Columban missionary, Fr Pat Colgan, who is a member of the Dublin City Interfaith Forum, writes about the recent gathering in Dublin which brought together representatives of the major faiths in Ireland and Britain and concluded with a visit to Dalgan.
On 24th September 2024, a group of 17 faith leaders from the cities of Birmingham, Edinburgh and London arrived at Dublin Airport and were brought by special Garda escort to the Mansion House, official residence of the Lord Mayor of Dublin.
They were in Ireland to take part in a symposium titled, ‘Building Peaceful and Resilient Communities in Our Cities’.
At the Mansion House they were joined by colleagues from the Dublin City, Northern Ireland and Midwest Interfaith Forums, the Irish Humanist Association, Garda Community Policing Officers, academics, an Anglican group from Co Mayo, and children and teachers from the High School in Rathgar.
The genesis of this meeting was a visit by some members of the Dublin City Interfaith Forum (DCIF) to Birmingham in February 2024 to see the work done by Columbans there in the area of interfaith dialogue.
Dublin experienced its first major riots in decades on 23rd November 2023 – St Columban’s Day – linked to the rise of anti-immigration groups.
Britain was later rocked by unrest following the stabbing of three young girls attending a Taylor Swift themed dance class in Stockport, Liverpool, on 29th July 2024.
This violence in Britain was falsely blamed on Muslim immigrants (but the assailant was in fact a naturalised, non-Muslim British citizen of Rwandan origin. Social media disinformation stoked unrest all over the UK, including in Northern Ireland.
At the conference in Dublin, we heard stories from Belfast-based Muslim academic Dr Naomi Green about the relentless and continuing, often unreported, attacks on Muslim businesses and houses.
Dr Johnson McMaster of the Irish School of Ecumenics at Trinity College Dublin told the seminar: “I have since heard comments from many otherwise middle class and ‘respectable’ people such as: ‘Perhaps these rioters have a point’; ‘Immigration has gone too far, it needs to be controlled’; ‘Christianity is under siege in our islands’; ‘These people [sic] are clogging up our hospitals and schools’. These sentiments, I contend, are equally destructive to social cohesion, and give tacit, if unintended, ammunition to more violent and/or malignant actors.”
Other academics who addressed the meeting stressed the need for civic education, myth-busting, reining in the power of social media, rediscovery and loud visible proclamations of what our values in Europe in fact are.
Mahmooda Qureshi of the Faith and Belief Forum in Birmingham shared: “I have never before seen such tension among people of faith, largely due to recent international events, and I have had to turn to friends of other faiths for advice, because I simply don’t know what to do… I do see hope, and that hope comes precisely from people like us, trying to being honest and loving with each other – these ripples can and will change the world.”
In his words of welcome, Dublin’s Lord Mayor, Cllr James Geoghegan said that due to migration, “our hospitals run better, our universities have been enriched, communities have extended their expertise, and we want to make sure that Ireland, and its capital, continue to be centres of welcome. When migrants arrive in a new country, they automatically look for their place of worship, as an oasis of friendship and safety…. your event today is of immeasurable importance to this, and all modern cities, and I wish you every success.”
The next day, our Birmingham visitors were welcomed in four worship centres across south Dublin, namely: the Ahlul Bayt Islamic Centre (Al Hussain House); the Islamic Cultural Centre of Ireland – Clonskeagh; Gurdwara Guru Nanak Darbar; and finally the Progressive Jewish Synagogue.
Hilary Abrahams, a member of the Dublin City Interfaith Forum, explaining the Torah scroll to members of the Birmingham and Dublin City Interfaith groups, during their visit to the Dublin Progressive Synagogue.
In each place the religious leader spoke of the challenges and hopes of their respective communities.
A repeated theme was that, despite the rapid rise of ‘Far Right’ ideology in Ireland, relationships on the ground are still largely both intact and good.
Since Islam, in particular, is experiencing a phenomenal growth rate (from 3,000 to 100,000 in three decades) in Ireland, their leaders have put much emphasis on engaging with local communities and the Gardaí on matters of mutual concern, such as parking, making spaces available for vaccination, shared sports, and education.
On the final day of their trip, the visitors came to Dalgan Park, headquarters of the Columban missionaries in Ireland.
Guided by ecologist, Elizabeth McArdle, we spent some time outside in the grounds of Dalgan appreciating (in the rain!) the Dalgan oak grove, the holly and ragwort plants and paying a visit to our two donkeys!
We then heard from two Birmingham-based Muslim members of the genesis and contents of Al Mizan (A Covenant for the Earth), launched in Nairobi in February 2024, which has been called the ‘Islamic Laudato Si’.
We also had reflections from the Hindu and Bahai traditions before our guests had to depart for return flights to Birmingham and elsewhere.
There was a strong sense that participants did not want these three days to be simply become a ‘pleasant memory’ but a stimulus for common action going forward.
Al Mizan quotes the Quran (Surah Ah-Rum 41): “Corruption has spread on land and sea as a result of what people’s hands have done, so that Allah may cause them to taste ˹the consequences of˺ some of their deeds and perhaps they might return to the Right Path.”
Therefore, there is still time to repent, to restore and renew creation, if we do it wholeheartedly and together.
For more information about the Columbans’ work in Interfaith Dialogue see: https://columbanird.org/
For more information about the Dublin City Interfaith Forum see: https://www.dcif.ie/