Fun times in Dollingstown

Magheralin Parish, which includes both Magheralin and Dollingstown, has over the past number of years reached out to the community through their ‘Love Your Neighbourhood’ initiative, the ‘Red Door’ Youth Centres and Christians Against Poverty.

The church reached out again to the community last Friday night as they hosted a very successful fun evening where everything was provided free of charge. Around 2,000 people celebrated God’s goodness on a beautiful warm evening enjoying a BBQ, drinks, delicious traybakes and an ice cream van which pumped out cone after cone of free ice cream.

An enormous range of activities kept the crowds occupied including golf, basketball, football, archery and face painting with orienteering/team building skills being displayed by 1st Maralin BB. The more adventurous scaled a variety of massive ‘Gladiators’ style inflatables and a climbing wall in addition to viewing classic cars, Silly Tilly the clown, MAD puppets, the police and fire brigade displays and even a mountain bike leaping over a VW Beetle.

The large crowd enjoyed further entertainment from the Magheragall Pipe Band, Irish Dancers from Aghagallon and Vibe Dance Academy.

Local politicians attending the event were Councillor Carla Lockhart, Cllr Mark Baxter and Sam Gardiner MLA.

Rev Gareth Harron, the Rector of Magheralin, commented: “As a church we must strive to meet the needs of our community and show the love of Jesus in a practical way.”

“Many thanks to all those who organised this successful event and you will be pleased to hear that plans are already underway for next year.”