A local venue popular with tourists is looking for volunteers to assist with greeting and helping visitors.
Down Cathedral, located at English Street in Downpatrick, welcomes around 40,000 visitors annually to see its historic architecture and to view St Patrick’s grave. The cathedral has put out a call for more people to get involved as volunteers in relation to assisting the people who come to see the site.
A spokesperson for the cathedral said that the volunteer roles involve “generally being friendly” to those who visit.
Some of the things that the volunteers can get involved with include “welcoming and greeting visitors, giving informative tours about the history of the building, the Christian heritage of the site and St Patrick’s legacy and the current role of the Cathedral.”
They may also help run the shop in the cathedral lobby.
The sort of people that this role might suit are those who are “passionate about sharing local stories and history”.
The links to the present church on the site date back more than 800 years ago when John de Courcey invited Benedictine monks to establish a monastery on the Hill of Down in the 12th century.
A church building at that location fell into ruins in the 1500s, with plans to restore it starting in the 1700s under the leadership of the then Dean of Down, Rev William Annesely.
The current cathedral, which is presently home to a Church of Ireland congregation, was consecrated in 1818.
Volunteering at Down Cathedral does not need to be a major time commitment.
The spokesperson said that most volunteers help weekly for a few hours at a time one day a week during the cathedral’s normal opening hours, which are between 10am and 3.30pm Monday to Friday.
