Rev Judi McGaffin bringing her time in ‘the most pleasant parish’ to a close

Buncrana’s Christchurch, on the town’s Main Street, closed its doors to the public in October 2018 after the latest in a series of incidents of vandalism over a period of two weeks.

The desecration of a bible forced Rev Judi McGaffin to close its doors except for services.

The church had always been open during the day throughout her time as rector in the parish Fahan Upper and Fahan Lower which began in September 2014.

The response over the coming weeks reinforced the spirit of community which Rev McGaffin has experienced in her time in Inishowen.

In a matter of days, generous donations allowed the parish to go ahead with the installation of CCTV and security measures.

The vast majority of the money came from outside the parish's congregation of around 180.

“It is like a big community,” she says of her time as rector overseeing the parish that stretches from Dunree to Burnfoot. She believes it is the best in the country to work in, in terms of the beauty of the area, the strength of commitment from the parishioners and the sense of community.

“It's the most pleasant parish to work in. It has been the best experience.”

She is reflecting on her almost nine years in Inishowen, which is drawing to a close. The Armagh native will be retiring during the summer.

A dentist by training, she retired from the health service in Derry in 2016. Having been ordained in 2009 she was a non-stipendiary, or self-supporting priest, for five years in Donemana, close to her home on Strabane.

When she got the call about the possibility of taking up the post in Fahan and Buncrana following the death of Rev Sam Barton, her knowledge of the area was limited.

“When the bishop asked me to come here…I said to him: ‘How do I get to Buncrana?’ I had lived in Strabane all those years and had never been to Buncrana. And now I wonder why I had never been to Buncrana.”

Her first impressions of Buncrana set the tone for her time in Inishowen. On her first visit to the town with a friend, she was disappointed to find Christchurch closed. Instead, they went to a cafe on the Main Street.

“We got tea and buns and the whole works and I thought this place is lovely. As we walked from the church to the cafe, people said hello and seemed so friendly.”

Community
She stresses the sense of community in the area, and she means the whole community, not just the Church of Ireland congregations of Christchurch and St Mura’s in Fahan.

The spirit of togetherness was highlighted by her first meeting with Fr Francis Bradley, a few weeks after she took up the post.

“I have never forgotten it. He said: ‘I know you are a small community and a very minority community in the town of Buncrana. But believe me, we do all we can to make sure you survive because without you we become a very monochrome society.’ And I found that anything we lack, anything, the community is in behind us.”

Cooperation
Since then, there has been a lot of cooperation with the Catholic parish.

“We have done a lot of things together - both out there like the Palm Sunday walk and other ecumenical things, but also behind the scenes as well. It has been a very fulfilling experience - a community and family kind of experience.”

The vitality of the congregation in Bucrana is down to the parishioners themselves, she said. Improvements have been made to Christchurch, including the conversion of the previously unused transept into a community space.

“We have done - I haven't done it, they have done it - so much. People have really rallied. Small congregation - big heart, small congregation - big ideas. Nothing ever stops them doing stuff.”

‘Like a magnet’
A similar spirit exists in Fahan Upper, she says. “Fahan is the same, but different. There is not a heart of a town in Fahan, but that doesn't seem to matter. If they want to put something on, people come. It is like a magnet, people from the surrounding areas just come - they are incredibly supportive.”

She is retiring as she is the age to retire, she says, and her plans for retirement include more travel. But she hopes there will still be a role for her in the church but not necessarily “within the walls of a church”. Her retirement is from parish ministry, but not from ministry.

“I think there is more for me to do in my calling as a priest outside the walls of a church. There is something outside the walls of a church that we need to be grasping and grabbing hold of and doing something with. And I think in retirement there is something for me, but I do not know what it is. I think there is a ministry for outside of the walls of a church.”

Her ministry is part-time, three days a week, and she and her husband spend two nights a week away from their Strabane home to stay in the rectory on Castle Avenue in Buncrana.

The role is “almost impossible” to restrict to three days a week.

“There is no such thing as a part-time ministry when you are in a parish. Ministry is a vocation.”

The role includes preparing sermons for two in-person services and three online services a week. A short service is also prepared for a phone line. She also has a role at St Mura’s National School in Buncrana and her work also includes pastoral work such as home visits for parishioners who are housebound and administration such as safeguarding.

As well as her work in Inishowen, she is a canon at the cathedral in Raphoe and sits on diocese committees and the church’s general synod.

The run-in to her retirement begins in May with a flower festival, A Spark to a Flame, at Christ Church from the 26th to the 28th. On June 23 a valedictory event will see local musicians perform her ten favourite pieces of music in the church.

Whatever she has given to the parishes in her time in Inishowen, she says she will take so much away from it.

“The people here are just incredible. They have taught me so much about me, myself, about the parish and about how to run a parish.”