Donations would be sincerely welcome and may be made at any time to Our Lady’s Island Parish. If you would like to discuss giving a donation or making a legacy, in the first instance please contact Father Jim Cogley, PP., (see Contact Us page) or feel free to approach any of the Parish Finance Committee (see Parish Groups page)
Any donations made will be receipted and acknowledged wherever possible. Cheques may be made out to ‘Our Lady’s Island’
The financial demands of Our Lady’s Island parish (which includes St Catherine’s curacy at Tacumshane) are not insubstantial and are always present. We do not pretend that we are unique in needing money but where we do have differences with others is in the care, maintenance and protection of a very wide scope of heritage which includes the church as well as many other buildings in the parish, the environment of the Island and several graveyards, and last but not least , the administration and running of the annual Pilgrimage.
It is true that enormous quantities of voluntary time go into the everyday running of this parish and the holding of the annual Pilgrimage. Admirable as all this is, it is nonetheless a fact that money is always needed for planned and unplanned expenditure. The last two years, for instance, saw us having to address several unplanned projects.
Other Repairs
These are but two of the projects we have dealt with. We recognise that we need also to do something to preserve the twin bell cotes in the ruined churches at Churchtown, Carne ; at Churchtown, Tacumshane; at St Ivers, and at the church on the Island itself. We are not finished with the church windows either – many of those along the eastern, western and southern sides need attention. In order to properly protect the castle tower on the Island for the long term, we really need to roof this – needless to say, this is no small undertaking. Many visitors will also ask us about our leaning tower – reputedly one of two gate towers that stood on a curtain wall that overlooked a much narrower causeway onto the Island in the early Middle Ages. This has been recorded as being a leaning structure since at least the 18th Century but we need to make sure it does not lean any more – we need to measure and monitor this in case there is any chance of it moving. These are just the jobs that we know of today.
Conservation Plan
With the wide number of potential jobs that need doing, we decided in 2010 to commission a Conservation Plan (see the Conservation Plan page) that lists everything we are responsible for and what we might do to enhance the facilities, heritage and environment to the benefit of this community and our visitors. This also cost a great deal of money but without this Plan, we would have no order on the things we have to do or, more importantly, the prospect of arranging how we might get works to be done.
We fully recognise that we cannot get everything done right now but if we can bite off chunks each year, we’ll be doing well.
Donations would vastly improve our ability to protect our heritage and enhance our community – any help we can get to continue our work would be most sincerely welcome and appreciated.