The Church of Ireland community in Kilmallock are again appealing for the return of priceless parish records that were stolen on Christmas week.
On checking the local St. Peter’s and Paul’s Church on 20th December, it was discovered that there had been a break in. The vestry door had been forced open with a crow bar and a self standing metal safe containing valuable chalices and the parish records had been stolen. It was quite a heavy safe and it is believed that there were a number of thieves involved and used some type of conveyance like a hand cart to remove it.
“The records are invaluable. Nobody knows what records were in the safe but they were going right back to well over a century,” explained church warden Jessie Griffin. “We are shocked that this should happen to our church,” Ms Griffin said.
The community are appealing to anybody with any information no matter how insignificant, to come forward. I would make this appeal, somebody out there must know where exactly these records are, somebody must have seen them. We do not need them to be handed into a Garda station, just leave them into a shop or somewhere public, we would just be so grateful for their return. It is a shocking situation that all our records are gone,” Jessie Griffin appealed.