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Society of St Vincent de Paul

Northern Regional Office

196-200 Antrim Road

Belfast

BT15 2AJ

Tel: 02890-351561

Fax: 02890-740522

Email: info@svpni.co.uk

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Reg. Charity XN45800

The fiftieth anniversary of the founding of St Anne's conference in Dunmurry (on the outskirts of West Belfast) was celebrated with a special concelebrated mass and reunion of members on 21st October 2005.

 

Mass was celebrated by Very Rev Fr Edward O'Donnell PP, current spiritual advisor of the conference and he was assisted by Rt Rev Dean Brendan McGee CC (founder member and first spiritual advisor), Rt Rev Monsignor Thomas Bartlett (former spiritual advisor) and Rev Fr Patrick Winkle.

 

Over 80 members (past and present), with family, friends and guests - some of whom travelled from various parts of Ireland and Scotland - took part in the celebration and following Mass there was a very enjoyable reunion and social evening at Dunmurry golf club.

 


Jubilee Crest

A Brief History

 

The conference was founded in late 1955 and was aggregated into the Society General in Paris on 15th December 1960. There were eight founding members led by Fr Brendan McGee and the first president was William McCarthy.

 


St Anne's Church Dunmurry today

 

 

 

A minute of a meeting held on 29th April 1956, the earliest record available, records that a Minute Book; Attendance Record Book, a Treasurer's Record and a Collection Box were received from the Society's Down & Connor headquarters in St Mary's Hall, Bank Street, Belfast for use by the conference some months earlier.

 

On 12th June 1956, a meeting of the Particular Council of Belfast extended a warm welcome to Bro J McDermott as the representative of the new conference of St Anne at 'Rathmore'.

 

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click on image above to enlarge


Growing Strength

St Anne's conferences has gone from strength to strength since those early days and today's conference has seventeen members. Two members assist a neighbouring conference where there is a considerable workload.

 

Moment of Celebration
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(Front L-R) Rt Rev Dean Brendan McGee, Eileen Copeland, Joseph McKenna (Vice President), Terry Lacey, Rt Rev Mon Thomas Bartlett.

(Back Row L-R) Carol Downey (Secretary), Ray Brady, Jack Boyle, Nan McCormick (Treasurer), Rosemary McLaughlin, Michael Rafferty, Thomas Ward and Anne Lacey.

 

(Three long serving members John Dunne, James Leeson and Kathleen Cunningham were unable to attend the celebration due to illness.)

 

 

Varied

The core work of the Society, seeking out need in the community, has continued from the beginnings of the conference and today the members are engaged in a varied range of activities; home visitation, hospital visitation and the visitation of residential nursing homes.

The conference, through its fundraising, gives assistance to the 'Welcome Centre' for homeless people in the inner city and also lends support to the Breakfast & Afterschool projects in West Belfast.

 

"We celebrate 50 years of St Anne's conference with joy, knowing that the members gave of their time, possessions and themselves selflessly in seeking out the poor and needy in our midst, and the members today look forward to a continuation of this work of the Gospel, in bringing the 'Good News' to the poor.

The President and members take this opportunity to thank the many friends and benefactors of St Anne's conference Dunmurry for their unfailing generous help over all these years".

 

Rose Ferguson (President)

 

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