Northern Ireland: Historic Catholic Convent Near St Patrick’s Tomb Destroyed in Deliberate Fire

Northern Ireland: Historic Catholic Convent Near St Patrick’s Tomb Destroyed in Deliberate Fire as Christian Europe Burns

Robert Semonsen

A historic former Catholic convent near the burial place of Saint Patrick in Northern Ireland was devastated by a deliberate fire Sunday night, forcing more than 70 firefighters into an overnight battle to save the adjacent parish church.

The blaze, according to a report from Life Site News, broke out at the former Convent of Mercy in Downpatrick, County Down, at around 7 p.m. on June 28. By the time emergency crews arrived, the building was already engulfed in a well-developed fire.

The Northern Ireland Fire & Rescue Service said the cause is believed to have been deliberate. No injuries were reported, but the damage to one of Downpatrick’s most recognizable Catholic landmarks was severe.

At the height of the emergency, roughly 70 firefighters were on the scene. Ten appliances responded, backed by aerial ladder units, a command support unit and a water tanker.

Crews used breathing apparatus, firefighting jets and aerial ladder jets to bring the inferno under control. Their most urgent task was not only to contain the fire, but to prevent it from reaching St Patrick’s Church.

The former convent was attached to the church, immediately raising fears that the flames could spread to one of the town’s most important Catholic sites. Firefighters worked through the night to stop that from happening.

The Downpatrick Family of Parishes expressed relief that St Patrick’s Church had been saved. The parish said the fire had been prevented from reaching the church by the “heroism and skill” of the Fire Service.

“Fire fighters worked through the night to protect St Patrick’s and to them we owe an enormous debt of gratitude,” the parish wrote. The statement captured the community’s gratitude, but also the deeper grief of seeing a Catholic landmark destroyed.

The timing made the fire even more painful. Just hours before the blaze, the parish had celebrated the ordination to the priesthood of Fr Thomas Hampton inside St Patrick’s Church.

“Coming at the end of a wonderful day in the life of the parish family — the Ordination to the Priesthood of Fr Thomas Hampton—when the parish came together in a tremendous act of hospitality and welcome, it is particularly sad that so beautiful a building has been destroyed,” the parish said.

The former Convent of Mercy was built in the 19th century and had long formed part of Downpatrick’s Catholic skyline. Although the building had not recently been in use, it remained a visible symbol of the town’s religious memory and Catholic charitable life.

Local politicians described the scene as devastating. SDLP councillor Conor Galbraith said it was deeply sad to see a fire in “such a historical part of our town.”

The fire occurred in one of Ireland’s most spiritually significant towns. Downpatrick is closely associated with Saint Patrick, Ireland’s patron saint, whose reputed burial place is nearby at Down Cathedral.

That symbolism cannot be brushed aside. A former convent burning near the resting place of Saint Patrick is not merely a local property loss, it is another wound to the Christian inheritance of Ireland and the wider West.

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Magnitude 6.0 earthquake hits Mexico's Baja California

Magnitude 6.0 earthquake hits Mexico's Baja California peninsula

Hayley Vawter

A magnitude 6.0 earthquake shook parts of Mexico's Baja California Peninsula, marking the latest earthquake to happena along the Pacific Ring of Fire on Tuesday afternoon.

The earthquake happened at 12:45 p.m. Pacific time in the Gulf of California, according to data from the U.s. Geological Survey (USGS).

The quake occurred roughly 6 miles deep and light shaking was reported in the Mexican state of Sinaola in the cities of Los Mochis and Culiacán.

58,870 Buildings Damaged or Destroyed in Deadly Venezuela Earthquakes

58,870 Buildings Damaged or Destroyed in Deadly Venezuela Earthquakes

Video

NASA’s preliminary radar imagery shows an early view of damage from Venezuela’s earthquakes. Researchers estimated about 58,870 buildings were damaged or destroyed, with impacts concentrated along the central coast.

US envoys in Qatar to meet mediators, but no direct talks with Iran set for coming days

US envoys in Qatar to meet mediators, but no direct talks with Iran set for coming days

Jacob Magid

ToI Staff

Top US envoys Steve Witkoff and ‌Jared Kushner were in Doha on Tuesday for meetings with Qatari mediators to discuss negotiations with Iran, but Qatar and Iran said there would be no high-level meeting between Washington and Tehran on Tuesday or in the coming days, contradicting a Monday claim by US President Donald Trump.

