A queue of cars waited in the sunshine for a Galway drive-thru to open at 8am on Wednesday morning.
But it wasn’t burgers on the menu, but dollops of ash.
Fr Paddy Mooney leaned into cars and vans as they pulled up outside St Patrick’s Church in Glenamaddy on Ash Wednesday to rub holy ashes on the foreheads of drivers and passengers.
The popular priest came up with drive-thru idea four years ago as a way of making sure his time-strapped flock didn’t miss out on their blessings.
And he revealed on Wednesday was his busiest Lent kick-off yet.
“I couldn’t put a number on exactly how many came as there were three or four people in some of the cars but we are going now four years and it was the busiest ever. - definitely a few hundred.”
“We had babies under a year old and the eldest would be in their late eighties at least. People love to get their ashes early, even if they’re going to Mass at night.”
“I went down at 8am and there were about five cars waiting for me. At about 8.15am they really started coming.”
Unlike many churches, the layout of St Patrick’s lends itself perfectly to a drive thru.
Cars come in via the main gate, meet Fr Mooney by the front door, and drive out another gate.
“I greet them, ask them do they want to live a Holy Lent, put the ash on them and wish them well on their journey. - it’s short enough,” said Fr Mooney, who doled out his ashes between 8am and 9.30am, before dashing to St Teresa’s Church in Williamstown to say 10 o’ clock Mass.
“It suits people for different reasons - a mother with a 3-month-old baby can’t go to the church but she can do a drive-by and get the ashes. Other people were going to hospital or work or bringing their children to school. Some of them came from as far as 25 miles away.”
He added: “People are very busy rushing here there and everywhere so I like to do my bit to make life a bit easier.”
“A fella came last year in his tractor but he arrived up in a van this year.”
Fr Mooney’s “ash in a flash” was inspired by “Mercy at the Mall”, the brainchild of the Bishop of Killaloe, Fintan Monahan, whose pre-Christmas confessions in a Clare shopping centre proved a huge hit with shoppers.
