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The Columba Community
(from The Walled City of Saint Columba)
Founded by Fr. Neal Carlin in 1979 in Derry City and Donegal
Fellowship of Good Counsel Trust Londonderry
The Columba Community
Spiritual Director: Fr. Neal Carlin, St Anthony's Retreat Centre,
Dundrean, Burnfoot, Co. Donegal, Tel. 0035374 9368370
email stanthonysretreat7@gmail.com
Columba Community was formally approved by Most Rev Séamus Hegarty on 31st August 1995 as a Private Association of the Faithful. Active members:20; auxiliary members 300. The work of this Basic Christian Community is Prayer, Christian Teaching, Counsel, Reconciliation and Healing
Columba House: 
11, Queen Street, Derry BT 48 7EG
11, Queen Street, Derry BT 48 7EGTel. 00442871 262407email: columbacommunity@hotmail.comDirector Marguerite Hamilton
Founder Members Ann McCay, Tommy McCay
Administrator Jacqueline Roberts, Treasurer Kathleen Devlin
Kathleen DevlinTrustees: Kathleen Devlin, Fr Shaun Doherty, Marguerite Hamilton, Tommy McCay, Ann McCay, Martin McKeever
Columba House offers a quiet space for meditation in The Blessed Sacrament Chapel, Pastoral Counselling, Listening Ear and Prayer for Healing.
The House also offers the Y.A.R.D. Project, a pastoral and educational initiative for youth and their families based in new buildings to the rear of the building.
St Anthony's Retreat Centre: Dundrean, Burnfoot, Co. Donegal
Tel. 074 9368370St Anthony's offers private or directed retreats for individuals and days of renewal for groups; hermitage accommodation.
White Oaks Derryvane, Muff, Co. Donegal
Derryvane, Muff, Co. DonegalRehabilitation Centre Tel. 074- 9384400
Tel. 074- 9384400email: whiteoaksrehab@hotmail.comfax 074 9384883WhiteOaks Rehabilitation Centre offers a 30 day Residential Treatment Programme for alcoholics, drug addicts and gamblers with two years aftercare facility.
The IOSAS Centre ( Island of Saints and Scholars ) and (Celtic Prayer Garden)
with The Sanctuary
Derryvane, Muff, Co. Donegal
Tel. 074-9384866 email: goldenagecentre@hotmail.com websites:
A prayer garden for individuals and group pilgrimage, for prayer and reflection and honouring the men and women of Ireland's Golden Age. School parties and other groups welcome.
Our most recent website giving an overview of all that is involved in this centre.
Columba House is open from 10.00 am until 4.00 p.m. daily, Monday to Thursday and offers prayer and counselling support to anyone requiring it. This Service is Free of Charge.
Masses are now held on Mondays weekly at 7.30 in Saint Anthonys, Thursdays monthly in Columba House at 7.30 and hopefully Monthly at St Canices Oratory to celebrate particular Celtic Saints
To check that a Mass or meeting is definitely on ring 02871262407
Check facebook pages for Columba House, St Anthonys Retreat Centre, Whiteoaks Centre or Iosas Centre to get up to date.
"The revolution taking place in communications media and in information technologies represents a great and thrilling challenge; may we respond to that challenge with fresh energy and imagination as we seek to share with others the beauty of God.”
Pope Francis
Jan 2014
Vision Statement
That all people may find freedom and dignity through Christ for the greater glory of God
"I have come that you might have life and have it to the full" John 10:10
Mission Statement
To joyfully come together as a group of individuals believing and celebrating the power of Jesus Christ for mutual support and to minister to other people.
" I have come that you may have life and have it to the full."
