set on purpose.
St Patrick’s church is open all the time during the day.
The blaze destroyed the one hundred year old plaster figures in the crib, burnt the wall behind the Christmas scene, and destroyed a window.
The rest of the church has suffered smoke and water damage.
“There is a lot of smoke damage,” said Fr Roche.
He described the occurrence of the fire as “unfortunate” but said that industrial cleaners and “an army of helpers” were to descend on the church today to clean it and he was hopeful that they would be able to use it for the weekend masses, and Christmas ceremonies.
Fr Roche said that people had been very generous with offers of help, and there was a tremendous outpouring of sympathy and goodwill over the fire.
“Christmas will happen!” he added.
St Patrick’s church is the main Catholic church in Wicklow town and dates back to the 1840s.