Church Services in Hillsborough and Newry

St. Malachy's Church (Church of Ireland) in our "hometown" of Hillsborough, Northern Ireland (pictured left) holds two different church services for their parishioners. Since the beginning of September, they've held a contemporary Christian service with newer music, a rock band and graphics on a screen. It looks and sounds a bit odd in the Georgian-style church originally built in 1662.

Later on Sunday morning, St. Malachy's holds the more traditional service. The church rector, Rev. Simon Richardson, said that reaction to the new service is split. "Some think it's the best thing to happen here in a long time," he said. "Others are wondering why we would do such a thing," he added. Rev. Richardson, an Englishman, has been in Hillsborough for four years. He and Rev. Mike Dornan, the curate, were very generous letting us capture video of today's traditional service.

The Cathedral of St. Patrick and St. Colman (Roman Catholic) in the border town of Newry, Northern Ireland holds one type of Mass but for two distinctly different audiences (pictured left). First up this afternoon was Mass said in Polish before the English version as the last service of the day. Ireland and Northern Ireland have had an influx of workers from eastern Europe and especially Poland since Ireland and England joined the European Union earlier this decade. So the Newry Diocese decided to reach out to the immigrants by holding a Mass in Polish.

Father Stanislaw Hajkowski performed both ceremonies. "It's an Irish name," he joked when he introduced himself to John. Father Stan, as he's known, spent much of the last decade in the United States working in communities with Polish immigrant populations. He was in Chicago before accepting the call to work in Newry. "Everybody in both places thought I was crazy," he said.

The Polish population in Ireland have not been greeted fondly in some areas of the island. With the worldwide economic recession, some in Ireland feel the Poles have taken jobs from local citizens. But the curate at St. Patrick and St. Colman's said there are jobs that the Poles are doing that the Irish look down at. Sounds similar to problems in the United States.

St. Patrick and St. Colman's is a Gothic cathedral built in 1829. It was the first Catholic Cathedral build after the Catholic Emancipation when Catholics could worship freely and legally in Ireland. The inside has ornate tile mosaic work on the floors and walls that took workers five years to complete. The building is beautifully lit up at night. And it's a bit spooky looking with the heavy shadows from tonight's overcast skies.

We had our first rain tonight. It drizzled off and on for a few hours this evening. In between services today, we got to watch a lot of soccer--first the English Premier League followed by First Division of the Spanish Football League.