Ireland’s first Vietnamese Buddhist Temple, which can accommodate 500 people, officially opened in north Dublin on Sunday morning.
The temple is named the Minh Tâm Pagoda and is in a formerly disused industrial building in Malahide Road Industrial Park in Coolock, which cost €400,000 to repurpose.
A celebratory ceremony took place on Sunday and was attended by Minister of State Jack Chambers, alongside figures from the international Vietnamese Buddhist community.
The ceremony was led by the director of the temple, Venerable Monk Thích Phước Huệ, who is based in Birmingham.
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Services will take place every Sunday and for cultural festivals such as the lunar new year, Buddha’s birthday and parent day. The cost of building the temple was funded by gifts and loans from people in the Irish and overseas Vietnamese community.
Venerable Thích Phước Huệ said that it was a great honour to be at the opening of the temple and thanked the Government for its acknowledgment of the temple.
Blessings
“I wish to extend my warmest blessings to all of those people who worked in so many ways to deliver a truly proud moment for the Vietnamese Buddhist community in Ireland,” he said.
Mr Chambers said that it was a privilege to be in attendance at the event with “so many who have worked tirelessly and made financial sacrifices to create this beautiful temple in the middle of Coolock”.
It is estimated there are up to 4,000 Vietnamese Buddhists in Ireland out of a Vietnamese population of 10,000. There was a significant increase in Vietnamese presence in Ireland when the first of the ‘boat people’ were welcomed here in 1979.
Causal law is most important in the faith of Vietnamese Buddhists. Essentially, this means do good and good comes back.