“Mr. Steve Witfoff and Mr. Jared Kushner are here in Doha to meet with mediators, with Qatari officials, and the talks will be around all regional issues… including, of course, negotiations with Iran, but also including Lebanon,” Qatari foreign ministry spokesman Majed Al Ansari said.

“They are not here for their negotiations with the Iranians,” he told a media briefing.

Ansari clarified that no high-level meetings or direct talks between the United States and Iran were planned in Doha.

“To the best of my knowledge, there are no direct meetings scheduled between the two parties in the coming days,” he said, adding that no high-level Iranian delegation was in Qatar.

Instead, there will be so-called technical talks this week on issues including regional security that could later be elevated to senior level, Ansari said, saying the technical meetings “are ongoing… and they haven’t stopped.” They include “tracks on the nuclear side… a track on the economic and state performance issue” as well as security, the spokesman said.

Trump had said Monday that his country’s next meeting with Iran would take place in Qatar on Tuesday.

“Iran has requested a meeting. It will take place tomorrow in Doha!” Trump said in a post on Truth Social.

Additionally, a senior Trump administration official said later Tuesday that Witkoff and Jared Kushner would meet with Qatari Prime Minister Mohammed Abdulrahman Al Thani and other mediators in Doha today “to continue regional dialogue on the MOU” — without any mention of meetings scheduled between US and Iranian negotiators.

“On Wednesday, US and Iran delegations are expected to participate separately in technical talks with mediators from Qatar and Pakistan,” the senior US official said in a statement to reporters.

The developments follow exchanges of fire over the weekend that tested the June 17 interim accord between the United States and Iran. The 14-point pact allowed 60 days for the two sides to negotiate a permanent truce in the conflict that began with US and Israeli strikes on Iran on February 28 and to resolve thorny issues including the future of Iran’s nuclear program.

Israel had no part in negotiating the memorandum of understanding, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has distanced himself from it. Still, the terms of the opening clause, permanently ending the war and ruling out any resumption, assert that it is binding on the US, Iran “and their allies.” Israeli officials are bitterly opposed to the deal’s terms, which resolve none of the war’s key goals — notably, eliminating Iran’s nuclear and ballistic missile programs and creating the conditions for the fall of the regime.

Both the US and Iran had said they would send officials for meetings in Qatar to discuss the MOU signed by the two sides aimed at ending the war.

Iranian foreign ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baghaei said dialogue with mediator Qatar on the implementation of the interim deal, including on the release of frozen Iranian assets, was likely to take place in Doha on Wednesday.

But he added that “no meeting at any level with the American side has been scheduled for the coming days.”

“We have not yet entered the stage of negotiating a final agreement,” he said.

“What will take place in Doha tomorrow is a discussion with the Qatari side about implementing parts of the memorandum of understanding, including the release of Iran’s blocked assets,” Baghaei told journalists at his own briefing.

However, that left open the possibility of messages being passed to the Qataris between the two sides.

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The Earthquakes Just Won’t Stop:

The Earthquakes Just Won’t Stop: The New Madrid Fault And The Cascadia Subduction Zone Both Get Shaken As The Warnings Continue

Michael Snyder

How much shaking is it going to take before most of the population starts paying attention? The ground underneath our feet just keeps shaking. Nobody can deny this. As you will see below, there has been a long list of large earthquakes that have hit our planet over the past week, and this is something that I have been writing about a lot in recent days. What we are experiencing is not normal, and many believe that all of this shaking is just a preview of what is to come.

On Monday morning, a magnitude 5.5 earthquake suddenly struck approximately 140 miles off the coast of Oregon…

The Pacific’s notorious ‘Ring of Fire’ has delivered another jolt amid a recent burst of seismic activity around the globe’s most earthquake-prone region. The US Geological Survey detected a magnitude 5.5 earthquake roughly 140 miles west of the Oregon coast at around 7:35am ET Monday. The earthquake struck deep beneath the Pacific Ocean and there were no immediate reports of damage or injuries. No tsunami warning was issued, although residents in Salem and Rockaway Beach reported feeling the shaking.

