Campaign to save Irish Mass
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Wednesday February 03 2010
RTÉ's decision to cut back on its Sunday broadcasts of Mass in Irish is 'a blow to our language and culture' according to Dingle PP Tomás Looney who is heading a campaign to have the decision reversed.
The national broadcaster is blaming cutbacks for its decision to cut its weekly Sunday Mass on Raidio na Gaeltachta to one week in four. The decision has caused widespread public disappointment.
"Just over two weeks ago we heard that RTE was cutting back on the Masses on Radio na Gealtachta. Mass has always been broadcast live at 11am on Sundays from somewhere in the country. We value the service immensly, which has been hugely beneficial to people who are housebound, people in hospitals, fishermen out at sea and not just people from the Gaeltacht. People all over the country have listened to that regular Sunday broadcast and we know that because they often write to us here when Mass has been broadcast from one of the local churches. We even had a letter from a soldier serving in Iraq who listened to the Mass on the internet," Dingle PP Canon Tomás Looney told The Kerryman this week.
"We got no official word of these programme changes but saw it on the RTE website. From now on Mass will be broadcast live every fourth Sunday and on other Sundays they will have readings from the Gospels and religious music. So we decided to write to the Bishop of Kerry about it in case he wasn't aware of the changes. We have written to all local members of the Oireachtas and local council representatives. We''ve also written to RTÉ and to Ministers Éamon Ó Cuív and Éamon Ryan on the issue," he said.
The letters were sent from the local parish council by registered post and some recipients have responded.
"Deputy Jackie HealyRea and Senator Mark Daly have been in touch with us about this and we understand that Deputy Sheahan is going to raise it in the Dáil. The Director General of RTÉ, Cathal Goan, wrote back to us and the basic explanation is that the cuts are due to lack of finance. When these kind of changes are made it's very difficult to get them reversed," Canon Looney said.
"I'm very disappointed by RTE's decision. We're going to work hard to try and reverse this and will be working on behalf of those people who have no voice – such as the aged and the sick. There was no consultation about these changes, which we see as another blow to the Irish language, to our culture and to our heritage," he added.
