Derry, Northern Ireland, November 18, 2024
Adomnán Mac Con Midhe receiving Holy Baptism in the Irish Sea in October
In a groundbreaking development for workplace religious accommodations in Northern Ireland, a contract worker has successfully negotiated dedicated prayer times with a dedicated prayer space in a civil service workplace, marking the first documented arrangement of its kind in the country’s history.
The worker, Eunan (Adomnán) McNamee, shared the story with OrthoChristian. He was also among those baptized in the Irish Sea in a mass Baptism that OrthoChristian reported on last month.
The story of his workplace agreement took place a few months earlier, between February and March of this year.
McNamee was employed by a recruitment agency, known as The Recruitment Company, where he contractually worked for the United Kingdom’s Department for Work and Pensions (DWP).
Over the course of three weeks, during his workplace training, McNamee negotiated his contract. He agreed to a series of policies, including the DWP’s Diversity and Inclusion Policy, which includes a section on Faith and Belief that provides for the use of “quiet/multi-faith/wellbeing” rooms.
He was then contracted to work in the Lisahally Service Centre in Derry, Northern Ireland, under the jurisdiction of Northern Ireland’s Department for Communities, which has no such Faith and Belief provision.
“However, because I had legally agreed to policies during my training, I had argued that I ought to be able to use the policies mentioned and agreed to,” McNamee explains. He spoke with all the management of the Lisahally Service Centre and took his request to his recruiter to put the arrangements in place.
“The result was a dedicated space, although makeshift, and certain times allocated for its use.” Ultimately, he was permitted to have two breaks a day as times for prayer.
“This is the first documented time that this has been done in Northern Irish history,” McNamee told OrthoChristian.
“What I had done, I had done in the name of Christ and for His glory,” McNamee said.
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