Holy Crap! Carrig Eden Has Been Saved!

he battle seemed to be well and truly lost, and the chances of saving Carrig Eden as she stood slipped a little bit further away each and every day.

The fact that the building has indeed now being saved, with the current owners accepting an offer from the Department Of Housing is not only joyful news but also a tad flabbergasting.

The fundraising, the petition, the interviews, the campaigns, the direct appeals to the Assemblies Of God to reconsider…

All those little defeats, mounting and mounting ever since the sale was first announced at Easter last year of the much-loved Greystones building that acts as a halfway house for those desperately trying to get back on their feet…

Somehow, at the 12th hour, victory has been snatched from what started to look like a yawn from many people following the Carrig Eden story. The princely sum of €2m was enough to melt the cold Christian hearts of The Assemblies of God. Bless.

Potential buyers were regularly parading through the house, whilst the current tenants – facing eviction – had to look elsewhere. It would have only added to the men‘s growing sense of hopelessness and abandonment.

The recent petition is a good case in point. Despite being a cover story here, and hitting the national media, the modest goal of 3,000 signatures still hasn’t been reached after a month online.

Still, all’s swell that ends swell, and the 30 men living inside Carrig Eden will no doubt be even happier than all those outside who so desperately wanted them to stay.

We’ll get more details as they’re released. Speaking with Phil from Tiglin – who do much of the good work in Carrig Eden – the figure accepted by The Assemblies Of God wasn’t all that far removed from the original offer, and he was quick to thanks the likes of Donnelly, Harris and Jackie Carroll from Wicklow County Council for their help.

We swung down this evening, to see how those 30 men felt, but the bulk of them are actually at a religious retreat in Cork until the weekend. We did manage to find Sean, hiding away upstairs, happy and maybe somewhat slightly dazed by the news…