The annual Church Service in Saint Anne’s Church, Shandon, Cork, to mark IDAHOT – International Day Against Homophobia and Transphobia – will take place on Sunday, 18th May at 10.30 a.m.  The Service, at which the rector, the Reverend Brian O’Rourke, will preside, is the concluding event of Cork LGBT Awareness Week. Cork’s LGBT Choir – Choral Con Fusion – will sing at the Service.  All are invited and welcome to attend.

As part of the listening process in which the Church of Ireland is currently engaged, a member of the Parish, and recently elected member of the Cork, Cloyne and Ross Diocesan Synod, Stephen Spillane, will give an address.

Stephen Spillane is a parishioner of St Anne’s, Shandon and is an LGBT activist. In recent days Junior Chamber International named him as 2014 recipient of the ‘Most Outstanding Young Person’ (TOYP) award.

Stephen says:

What makes this day and the events in Newry, Dublin, Waterford, Limerick, Belfast and Derry/Londonderry so important, is not that these Services happen, but that they keep happening. This is what gives me hope. The work of Changing Attitude Ireland and many individual LGBT Christians in Ireland constantly challenge and remind the wider Church of their responsibility to the LGBT Community.