Weekend: Windgap: Saturday, 7.30 pm. Tullahought: Sunday, 10 am.
Weekdays: Masses at usual times (except in the event of a funeral).
Windgap:
Readers: July: 2, Marie Browne; 9, Larry O’Shea; 16, Ann Foley; 23, Heather O’Brien; 30, Sylvia Culleton.
Eucharistic Ministers: July: 2, Joan Waters; 9, Liz Jackson; 16, Bridget Comerford; 23, Catherine Meagher; 30, Ann O’Shea; August: 6, Breda O’Shea.
Collectors for July: Richie Barry, Billy Brophy.
Tullahought: Eucharistic Ministers: July: 3, Eileen Grace; 10, Leo Conalty; 17, Patricia Power.
Youth 2000 Summer Festival: Cistercian College, Roscrea, 7-10 July - a 4 day celebration of faith for young people aged 16-35 with a programme of talks, workshops, testimonies, prayer, music, drama & much more. The festival is donation only. Free buses available from all around Ireland. To book online, see www.youth2000.ie or phone 01 6753690.
World Youth Day 2016: Krakow, 25-31 July. Young people over the age of 18, wishing to take part with Pope Francis in this pilgrimage to the homeland of Pope John Paul II should contact Fr. Richard Scriven [087 2420033 or inistioge@ossory.ie or wyd@ossory.ie or rscriven2009@gmail.com] or Derek Dooley (087 938 4242).
Callan Heritage Society bus outing, Saturday 9th of July, to Curraghmore House and Gardens, Portlaw. Lunch will be served at the Granville Hotel, Waterford. Tour of Copper Coast. Bus leaves from outside Parish Church at 8.30 AM. A further bus tour to Kilmainham Jail, Dublin is being organised for Saturday, 10th of September.
Mount Carmel, Callan, appeals for support for the annual draw (€20 for full year for 12 draws). Mount Carmel is seeking a promoter in Windgap who would be willing to lend a hand. If you feel you can help, please call Mount Carmel (0567725301) or Elaine in Callan Post Office (056772523).
Fraochán Sunday on Tory Hill: The South Kilkenny Historical Society will join local and others on Sunday 10 July (Fraochán Sunday) on the summit of Tory Hill. Meeting time and place is 1.45pm at Mullinavat church car park. Climbing Tory Hill on Fraochán Sunday is an ancient tradition associated with the ancient festival of Lughnasa. Some light refreshments will be served and it is hoped that the tradition of picking fraocháns will also take place. Canon Carrigan, in The History and Antiquities of the Diocese of Ossory describes Fraochán Sunday on Tory Hill as 'an assemblage of the youth of the neighbourhood to pull the whorts or frocchans, and otherwise amuse themselves'.
June Collection: Many thanks for the June envelopes for the support of the clergy.
Cathedral Restoration Fund – Fr John Lalor, PP Camross, is having a ‘dog-night’ in Kilkenny greyhound track on 12 August in aid of St. Mary’s Cathedral.
Curates of Windgap: Andrew Walsh was a native of Kilminick, Thomastown, born in 1813. He was a student of Burrell’s Hall from 1832 to 1838 and studied in the seminary in Birchfield from 1838 probably to 1843 or 1844 when he was ordained priest. His first appointment was as CC Mooncoin, 1844-45 where he was the third priest in the parish and was assisting the curate. He served as curate in Windgap from June 1845 to August 1850. Towards the end of his time in Windgap the Callan Tenant Protection Society was formed in Callan with the aims of reducing rents or obtaining fair rents, securing tenant rights, including compensation for improvements, and the creation of employment for labourers. The Society held a meeting in Windgap two months later in December 1849. Windgap was chosen because it could bring together tenant farmers from Waterford, Tipperary and Kilkenny and enrol new members. The Nation newspaper reported that between 15,000 & 20,000 were present, amongst whom was a large number of ladies who filled the windows of the street facing the place of meeting. The chair was taken by Richard Murray.
Fr Walsh proposed the first resolution: "Resolved: That the high rental of this country, founded upon war prices, and hitherto maintained by protective duties and the unnatural competition for land arising from the extinction of all other menus of subsistence, is now, with protection abolished and the capital of the farmer exhausted by a series of adverse seasons, excessive and intolerable, and if upheld must speedily eventuate in the ruin of proprietor and occupier by the discouragement of employment and the consequent impoverishment, of the soil, the entire of which will be absorbed in the maintenance of the unemployed poor, leaving nothing to landlord or tenant." Mr. Patrick Cody, T.C., seconded the resolution. A resolution was also moved by the parish priest of Windgap, Fr Thomas Moylan. The Callan curates Matthew Keeffe and Tom O’Shea, the founders of the Callan Tenant Protection Society, also spoke at the meeting, the latter giving a rousing speech in which he appealed to all the tenant farmers to join the Society (The Nation, 22 Dec. 1849).
Fr Walsh was appointed curate in Dunnamaggin in August 1850 and was appointed to Muckalee in 1854, living in Ballyfoyle (1854 – 1870). While in Ballyfoyle he began the building of the present chapel about 1861. Mass was first celebrated in the chapel five years later. Fr Walsh retired from the parish in 1870 after a gun wound to the hand and died on 16 April 1873 aged 60 years. He is buried in the churchyard in Thomastown where there is a monument in his memory.
Mass in Slatequarries 21 July 7.30
Mass in Killamery Cemetery 3 August 7.30
Mass in Tullahought Graveyard 4 August 7.30
Mass in Windgap Graveyard 5 August 7.30