THE MUSLIM community in Cork is a step closer to having a mosque following years of fundraising after an individual made an anonymous donation of €800,000.
The Cork Muslim Society was established in 1984. In 1994 a house was bought in Cork city to be used as a mosque and Islamic centre. However, problems arose after complaints were made about traffic congestion and parking problems in the area at prayer times.
The society now operates out of a building on the Pouladuff Road industrial estate in Cork which caters for between 400-500 people.
However, larger prayer sessions prove a problem and the society has had to source alternative accommodation for bigger events.
Members of the community are overjoyed at the large anonymous donation and the early stages of planning for a mosque are under way.
The Cork Muslim Society is examining a number of possible sites for a two-storey mosque.
These include a one-acre site on Pouladuff Road, a one-acre site in Bishopstown on the southside of the city, and a 0.8-acre site on the Lee Road.
Plans are still at the development stage, but it is hoped the mosque will be built over the next few years.
According to the 2006 Irish census, there are more than 30,000 Muslims living in the Republic, a 69 per cent increase over the figures for the 2002 census.
According to the 2006 census, there were 2,500 Muslims resident in Cork but it is now thought that the figure is closer to 5,000.
Meanwhile, the Cork Muslim Society celebrated its 25th anniversary last week at Cork City Hall.
The society recently opened a 235-plot burial space for Muslims at St James’s Cemetery.
The local authority employed the services of an Islamic leader to oversee the alignment of the plots to a strict measurement of 110.65 degrees in keeping with traditional Muslim burial methods.
Prior to the completion of the space at the cemetery, Muslims had to travel to lay their loved ones to rest in the correct alignment.
The foundation stone or the headstone on the special plots also faces “quibla”, the Arabic term for the direction of Mecca.
The Muslim population in Ireland has increased substantially in recent years.
The country’s first Islamic society was established as far back as the late 1950s by a group of foreign Muslims studying at Irish universities.
Because there was no mosque in Dublin at the time, the students, mostly from the Middle East and south Asia, gathered for jum’ah (Friday) prayers in their homes or in rented halls.
With the help of donations from relatives and individuals such as King Faisal of Saudi Arabia, Ireland’s fledgling Muslim community opened the country’s first mosque and Islamic centre in a four-storey building on Dublin’s Harrington Street in 1976.
The premises soon became too small to accommodate the growing number of worshippers and in 1983 a former church building on South Circular Road was bought, renovated and converted into what is now known as Dublin Mosque.