MORE THAN 360 migrant-led churches and chaplaincies are in existence across Ireland, the majority of them African Pentecostal congregations established in the past 10 years, according to new research.
This is almost double previous estimates and suggests some official data on religious affiliation collected in recent years may now be obsolete.
A directory showing the Christian churches’ distribution across the island, published yesterday by the All-Ireland Churches Consultative Meeting on Racism, shows that while a third are based in Dublin, there is only one county – Roscommon – where migrant-led churches have yet to form. Project manager Philip McKinley described the findings as “startling” and said they showed faith communities were establishing themselves in hotels, community centres, business parks and industrial estates across the country.
The largest group is the Redeemed Christian Church of God, a Pentecostal ministry recorded as having 70 different centres in the Republic and three in the North, while another – the Mountain of Fire and Miracles Ministries – has 18 centres.
While many of the Pentecostal congregations are branches of major African institutions, some – such as Mount Horeb, a church for Congolese, Rwandans and Burundians in Dublin – were created by immigrants themselves.
Livingstone Thompson, one of the directory’s co-authors, said the most striking finding was the growth of the Redeemed Christian Church of God, which is based in Nigeria but now has outposts in all the major towns and cities in Ireland.
“I went to a Redeemed Church convention out in Ratoath in July and it was the largest group of Christians I’ve ever been a part of. In one sitting, there were about 10,000 of them housed in one tent. Apart from the time when the Pope visited Ireland in 1979, you probably would have not had a larger gathering of Christians in one place in this country,” he said.
Of 361 migrant-led groups, 70 were Catholic chaplaincies associated specifically with faith communities from countries such as Poland, Brazil, France and the Philippines.