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Taoiseach to attend Remembrance Day service in Enniskillen

 



The Taoiseach, Mr. Micheál Martin TD will be representing the Irish Government at the Remembrance Day Service in St. Macartin's Cathedral, Enniskillen.

This follows the tradition of his predecessors since 2012 in attending the service on Remembrance Sunday.

However, this year's Remembrance Day ceremonies across Fermanagh will be severely affected due to the restrictions imposed for Covid-19.

The Remembrance Service in St Macartin’s Cathedral, Enniskillen conducted by Dean Kenneth Hall on Sunday 8th November will begin at 11.15am in a very different format.

Seating in the Cathedral will be restricted to limited number of invited guests representing the VIPs, dignitaries and special guests, bugler and piper. The organisations; The British Legion, Royal Navy, Army, Royal Air Force, PSNI, FODC, UDR Association, St John’s Ambulance, Red Cross, Fire Service, RUCGC Association are restricted to sending one representative. A limited number of parishioners will be able to attend.

The preacher will be the Archbishop of Armagh and Primate of All Ireland, the Most Revd John McDowell.

The service will be streamed live on the Enniskillen Cathedral website, enniskillencathedral.com

Dean Hall welcoming the Taoiseach's visit, said it was a sign of outreach in the community in Fermanagh.

He said; 'The visit is held with great importance as it gives a visible expression to community connections here. Each year the Taoiseach comes to affirm us as a community, to reach out to us as a community, and to show sympathy and solidarity with a community that has suffered dreadfully at the hand of terrorism. Like the Queen, and the President he comes in friendship. It is a reaching out, wishing to reach past the barriers and suspicions that the years constructed.

'Martin Luther King, Jr, articulated that kind of separation when he said: ‘Men often hate each other because they fear each other; they fear each other because they don't know each other; they don't know each other because they cannot communicate; they cannot communicate because they are separated.’

'The Taoiseach, comes to meet us as we are, respecting the reality of Northern Ireland. His visit is a sign of the outreach that has been happening here, endorsing the friendships formed and kept over the years.'

The British Legion are organising the wreath laying at the Cenotaph in Enniskillen before the service in the Cathedral but the public have been advised to stay away to avoid gatherings.

In Irvinestown where there has been a traditional parade in the afternoon on Remembrance Sunday, the normal community service of Remembrance hosted by Derryvullen North Parish Church will not take place but an Act of Remembrance will take place instead.

In Brookeborough, the Service at the Cenotaph in Brookeborough will be a small service this year, with no hymns, no parade, or general involvement of the public, and instead a scaled back private service.



The Archbishop of Armagh the Most Revd John McDowell.