WHILE THE church is often accused of failing to move with the times, St Aidan’s Cathedral can be said to have taken huge steps into the modern age after it was announced last week that they would now be streaming mass live online for those unable to attend.
In recent weeks the decision was taken by the Parish Finance Committee to invest in webcams for the church and, after being installed, the cameras went live four weeks ago and have earned some wonderful feedback.
“Webcams in churches are a lot more common these days,” said Fr Odhrán Furlong. “We had a lot of people ringing up asking about them, particularly when it came to funerals and things like that.”
For important occasions like weddings and funerals, the webcams mean that relatives that have emigrated and couldn’t be there for the service can really feel part of the ceremony.
“Just last week we had a funeral for a lady where all her grand-kids were there bar one,” said Fr Billy Swan. “This person had emigrated to Australia, but they were able to look in on the service online from where they were. They also forwarded on a little remembrance piece about their grandmother which was read out at the start of the mass. Really it makes use of modern technology to connect parishioners all over the world.”
Looking over the figures for the first month, Fr Furlong says that over 3,000 people have tuned into services in the Cathedral from all over world. Among the countries making up an impressive list of where viewers hail from were Australia, Belgium, India, America, Trinidad, Spain and many, many more.
“It’s not just for people who are overseas either,” said Fr Furlong. “We have many parishioners here within the parish who are housebound and it’s a great service for them. Their relatives set them up with laptops or tablets and they can tune into mass from home.”
So far, the scheme has received wonderful feedback from all over the world.
“We’re getting great feedback,” said Fr Furlong. “We find we’re getting emails from people across the world saying ‘I really enjoyed the service’ or we get a lot of emails about how wonderful the Cathedral looks as well. It’s a great facility to have.”
In order to view the live feed to St Aidan’s Cathedral, you can visit www.churchservices.tv/enniscorthycathedral or visit the St Aidan’s Parish website where there is a direct link.
People are now able to tune into services at St Aidan’s Cathedral from all over the world. Pic: John Walsh