Featured Stories from Ireland/Northern Ireland

BELFAST — Inioluwa Olaosebikan, a 17-year-old immigrant from Nigeria, sits on the Belfast City Council where she advises the city on diversity and education for young people. She is one of the 25 young people from communities across Belfast shaping the council’s agenda. She also teaches young children coding and other computer and life skills.…

DUBLIN – For the last several decades, the Catholic Church of Ireland has been losing its followers at a rapid pace. Historically, the percentage of Catholics in Ireland has been among one of the highest of European countries. But between 2006 and 2022 the percentage of the Irish population that self-identifies as Catholic dropped from…

BELFAST, Northern Ireland — Yousif Alshewaili, a 24-year-old Muslim who fled his native Iraq (pictured above), was recently granted asylum status in Northern Ireland. He is thankful for the reception he has received in his new country but says that it often comes with strings attached. “People are super nice,” he said in a recent interview,…

DUBLIN — Nestled behind a South Asian restaurant, a hookah lounge and a tire repair shop is home to one of Ireland’s preeminent mosques: The Al-Mustafa Islamic Center. In March, on the first Jummah (Friday worship day) of Ramadan, hundreds of Muslim worshippers filed into the mosque, swapping their shoes for flip flops as they…

BLACKROCK, Ireland — On a cold, damp March afternoon, a bright orange door sat open, welcoming passers-by to the Methodist church in suburban Dublin. But Urban Junction, as the building is called, wasn’t being used for a Methodist service. A handful of people were filtering into the church, located at 42 Main St., Blackrock, County…

DUBLIN – James Cadden, who runs a comedy show at Ha’penny Bridge Inn in Dublin, was an altar boy in his childhood Catholic church in County Monaghan. Now, he spends a good chunk of his time on stage telling jokes about religion. “What do you call someone who doesn’t believe in God?” he asked at…

LONDONDERRY, Northern Ireland — Christine Cowley still remembers what it felt like to lose her first love. She was just 19 when the young man she loved, Colm Keenan, was killed by a British army patrol in this divided city. But for more than 50 years, she’s kept that part of her life secret. “One…

DUBLIN — Kneeling down on the ground, Palestinian journalist Samia Alatrash wrapped her arms around the lifeless body of her two-year-old niece Masa. Israel’s bombing of Rafah in southern Gaza had killed Masa, her four-year-old sister Lina, and both their parents — in one day. October 21, 2023. As images of Samia hugging the tiny…

DUBLIN — On an overcast January afternoon in Kildare, Ireland, Úna-Minh Kavanagh, a journalist, married Pádhraic O’Hanrahan, a math lecturer, in a short but sweet wedding ceremony by green fields in the outskirts of town. Gathered at the on-site chapel of the Clanard Court Hotel, about an hour’s drive from Dublin, Kavanagh stood in a…

DUBLIN — A recent Youth Mass at St. Mary’s Pro-Cathedral in Dublin started with a song that seemed to fit better in an evangelical worship service than among the Catholic rituals. A five-piece band led the congregation in an upbeat version of “Blessed be the name of the Lord, Blessed be Your Name.” The next…

BELFAST, Northern Ireland — The walls that separate the Catholic and Protestant neighborhoods of this Northern Irish city are officially known as the Peace Walls, not so much because they are peaceful places but because they have historically helped keep the peace in a divided city. Muralists have used these walls as a canvas to…

LONDONDERRY, Northern Ireland (RNS) — On a cloudy fall day in 2021, about 100 people were praying in Derry’s only Sikh temple when smoke suddenly choked the prayer hall. Worshippers covered their mouths and noses and ran outdoors as flames consumed each room. Amerjit Singh, the president of the Northern Ireland Sikh Association, made sure…

DUBLIN (RNS) — The Islamic Cultural Centre of Ireland was decorated with festive lights on the inside and outside as Ali Selim was getting ready for the morning prayers on Wednesday (April 10), to celebrate the Muslim holy day of Eid al-Fitr. In the corners of the center, stations with sweets and tea and coffee…

SAUL, Northern Ireland — Divisions along religious lines were heavy on the mind of Georgina Magine as she joined about 150 others for a drizzly prayer pilgrimage in County Down on the eve of St. Patrick’s Day. “We’re all divided in Northern Ireland, but we all claim St. Patrick,” said Magine, a first-timer at the…

DUBLIN (RNS) — At a Mass said in Latin on Sunday (March 10), Ireland’s traditional Catholics declared political victory, days after a pair of referendums aimed at secularizing the Irish Constitution were unexpectedly and resoundingly defeated. On Friday, the Irish government put two measures to a vote that would have extended the rights of unmarried…