St. Margaret’s parish community in Ayr celebrated the 200th anniversary of its foundation in 1822 with a celebration of Holy Mass on Wednesday 16 November, the Feast of St. Margaret of Scotland. The Mass was celebrated by Fr. David Borland, Administrator of the Cathedral, with priests and deacons of the diocese.
During the homily Fr David remarked that, since the arrival in the town of the Rev. William Thomson on Wednesday 16 October 1822, the first resident parish priest, there had been a Catholic priest serving the people of Ayr and its surrounds every day since.
“We often hear both priests and people nowadays,” said Fr Borland, “say that priests have an awful lot to do.
“But I would point out that the Rev. Thomson, in his first few years of ministry here in Ayrshire, served the needs of all the Catholics in Ayr, Prestwick, Troon, Irvine, Kilwinning, Stevenston, Saltcoats, Ardrossan, Kilmarnock, Dalmellington, Maybole, Girvan, Ballantrae – and everywhere in between – and he did so on horseback!”
Fr. Borland continued, “While we are celebrating tonight 200 years of the continuous presence of St. Margaret’s parish, we are much more celebrating Faith than we are celebrating anything geographical.
“We are giving thanks to God tonight for the tens of thousands of people who in these 200 years have called St. Margaret’s their parish, and for those parishes too which have been founded from this first Ayrshire jurisdiction.
After the homily the recently gifted Relic of St. Margaret of Scotland was processed into the Cathedral, carried by members of the St. Vincent de Paul Society, active within the parish for 154 years.
The Mass can be viewed in full on the RC Ayr Facebook page.