Published: Wednesday, 21st July, 2010 5:10pm

Athlone-based priest moving to new role at Sligo IT

Fr John Coughlan returns to his Sligo roots

After two years' work in Athlone, Fr John Coughlan is returning to his roots.

Next month the native of Ballygawley, a ten-minute drive from Sligo town, will leave his post at Athlone's Church of Saints Peter and Paul and take up a new role as chaplain at Sligo Institute of Technology.

The Athlone parish was Fr John's first, following his ordination in June 2008, and he said he will have fond memories of his time in the midlands. "I've really enjoyed it here," he told the Westmeath Independent yesterday (Tuesday). "It was a challenging role in the sense that we were carrying out the renovation project on the Church of Saints Peter and Paul, as well as work at the Church in Clonown. I was involved with both of those projects and I found that to be very life-giving."

He has been living on Deerpark Road and said one of the abiding memories of his time in Athlone will be of the flooding in the area late last year.

"My house was one of the only houses on the street that didn't get flooded. I got a bad chest infection (from the floods) but one of the few positives that came from it was seeing how the flooding drew the community together.

"I had neighbours calling around and stacking my furniture up on blocks just in case the house did get flooded. It showed how people come together in times of adversity. People don't walk away. That, to me, is the essence of priesthood - not walking away when things get tough."

He said the people of the parish, and his clerical colleagues, provided him with plenty of help and encouragement over the last two years.

"People were very, very supportive. This was my first experience of parish life and Canon Liam Devine was really fantastic to me, along with Fr Ray Milton in Drum and Fr John McManus in Monksland. There was a great sense of collective decision making and consultation, which I appreciated.

"People in general were very supportive of anything I tried to do. At the moment there is a sense nationally that the Church isn't respected, and maybe deservedly so, but in the local community I didn't get that sense. The experiences that I had in Athlone were very positive."

Fr John expects to make the move to Sligo in mid to late August. He is already familiar with Sligo IT, having been a student there before leaving to pursue a career in the priesthood.

"I was a student of civil engineering for two and a half years in Sligo IT but then God had other plans, so I left to go to the seminary in Maynooth."

He aims to bring pastoral care to both staff and students at the IT, and he hopes his work there will help students to have a meaningful college experience.