Deanery Youth Ministry

The Deanery Youth ministry were set up early this year as a way for youth and young people to get involved in church events and masses. The Deanery we are part of consists of seven parishes namely Tullow, Rathvilly, Hacketstown, Ballon/Rathoe, Clonmore, Clonegal and Baltinglass. We are a group of eight members six from Baltinglass parish and two from Tullow parish. We meet regularly to brainstorm ideas of how we can encourage the youth into the church.

So that is where we came up with two ideas a Youth Folk Group and a Deanery Youth Club. We began with the Folk Group but could only muster up a few interested parties. So now we’re launching the Youth Club for 12 to 18 year olds. Where we will hope to meet once a week share scripture together while having fun and a bit of meditation too. It could be a prefect break in the week for young people. We will also be having themed nights like Pizza night or Karaoke night too.

We launched this with a youth mass and family fun day in the 9th of August in Baltinglass. The mass was totally organised by the young including the prayers of the faithful and the offertory procession. We had a collection of young people from our parish to sing for the celebration too. We had a very different selection of songs which we picked to represent the journey of a young person some included Garth Brookes’ The River and The Climb by Miley Cyrus. It was a truly special mass which Fr. Tommy celebrated and Fr. Sean and his friend Fr. Lauren concelebrated. After the mass we headed to the Tearmann garden for a bit of family fun. We had refreshments and the tea and coffee was donated by our Fairtrade town committee. We organised face painting for kids and also gave everyone the chance to win a goldfish. There were races for all ages, a Mammies race and a “Fathers” race which all sorts of Fathers took part (even reverent fathers). There was a penalty shoot out which saw the most competition of the day.

We were blessed with such a nice day and were very pleased that the highlight of the day could take place. This was of course the Splashy Board. Decorated with a hairy looking cave man Fr. Lauren was the first to take the stand. Everyone took the chance to throw the wet sponges and near the end of his turn we had our aims sorted. This is where Fr. Sean stepped in to take the blunt of the attack. The shots where coming in fast and furious and when it was getting close to the end of the bucket of water Fr. Dillon had a go. Mind you we did carefully choose his attackers!

It was a great day of fun for everyone. We would like to thank everyone who helped out on the day and who supported us. We would also like to thank Fr. Dillon and Fr. Sean for their help, guidance, encouragement and trust