It is said that 75 percent of the people of that city consider themselves poets. Small wonder as Dublin—the hometown of the likes of Oscar Wilde, William Butler Yeats and James Joyce—produces art, artists and culture at a rate second only to its production of Guinness.
“The Scientology Community Centre is the largest cultural venue in South Dublin with its 1,050-seat auditorium. It hosts weekly community and charity events, live shows and competitions, welcoming up-and-coming as well as established artists.”
So reads a grant application to the South Dublin County Council by a local nonprofit requesting funds for an upcoming event—just one of over 1,600 cultural and humanitarian events attended by more than 210,000 guests hosted by the Church in the seven years since the ribbon dropped on its new 6.8-acre campus in the heart of South Dublin on October 14, 2017.
As the grant application says, the Church of Scientology and Community Centre of Dublin are the go-to place in town, hosting events for groups as diverse as the Dharmendra Bollywood Dance School, the Moldovan National Theater, the Association of Ukrainians in the Republic of Ireland, the Irish Shield and Cumann Rince Náisiúnta, which hosts national Irish dance championships at the Community Centre. The auditorium’s stage, moreover, is a harlequin floor specially designed for Irish tap dance.
Scientology in Ireland
Scientology has a long history in Ireland.
When L. Ron Hubbard opened a Scientology center in Dublin in 1956, he was enchanted by the town and its people. “If the weather is cold, the Irish heart is warm,” he wrote. “The country and the people could not be improved upon.”
The Scientology “Irish adventure,” as Mr. Hubbard called it, could not have been more successful. The people of Dublin embraced the new Church in their midst, availing themselves of its unique spiritual counseling and its “something-can-be-done-about-it” attitude toward social ills. And as the parishioner population swelled, the Church grew and grew, ultimately expanding to include a National Affairs Office in October 2016, followed by the grand opening of the new Ideal Church of Scientology and Community Centre one year later.
Reaching Out to the Community
In addition to servicing Scientologists on their ascent to greater states of spiritual awareness and freedom, the Church and Community Centre provide a place for Dubliners to hang their hats and lay down their shopping bags for a spell, with events that uplift, inspire and unite the community.
Some of these Church-sponsored gatherings include Family Fun Days, featuring petting zoos, treasure hunts and pony rides, as well as a Winter Wonderland during the holiday season, attended by over 1,000 guests and featuring Santa and his elves, face-painting, arts and crafts and rides.
In the summer, Dinosaur Days takes center stage at the Church. They feature face-painting, a reptile petting zoo, an entire village of bouncy houses and a special Dinosaur Show in the auditorium. Thousands attend.
“Thanks so much for such a wonderful day today. It was our first time in the centre,” one attendee posted on social media. “So many different people there today with different beliefs and ideologies all getting along, but the same spirit of happiness shared. A lot of happy faces all around.”
Humanitarian Solutions
While welcoming the community in, the Church of Scientology Dublin also reaches out to the community with initiatives that battle the true enemies of humanity: addiction, inequality and immorality.
Foundation for a Drug-Free World educates Dubliners so that they can make informed decisions to live drug-free lives. United for Human Rights likewise broadly informs, educating the public about the 30 human rights described in the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights. And L. Ron Hubbard’s The Way to Happiness, a nonreligious common sense moral code, provides stability and calmness wherever distributed in the community.
Local leaders have praised the Church’s programs. With 54 percent of the nation’s population abusing addictive substances, for example, the hundreds of thousands of Truth About Drugs booklets distributed have made an impact, according to Tallaght antidrug activist Nicola Keating, a 20-year veteran on the front lines of addiction and abuse. Keating regards the Church’s campaign as a vital necessity in combating Ireland’s drug epidemic. “Your Drug-Free World program is straight-talking and speaks to everyone,” she said. “And I have already seen it grow in use—both here in Dublin and right down to Cork. You’ve reached out your hand to addicts, the homeless, at-risk youth, immigrant families and Irish people of every background.”
According to Sports Against Racism Program Director Amina Moustafa Keogh, the Dublin Church of Scientology’s United for Human Rights campaign has inspired a nationwide human rights movement. “Each boy and girl in our ‘Count Us In’ education program receives their own copy of your human rights booklets, in combination with our Anti-Bullying Workshop,” she said, adding that their volunteers deliver seminars and lectures using the educator kits provided by the Church to build “a burgeoning human rights army.”
A Long Tradition
Fighting the good fight is a tradition as ancient as Ireland itself.
Long ago, the story goes, there was an army of warrior-artists in Old Ireland that fought battles of the spirit with the true enemies of humanity: Greed, Envy, Dismay, Cruelty.
In the spirit of those warrior-artists of old, the Church of Scientology is a home to a new generation of those fighting for a country and a people whose warm hearts, in the words of Mr. Hubbard, “could not be improved upon.”
As Scientology ecclesiastical leader David Miscavige said on the day he dedicated Dublin’s Ideal Church and Community Centre: “Today we make good on a pledge to honour a land our Founder, L. Ron Hubbard, so loved, and a people he described as wonderfully warm, even if the weather is occasionally not.”
He continued: “So to Ireland eternal, Ireland transcendent: You kept literature alive for 500 years. You built America, and possibly even discovered it. You taught Mankind equality and how to live with dignity in the absence thereof. And, you taught us there is no commodity so precious as beauty, for which you stand. All of which is why we’re proud to stand by you, as we open this new Church of Scientology and Community Centre of Dublin.”
