{"id":297347,"date":"2026-01-22T08:56:08","date_gmt":"2026-01-22T08:56:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/297347\/"},"modified":"2026-01-22T08:56:08","modified_gmt":"2026-01-22T08:56:08","slug":"historic-limerick-church-saved-from-inferno-after-woman-sets-fire-to-straw-in-a-crib","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/297347\/","title":{"rendered":"Historic Limerick church saved from inferno after woman sets fire to straw in a crib"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A QUICK-THINKING sacristan prevented one of the oldest churches in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.limerickleader.ie\/limerickleader.ie\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">Limerick<\/a> from being \u201cburnt to the ground\u201d after a woman set fire to straw in a crib and at a grotto, the Leader has learned.<\/p>\n<p>A parishioner of St Michael\u2019s Church in Denmark Street in Limerick city said the woman, aged in her 20s, entered \u201cGod\u2019s House when it was deserted after morning Mass\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThere is a beautiful crib in front of the altar with figures of the Nativity around a manger, straw on the floor and pallets to resemble the stable. The woman lit around 20 of the little church candles. She then took one and lit the straw at the crib.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cNot only that, she took some of the straw from the crib, brought it to Our Lady of Lourdes grotto and set it alight there,\u201d said the parishioner.<\/p>\n<p><strong>READ NEXT:<\/strong>\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.limerickleader.ie\/news\/motoring-news\/1994358\/criminals-try-every-house-and-car-door-handle-in-limerick-estate-before-stealing-vehicle.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">Criminals try every house and car door handle in Limerick estate before stealing vehicle<\/a><\/p>\n<p>The Mass-goer said the sacristan Ken McNamara was working in the sacristy on January 9 when he noticed activity on CCTV.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHe ran out and managed to extinguish the fire at the crib and the grotto before it spread and took hold. Only for Ken the church could have been burnt to the ground. St Michael\u2019s is one of the oldest churches in Limerick dating back to the 1780s,\u201d said the parishioner.<\/p>\n<p>Apart from burnt straw and some scorch marks on rocks in the grotto, the damage was kept to a minimum thanks to Mr McNamara. Canon Gerard Garrett, administrator of the pastoral area which includes St Michael\u2019s, praised the sacristan.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cKen is an exceptionally good person. He has a lovely way with people and a lovely way of deescalating situations. He\u2019s a very good man and we\u2019re very pleased with his performance,\u201d said Canon Garrett. The female arsonist left the church afterwards but it is understood she was later apprehended by gardai.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0who tracked her movements on CCTV.<\/p>\n<p>As well as the historic building, a unique golden statue on the bell tower of Michael the archangel, spear in hand standing upon a snarling dragon, would have been lost in a blaze.<\/p>\n<p>ADVERTISEMENT &#8211; CONTINUE READING BELOW<\/p>\n<p>ADVERTISEMENT &#8211; CONTINUE READING BELOW<\/p>\n<p>ADVERTISEMENT &#8211; CONTINUE READING BELOW<\/p>\n<p>ADVERTISEMENT &#8211; CONTINUE READING BELOW<\/p>\n<p>ADVERTISEMENT &#8211; CONTINUE READING BELOW<\/p>\n<p>ADVERTISEMENT &#8211; CONTINUE READING BELOW<\/p>\n<p>ADVERTISEMENT &#8211; CONTINUE READING BELOW<\/p>\n<p>ADVERTISEMENT &#8211; CONTINUE READING BELOW<\/p>\n<p>ADVERTISEMENT &#8211; CONTINUE READING BELOW<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A QUICK-THINKING sacristan prevented one of the oldest churches in Limerick from being \u201cburnt to the ground\u201d after&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":297348,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40],"tags":[9,10,18,13,14,6,19,17,11,12,7587,15,16,5,7,8],"class_list":{"0":"post-297347","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ireland","8":"tag-breaking-news","9":"tag-breakingnews","10":"tag-eire","11":"tag-featured-news","12":"tag-featurednews","13":"tag-headlines","14":"tag-ie","15":"tag-ireland","16":"tag-latest-news","17":"tag-latestnews","18":"tag-limerick-city","19":"tag-main-news","20":"tag-mainnews","21":"tag-news","22":"tag-top-stories","23":"tag-topstories"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/115937921236529589","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/297347","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=297347"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/297347\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/297348"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=297347"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=297347"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=297347"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}