Local Imam appeals for help to find site for Kilkenny Islamic Centre

The growing local Islamic community is looking for a site to develop a cultural centre inside the Ring Road in Kilkenny City.

Currently the Kilkenny Islamic Centre is located on the Freshford Road where it has rented a premises for the past 16 years. The Muslim community has grown significantly in Kilkenny since the Kilkenny Islamic Centre was founded in 2007.

Imam Ebrahim Ndure explained that when the centre was founded there were around 150 members, many of whom were Sudanese and Pakistani doctors who were working in the local hospitals. Sixteen years later and that number has grown to over 1,000 members — the premises in the Freshford Road no longer meets their needs.

“Nowadays I would say that 60 to 70% of doctors working in St Luke’s Hospital are Muslim and most of the people who prepare food in hospitality and a large amount of our taxidrivers in Kilkenny are Muslim,” he said, adding that there are also a significant number of second and third generation of people from Kilkenny who practice Islam.

“There are increased numbers. Some of those are people who were in Citywest, mainly Somalians and Algerians, and have moved to Kilkenny. We also have between 30 and 40 Ukrainian families who practice Islam. There are also people living in Kilkenny like myself who have been here for almost 20 years and have grown up children who were born here,” he said.

The local Islamic community are appealing to anyone who has a suitable site for sale to develop a cultural centre to contact them.

“We are in a desperate situation right now,” said the Imam, remarking that the local Islamic community has ‘grown significantly’ and that there current premises does not have sufficient room for members to come together to celebrate.

In 2018 the Kilkenny Islamic Community applied successfully to Kilkenny County Council to develop a centre at the Hebron Industrial Estate. The plans were subsequently rejected by An Bord Pleanála.

The pandemic stalled plans to secure a new site and now the local Islamic community are appealing to the wider community to help them find a site.

“We are looking to purchase a site. There are very kind people in Kilkenny and we are looking to someone who might have a site to contact us,” said the Imam.

“There will be no Call to Prayer outside and no noise pollution. We have been on the Freshford Road for almost 20 years and there have been no complaints. We are a peaceful and loving group of people who just want our own place of worship - a place where everyone is welcome to come and see what we do.”

The Imam, who is originally from Gambia, first visited Kilkenny in 2003, moving here in 2007. He was educated in a high school in Gambia run by a Kilkenny priest, Fr Joseph Gough.