The Knights of St. Columbanus are preparing to celebrate the centenary year of their annual Christmas Day Dinner which has been feeding Dublin’s needy over the past 100 years.
The event, which is held at the RDS, provides a warm reception, Christmas dinner, entertainment, treats to take away, and more to up to 500 people annually.
This year will be no exception, although organisers say the rising cost of running the event has risen about 60% due to the increasing cost of materials.
This year the Knight’s have launched a fundraiser to help cover the cost of welcoming those in need.
Speaking to Gript, Knight’s member Trevor Macnamara said that although the event was first established to cater to the needs of Dublin’s poor and homeless, that over the years those who may not be financially struggling, but are suffering from loneliness are among the crowd.
Macnamara says that the dinner was held in the Mansion House in 1924 where “500 homeless men were provided with a Christmas dinner” and has been put on every Christmas Day since 1924.
The event eventually outgrew the original venue and in recent years has been held at the RDS.
Macnamara says that the Knights work closely with other agencies such as Alone, The Simon Community, the HSE, and more to ensure that they can deliver the best experience possible for those who attend.
“There’s just a long, long list of agencies who collect 5,000 ready meals, ready Christmas dinners from the RDS” on the day.
The 5,000 ready meals as well as “bags of festive treats” and “seasonal products” are delivered to those in need between 8 – 11 am on Christmas morning with 300 volunteers signing up annually to take part.
“We’re just delighted to be able to provide a service one day a year to support all of these agencies that do it the other 364 days of the year. And it’s completely volunteer led,” he said.
The knights also put on buses to collect and return those wishing to attend the dinner where “nobody is turned away”.
Macnamara, who has been involved in the Christmas Dinner event for the past 11 years, says that he has seen the type of guests change over the years.
He says that when he first got involved the dinner was “described as being for the poor and homeless” of Dublin but that over the years more families have been attending.
“In the last 10 years, we’ve seen a lot more families coming. We’ve seen a lot more people coming because they’re lonely, because they just want to be with other people on Christmas Day.” he said.
“For a lot of peopleChristmas is a very difficult time not just because they’re having difficulty putting food on the table, and we’re seeing costs increase phenomenally.”
Macnamara continued, “We reckon that the price of providing the dinner has risen by about 60% over the last two years.”
He added that this cost increase was surely also affecting those who are finding it more and more difficult to afford groceries.
“We’ve seen a lot of the international community coming along as well, in solidarity, a couple of years ago, we had a lot of Ukrainians come along.”
“We don’t ask any questions, we don’t make any judgments. The dinner is open to absolutely everybody, but it has definitely changed.”
Macnamara added, “there’s a lot of people at the dinner who just like the company of other people on Christmas Day. That actually applies almost just as much to the volunteers as it does to the guests they are serving.”
“Everybody likes to give back a little bit of this time of the year, but there are people from broken families, who suffer bereavement around Christmas time, who just find Christmas time a season to be got through rather than celebrated,”.
He said that there are people “lining up” to register to volunteer every year but that the increase in cost of hosting the dinner has led organisers to add a donation page to the Knights of Columbanus website.