The reason why this was such a noteworthy quake is because it occurred along the Cascadia Subduction Zone…

The quake occurred along a tectonically active stretch of the Pacific coastline, part of the broader Cascadia Subduction Zone known for producing both frequent moderate events and the potential for far larger ones.

This is one of the most dangerous fault zones in the entire world.

It sits on the Pacific Ring of Fire, and it has the potential to cause seismic events of cataclysmic proportions.

Scientists assure us that it is just a matter of time before a gigantic earthquake occurs along the Cascadia Subduction Zone, and I have repeatedly warned about what this will mean for those living near the coasts of Oregon and Washington once this happens…

Someday, an absolutely gigantic earthquake along the Cascadia Subduction Zone will send a colossal wall of water toward the west coast of the United States. We are talking about a disaster that would be greater than anything we have ever experienced in the entire history of our country so far, and scientists are openly warning us that it is just a matter of time before such a disaster happens. It is being projected that the wall of water could be up to 100 feet tall, and it will cause extreme devastation. Tall buildings will be instantly flattened, vehicles will be picked up and tossed around like toys, and countless numbers of people will instantly go to their watery graves. If you are directly in the path of such a tsunami, there will be no escape.

Do you remember the huge tsunami that hit Japan in 2011?

The tsunami that will eventually hit the west coast will absolutely dwarf that.

This latest earthquake off the coast of Oregon comes just days after a magnitude 5.6 earthquake hit Northern California and a pair of very large earthquakes caused catastrophic damage in Venezuela…

This comes after a 5.6 magnitude earthquake rattled Northern California and major back-to-back earthquakes struck Venezuela last Wednesday.

Days later, heightened seismic activity across the Pacific Ring of Fire brought earthquakes to Japan, the Philippines, and Nicaragua on Friday.

It is almost as if something has just suddenly snapped.

Over the past 7 days, we have witnessed a very long list of large earthquakes all over the world…

That is a stunning list.

And the shaking just won’t stop.

In fact, Venezuela just got hit by some more very big aftershocks…

Strong aftershocks have struck Venezuela’s capital as rescuers continue to search for tens of thousands of civilians who are still missing in the aftermath of two violent earthquakes.

The aftershock was felt shortly after 7.00am (11.00am GMT) in Caracas and La Guaira on Monday, as the search continues for survivors of last Wednesday’s quakes that have already claimed at least 1,450 lives.

It would be difficult to overstate the scale of the tragedy that we are witnessing in Venezuela.

At this stage, nearly 70,000 people have been reported missing…

The death toll from Venezuela’s twin earthquakes has risen to 1,430, with families reporting at least 68,900 people missing. The toll continued to climb even after the 72-hour window for rescuing survivors alive closed Saturday, while anger over the government’s response intensified in some of the hardest-hit areas.

As our planet continues to become even more unstable, there will be even larger earthquakes.

One of the biggest danger zones is right in the middle of the United States, and very early on Monday a magnitude 3.5 earthquake rattled southern Illinois…

According to the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), a magnitude 3.5 earthquake registered at 1:05 a.m. in northwest Edwards County, just south of the Richland County line.

This is close to the Illinois-Indiana border.

USGS reports the epicenter was 3.7 miles northeast of West Salem and measured 11.8 miles deep.

This earthquake caused so much shaking that it was actually felt in St. Louis and Louisville…

So far, the USGS says hundreds of people have reported feeling shaking across a wide stretch as far west as St. Louis, Missouri, as north as Effingham, Illinois, as south as Evansville, Indiana and as east as Louisville, Kentucky.

The largest earthquakes in the history of the continental United States occurred along the New Madrid Fault Zone.

Now the New Madrid Fault Zone is waking up again.

One of these days, a colossal earthquake will literally rip the country in halffrom north to south. The scar that will be created in the middle of the nation will be so deep that the Great Lakes will actually flow into the Gulf of Mexico. Since all of the existing bridges will be destroyed, you will actually need to take a boat ride or a flight if you want to travel from the eastern half of the country to the western half of the country.

But most of the population is not alarmed by the shaking that we are currently witnessing at all.

They have been assured that all of this shaking is just temporary and that things will soon return to normal.

Of course the truth is that there will be no return to normal.

Chaos is erupting all over the planet, and I believe that the second half of this year will be even more chaotic than the first half.