John 10:10
The story of the beginnings of The Columba Community in 1979 founded by Fr Neal Carlin and its continued growth over 40 years is well worth discovering and is one great contemporary example of the continuing direction and guidance of the Holy Spirit in the lives of ordinary men and women and younger adults as they continue to build a Basic Christian Community which straddles the Border in Ireland and which was instrumental in forming five life giving Centres all now in operation. Should you already know the story and wish to visit immediately at any of our Centres just click at whatever link you wish down below in the box with the green border entitled The Columba Community. Otherwise watch the video and find your way through our homemade navigation system.
or Read on to find out more or better still send us an email at columbacommunity@hotmail.com
Fr.Neal Carlin passed away on 6th June 2021 after a lifetime dedicated to serving Jesus Christ as his leader and spiritual guide. For Neal following the Lord was paramount and he was open to every prompting of The Holy Spiirit. Summing up the challenges he took on in a few sentences would be well nigh impossible so bear with me as I consult with or borrow work from other members of The Community Community who have shared all or part of that journey with him. This may take some time to complete and when I have finished the work, it will be saved as a word document added down below on this page.
I have chosen the picture below of Fr Neal symbolically starting work on the 7 acre area of marshy land in which he said there would be a garden which he would dedicate to the Celtic Saints. It was part of a site he had 'bought' for £200,000 on which to build a * Rehabilitation Centre for those suffering from addiction. The fact that we as an organisation were struggling to find £1000 to fix a wall in Columba House didn't seem to bother him in the least. Like the JCB he just dealt with obstacles as they arose or better still prayed that God would intervene.
Neal had already opened Columba House of Prayer in Derry City in 1979 / 80 when he decided to stay in Derry after a year or two on loan to St Eugene's Cathedral after he had taken a six month sabbatical in The United States of America. In 1986 he renovated an old farmhouse given to him as a gift and built and opened a Retreat Centre, St Anthony's, just over the border at Dundrean in Donegal.
It was used extensively by retreatants and community and smaller individual buildings were created as possible dwellings for those who might come on retreat. It had a garden attached which was used as an area of contemplation and repentance and about 10 stations were built with Neal instructing those who could operate JCBs and it was Neal's first attempt to build a prayer garden. It has been used widely but the stations, excellently created by Kathleen Rafferty did not take kindly to the great outdoors. We do have copies of the content and are working at recreating weatherproof illustrations from the originals to help restore these aspects of the garden.
As time went on and we took on the issue of addiction and decided to build a Rehabilitation Centre on land we had 'bought' there was less time available to work at St Anthonys but was not the idea of a Garden dedicated to the Irish Saints of the 5th to the !2th Century. This Celtic Garden was to be a major plank in the building of The Columba Community. The work of Evangelisation continues
Read on below........... .
Columba Community of Prayer and Reconciliation
Fellowship of Good Counsel Trust Londonderry
Founded by Fr Neal Carlin in 1979
02871262407
Based in Columba House
11, Queen Street
Derry City
but now comprising 5 other venues
email; columbacommunity@hotmail.com
Fr. Neal Carlin Columba Community 1940 - 2021 AD
Fr Neal died on the 6th August 2021 and I am inserting here a tribute that was written to / for him which decorates the wall as you enter the I.O.S.A.S. Centre in County Donegal adjacent to Whiteoaks Rehabilitation Centre. As it is lengthy I would strongly advise that you read it here first and maybe once or twice as the content is quite profound.
Ordained to the priesthood in 1964, Fr Neal spent his nine early years of priesthood in Motherwell, Scotland before returning home to minister in St Eugenes Cathedral, Derry, at the height of the Troubles in Northern Ireland. He worked in Saint Eugenes Cathedral for three years and while there organised regular prayer meetings in Saint Josephs Intermediate School in the city.
After a period of prayer and discernment he took the brave step of leaving his post at St Eugenes and buying, founding and opening Columba House of Prayer and Reconciliation in Columba House, in Queen Street in Derry, reaching out to prisoners, their families and those in need. Visitation to Prisons in Northern Ireland was a major plank in that work. The foundational scripture text for Columba House is
“Listen to the prayer and grant the requests of your servant Yahweh my God, listen to the cries and to the prayer of your servant in this place. Day and night let your eyes watch over this house, where you have promised your name would be. Hear the prayers of your servant and grant the requests of your people Israel...listen from your dwelling place in heaven and forgive...”
