100^th Anniversary of Bruree Church dedicated to the Immaculate Conception

December 7^th 2025

We are gathered here together in this lovely church to mark the 100^th anniversary of its dedication. We are on sacred ground. We know this area is linked in folklore with St. Patrick and St. Brigid, St. Senan and most especially, St. Munchin with the local well reminding us of him. There were churches in this area going way back to the Normans and beyond. Some of the ruins of the previous church are still to be seen in the village. That church was built three years after Ireland had won Catholic Emancipation, a church that Eamon De Valera, once an altar server there, described so fondly and in detail.

Bishop Hallinan stated in laying the foundation stone of this church that it was no doubt a great achievement for the forefathers and mothers of this parish to have erected that older church. But, as he said, “time has told on it; it is no longer suitable; it is even becoming dangerous, and when they come to Mass and to pray it is only right and proper that they should have a house suitable to God and comfortable likewise for themselves.” In reading this I was struck by the people’s ability some 100 years ago to move on. That’s a lesson they offer us for our time!

Today we are celebrating this church building influenced by medieval Romanesque architecture. We know it was thirty years in the planning and that there was much fund-raising and enthusiasm in its building and maintaining. Its foundation stone was laid on the Feast of the Immaculate Conception, December 8, 1922, just two days after the establishment of the Irish Free State and dedicated on 8 December 2025, one hundred years ago.

Above all today we give thanks for the many, many ancestors as well as their contemporary successors who have done so much to provide and maintain this lovely place. We think of Fr. Eugene Sheehy. He left in 1894 on a fundraising lecturing tour in the United States that was meant to last nine months but ended up nine years! We think of his successors, Fr. Gerald O’Connor and Fr. John Breen, who brought the plan to fruition. We remember the architect of this church, Samuel F. Hynes and the builder, Jeremiah J. Coffey, Midleton. We think of the many priests who have served here through decades and priests who hailed from this parish. We remember with gratitude benefactors and donors, known and anonymous, who provided for the upkeep of the Church as well as its beautiful décor, so recently enhanced by the Hodgkinson decorating firm – the stained-glass windows, the Crucifix, the statues, the Stations of the Cross... We think of the sacristans, those who worked to maintain and repair the church, the collectors, stewards, various ministers and altar servers, choir members and members of various organisations linked to the parish.

As we celebrate today, I want to suggest three points to help us.

This church building is a focal point of the village and is at the heart of the community. A building like this is a great symbol of the community. We know that in Irish the word for Church is “teach and phobail”, the People’s house. When this church was dedicated by Bishop Keane 60 years ago tomorrow, the sermon was preached by Fr. J. M. Cleary, a redemptorist from Limerick who took for his text “Behold the tabernacle of God with the human race, and He will dwell with them, and they shall be His people”. One of the great rediscoveries of the Second Vatican Council, whose conclusion 60 years ago also occurs tomorrow was to underline how the Church is first and foremost the People of God. That’s important. It’s not just a building we are celebrated.

Today is a chance to recognise again that we aren’t just saved as individuals. Our relationships matter. We go to God together. That’s what marks us out as Christians. We are the Body of Christ in a particular region, loving one another, supporting one another, maybe sometimes putting up with one another, but in all of this helping each other on our journey to heaven. The church building is a place that reminds us of this.

Reading through the history of the Church building and maintenance I was struck by the energy of the People of this parish. It can be seen, for instance, in the incredible creativity in fundraising. Apart from the generosity of people in the United States, here support was given to local fundraising in the form of concerts, bazaar and fete side shows which cinematograph displays, motor drives, shooting gallery, roulette. Among the initiatives I read about, there was a flag day in Limerick, a Cinderella dance and, of course, hurling matches were reliable and profitable fundraisers. Thank God for the fundraising but, even more, let’s thank God for the energy and creativity of our ancestors now gone to God.

A second point. This church building points people towards God. We are not just any people. We are the People of God. The church building is a reminder that, as Advent tells us, God is always coming to be with us. Pope Francis used to say we need to keep repeating: “Jesus Christ loves you; he gave his life to save you; and now he is living at your side every day to enlighten, strengthen and free you”. It’s what we all need to hear. We need to know there is a heaven above us, there is a God who loves us, one to whom we can appeal in times of joy and in times of sadness, in times of despair and in times of hope. “Jesus Christ loves you; he gave his life to save you; and now he is living at your side every day to enlighten, strengthen and free you”. 

So many people over the past 100 years have in some way felt God’s consoling presence in this building at Mass on Sundays and weekdays, or as they attended baptisms and weddings, First Holy Communion and Confirmation ceremonies and, of course, in those poignant moments of farewell to loved ones who left us for the next life, sometimes in very sad and tragic circumstances.

Yes, this building has proclaimed God is close. And down through the years, missions and retreats attracted capacity crowds to this church. We know a special retreat was held in Bruree church for the military stationed at Bruree House during the Emergency. Today too, let us be grateful that in times of sorrow or in times of joy, for most people the Church of the Immaculate Conception still remains a place of consolation and of celebration.

A third and final point. This Church is dedicated to the Immaculate Conception. As I’ve said, tomorrow is the 60^th anniversary of the conclusion of the Second Vatican Council. The last chapter of the document on the Church in that Council indicated that Mary is the model of the Church. If we want to understand who we are, we are to look to Mary, not just in terms of our devotions and prayers, but also in discovering our identity.

Mary, who was full of love (and that’s what the Immaculate Conception means) brought Jesus physically into the world. Now we are to continue Mary’s mission and bring Jesus spiritually into our world – into our families, our workplace, our neighbours. We do this by imitating Mary. She said, “nothing is impossible to God”. Mary was the new beginning of humanity, bringing the Light of Love into the darkness. Despite difficulties and setbacks that the Catholic Church has suffered in recent years, this Jubilee Year of Hope invites us to lift up our heads with renewed faith and believe God is still at work in our lives and in our parish.

God wants us to be like Mary and let him come on earth again through us. He wants to be present among us through the love for one another. He wants to build the Tabernacle of his presence not just that containing the Eucharist here in the church building, but the Tabernacle that we are as a community containing Christ among us. Each time we love one another, we are adding a solid brick to the building of the spiritual Church that we form together. We do our part. God does his. And nothing is impossible to him.

Dear Sisters and brothers, as we congratulate one another on this great day, let’s pray to the Holy Spirit that the zeal of past generations may also be found in us as we celebrate today in this Teach an Phobail, the People’s house dedicated to the Immaculate Conception, renewing our belief that with God, nothing is impossible.