Pandemic impacts Eglantine Parish – a century ago

Wednesday July 1st 2020

Ireland was in the grips of another pandemic just over 100 years ago – the Spanish flu – and an old magazine has revealed how this impacted on parishioners in Eglantine.

The Rev Jason Kernohan, rector of Eglantine Parish, has come across an article which references the flu pandemic.

“During the lockdown period I was going through some of our archives and I found this entry in the parish magazine from December 1918,” Jason said.

A service of Thanksgiving for Victory and Peace was held after the First World War ended, but numbers were low due to the influenza. The entry goes on to mention how the flu affected the parish, including how the Parish Tea had been postponed many times!”

The impact of the Spanish flu on the island of Ireland as it was recorded in the columns of the Church of Ireland Gazette is the subject of the July Archive of the Month from the RCB Library.

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