2 Chronicles 6
He felt the Holy Spirit guiding him to found a Basic Christian Community, The Columba Community built on the pillars of Prayer, Community, Evangelisation Reconciliation and Repentance.
Responding to the promptings of The Holy Spirit, Fr.Neal and the Community accepted a gift of an old farmhouse and a few acres of land in Donegal just over the border from Derry City. There they develpoed Saint Anthonys Retreat Centre and have encouraged retreatants to use the text, "You have only to be still and I will do the fighting for you"
Exodus 14.!4
Over the years people needing help with addiction came to all the centres and Fr.Neal discerned with The Community that the Lord was calling the Community to work in this area. In 2001 Whiteoaks Rehabilitation Centre was opened offering residential help to people with an addiction to alcohol drugs or gambling. Fr Neal passionately believed in the great love of God for each one of us particularly in our times of weakness and in his unending mercy and compassion. These themes he explored with the residents.
He once wrote "As time passed a profound but simple truth became more and more evident, that is, that the entire biblical story is one of God's strength and power being manifest in the weakness of people who believed in him and waited upon him."
For many years Fr Neal had dreamt of a Celtic Prayer Garden dedicated to the Irish saints, men and women who knew their need of God and whose love for Him led them into ordinary and extraordinary acts of service. He described the Iosas Centre and Celtic Prayer Garden as “the jewel in the crown of all the foundations.” His hope was always that as people walked in the Garden, reflected on the lives of the saints (small excerpts in the Garden Guide Booklet or look them up on google) they would be inspired by their charisms and would be led to serve others.
How do we describe Fr Neal? He was quite simply a man who loved God and people. He was a listener, blessed by the Spirit with gifts of wisdom and insight. He had a special concern for the poor and those on the margins and a gift of discernment that allowed him to see into the heart of things. Those who came for prayer for healing met a compassionate, gentle heart whose prayers were often answered by physical healing. His prophetic leadership inspired so many to see beyond themselves and open up to a world filled with possibilities.
He lived daily the text given to Him by the Lord,
“They who wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength, they shall rise up on wings as eagles, they shall walk and not grow weary they shall run and not faint, teach me Lord, teach me Lord to wait.
Isaiah 41
After a debilitating illness Fr Neal went home to the Lord he loved, and died on 6th August 2021 the Feast of the Transfiguration. May his gentle soul rest in peace.
Some relevant excerpts from his work
“We have to recover our Celtic past- the joy of God,
the mystery that calls us to share the dance which is about being together
"in communion with every man and woman.
It is not about being the same but daring to be different within the embrace of God."
It is about seeing / experiencing God in all things
and joining the great dance of all people and all of creation”
When we know Jesus,we know the source of Love and love casts out fear.
When we know Jesus we fear nothing as we know we will never walk alone.
Jesus will restore your strength - and bring you healing.
He will carry you to shelter.
We will find the risen Jesus.
We meet him in the garden of our souls
when we are at peace in our own soil - the soil of our being."
Our prayer is that the story of Jesus and the power of the Spirit at work
will reveal to you God's love.
May you hear His still small voice amidst the ups and downs
and zigzags of your personal journey.
May the Holy Spirit that led our Celtic Saints into Europe to spread the good news, put a new hope and light in your life - an awareness
that the Lord Jesus goes beside you as you walk along."
Over the years we waited, we prayed, we built.
We also struggled, wept, and indeed laughed.
Remember life is what takes place as we wait for something else to happen.
May that something else for you be the the fullness that is stored up for us in Heaven"
Picture taken after Mass at Whiteoaks on 9th June (feast of Saint Columba)
2015
Neal Carlin 1940 - 2021
A Sculpture of Saint Columba by Maurice Harron now at the main entrance to Saint Columbs College
on the Buncrana Road
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