Below you can read all about the reason & cost of the major undertaking. Our Parish church REMAINED OPEN during the roof reconstruction work. The reconstruction took place from 7th June 2005 until the end of November 2005.
The church reopened fully for the Saturday 6pm Vigil Mass on 4 December 2005.
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The work was completed and the church was fully open since 4th December 2005.
Below you can read the notices we posted during the reconstruction work and the reason
and cost of this major reconstruction work. Enjoy the memories.
Church Roof Reconstruction
Our Parish church WILL REMAIN OPEN during the roof reconstruction work.
The reconstruction is ongoing from 7th June 2005 until November 2005.
We apologise for any inconvenience during this time and we will do everything to lessen the inconvenience to you.
We appeal to you to stand by the parish in our hour of need.
Masses
Masses on weekdays (9.30am & 7.30pm) will be held in the oratory.
For the Saturday night Vigil Mass at 6pm and all Sunday Masses we will have the oratory and the side of the church facing the Tabernacle.
The altar will be in the oratory and there will be three TV Monitors and speakers placed along the partition that divides the oratory and the main church to enable you to follow the Mass.
The remainder of the church building will not be available during this time.
Entrance will be by two doors, the door at the Repository Shop and the main entrance door beside this.
Car Parking
The Car parking will NOT be affected during the reconstruction work.
Weddings and Funerals
Part of the inconvenience is that we cannot hold any Weddings or Funerals during this time. Some weddings have already moved to neighbouring parishes and the priests will officiate at them.
Regretfully, it will be the same arrangements for funerals unless they are small and the mourners can be accommodated in the oratory which has a capacity of 150 people..
We have taken a count of the numbers attending Mass during the past number of weeks and there will be adequate space available to accomodate everyone in the two section which will remain open.
We can accomodate approximately 450 between the oratory & the side which will remain open at the weekends.
We can assure you that everything will be done to lesson the inconvenience to our parishioners during this time.
Fr Battelle P.P. explained the reason for the reconstruction and the cost of the work.
After 33 years the consultants tell us that The church roof has to be replaced.
The reason why the church roof has to be replaced is because the original material was of copper felt and had a life of 15 years.
Our roof at present is turning into dust. The central dome has to be replaced and also the area over the altar and the water tank just situated above the altar burst about 5 years ago and they have to be replaced.
How much is it going to cost - It will cost €1.6 million which is a huge cost.
How long will it take to complete this work - it will take about 5/6 months. While most of the work is exterior there is a lot of interior scaffolding to go up.
So where are we going to have Mass in the meantime - We are going to have it in the church. we are allowed to use this one third area in front of the Tabernacle plus the oratory
on a Sunday. The remainder of the church will be partitioned off. We made a headcount silently over the past few weeks and the average attendance was 450 so we will fit into the church.
On weekdays only the oratory will be available for morning and evening Mass and visits. Our car parking will be the same as usual.
Work started on 7 June 2005. The weddings we were going to have already been transferred to other church's and during the 7 months we will only be able to have very small Funerals
unfortunately the remainder will have to take place in neighbouring churches and our Priest will of course attend them.
The good news is that we have €800,000 from the sale of
Canon Carey's house and the sale of a small portion of land to Dun Laoghaire Rathdown Council for housing for the elderly.
Where will we get the remaining one million euro - we have to borrow it.
How much will the repayments be - €8,000 per month over a ten year period.
Can we afford the repayments - No. So how will we repay the loan.
We are contributing about €40,000 per year to SHARE over the years and they will help us with our repayments.
We do not have the precise details yet but we would hope that we would get in the region of €5,000 to €6,000 per month.
How will we get the remainder of the monthly repayments -
We are collecting about €70,000 euro at present from the Standing Orders and the envelopes and about another €30,000 from the shrines around the church giving
us a total of about €100,000. What do we have to spend out of that, the running costs of the parish, the insurance alone is €11,000 plus light, heat, wages, stationery, maintenance, schools, altar supplies and telephones
and these came to about €100,000 last year which means we have very little room to manoeuvre. How will we tackle the problem - we are launching the Church Roof Fund and envelopes will be available and there will be two outdoors
collections per month after Mass.
Shortly we will have the new standing Order forms available and the new weekly envelope collections starting at the beginning of May and there are envelopes available in the Sacristy should anyone want some.
In the last 13 years we have spent €13,000 on the roof trying to save it but unfortunately it now has to be replaced or very serious damage will be done to the timbers that support the whole roof.
We appeal to you to stand by the parish in our hour of need. We will do everything to lessen the inconvenience to you.
We will have two church door collections per month and we also have envelopes available which are located around the church and you may take some with you.
Parishioners in Ballinteer have been extremely generous over the years supporting our Parish and we ask you again to give whatever you
can afford.
Thank you for your support during this time and we hope that you will continue to attend Mass at our parish church in Ballinteer during the reconstruction work.
Click here to see how much has been collected for the Roof Fund