Disruption of public meeting by Pat Coleman a Director of the House of Prayer.

Public Lecture by Director of Dialogue

Ireland, “All you ever wanted to know

about cults?”

https://dialogueireland.wordpress.com/2014/02/14/public-lecture-by-director-of-dialogue-ireland-all-you-ever-wanted-to-know-about-cults/

After a full day of addressing students at the Ursuline School and working with the families caught up with the House of Prayer and other groups, the Director of Dialogue Ireland  was giving a presentation at Hayes Hotel, Thurles about cultism.

First a very gentle woman came in and asked what proof we had for the claims we were making concerning the  HofP. She was the bantam weight followed by the heavy weights. At about 9:30 PM three new people appeared and attempted to disrupt the meeting. They demanded to know what religion Mike Garde was and said that in 2011 he had made false claims about one of them Pat Coleman. I said why had he not sought  relief by seeking a correction nearly 3 years ago? He was was quite threatening and the Manager came to inform us that we were affecting the public in the hotel by the raised voices in our area. We had booked the room, but as this group refused to remain silent or wait till the end of the meeting two of our guests remonstrated with Pat Coleman and left the meeting. We then decided to halt the meeting but the said Pat Coleman proceeded to encroach on our group of visitors claiming we were in fact denying him his democratic right. When we refused to engage he then said we were afraid, a slight twist of logic.

As I am the subject of this this dispute I have asked a number of people present to make comment  and I will give further background. One will give his name others to protect confidentiality will not.

Dear Mike,

             On Wednesday 12th March my wife Nuala and I attended the Dialogue Ireland meeting at Hayes Hotel Thurles. (Jack and Nuala O’Donnell.)

                         We turned to discuss cults such as Scientology, Palmerianism and the Legionaries of Christ and“ the recent documentary on Marcial Maciel Dellgado and of course the issue of House of Prayer Achill and the work and wealth of Christina Gallagher.

            The meeting  was disrupted by a  group from Co. Limerick who  aggressively disturbed the meeting  with a very obvious agenda of attacking Mr. Garde about his writings and documentaries on the House of Prayer.

           The level of aggression  grew and some people left the meeting for fear of their safety. I, personally got terribly upset as I have health issues and felt very threatened physically.  All the aggression was directed at Mr. Garde directly and personally, and even after the intervention of the Hotel Manager and despite assurances to the contrary, the aggression continued and the meeting broke up. Neither I or my wife and the others at the meeting are attached to Dialogue Ireland in any way nor do we contribute financially to DI.

After the meeting  I again met the group from Limerick and I apologised profusely for my reaction to them during the meeting.

          I laid out my personal history to the Limerick  group representing the Achill House of Prayer, and tried to communicate to them the dangers of cult and breakaway movements as my family had been badly affected and nearly destroyed in fact by such groups. Their rhetoric, terminology and explanations in defence of Christina Gallagher and the House of Prayer was just so familiar it bothered me and explained their aggression sourced from their belief, zeal, fervour and of course blind and unquestioning  allegiance to a movement linked to great wealth for the leader, who, apparently has no other visible means than income from the House of Prayer.

        I would plead with all the followers of the House of Prayer to stand back and review their relationship with Christina Gallagher.  Is it the singer or the song they are following? I would especially ask the Limerick group to step back and forensically examine the whole set up at Achill without any feeling  of guilt. With such lots and lots of money floating about, I cannot see Jesus there.(God and Mammon?)

       The Limerick  group invited me to visit Achill and I’d like to take up their invitation and travel with them to Achill any Saturday, My email address is: jackodonnell@eircom.net

I await with interest your response!

Witness A:
I attended a meeting held in Thurles on 12 March in 
which The Director of Dialogue Ireland Mike Garde 
was giving a public lecture on cultism. 
The lecture was interrupted by a group 
of people representing the House of Prayer 
who came in late and had their own agenda. 
They proceeded to take over the meeting 
in a disruptive manner which made it impossible 
to continue with the discussion and so people 
who had made the effort to travel there 
were forced to leave. 
This was very disappointing because 
I missed the opportunity to hear 
Mike Garde speak on the subject.

Hi Mike. Following last nights meeting in Thurles I feel compelled to send this email giving my thoughts on the way in which our meeting was disturbed. These people who arrived one and a half hours late clearly had an agenda to disturb and upset the people attending. Some of these late comers from the so called house of prayer were so irritating and abusive that it was impossible to continue with our meeting even though some people had traveled a long distance to attend. I have had no previous encounters with this group, but you must be rattling their cage Mike and exposing them for what they really are. Keep up your good work.

Other comments will be added as they arrive:

I wrote to Pat Coleman as follows after he called to continue his diatribe on Thursday:

Thanks for your call look forward to talking to you soon. Will be publishing our reply about your visit to Hayes Hotel on our blog. You will have the right of reply.

Before the disruption this was what Mike Garde was saying:

He stressed that DI did not call any a group a cult but rather preferred the term CULTISM which references the influences that render individual and groups incapable of independent thought and freedom of action. People under the this influence become robotic in their thinking processes and repeat mantras given to them by the leadership of their group. He also stressed that no one was concerned about the beliefs people had but rather their loss of freedom and the fact they seemed to be imprisoned in a particular mindset.

Earlier it was agreed that it was important to phone the elderly members going to Achill as they:

1. Do not read newspapers.

2. Tend not to watch TV, so have no external sources of information and therefore are very easy to control. The plan is to keep phoning people in a friendly way to offer them the opportunity to wake up out of their controlled sleep.

3. Those in the H of P believe:

1. That when the media find houses which cost miles above the amounts coming into the H of P that it is because Christina is being stalked. So instead of Christina being regarded as greedy it is actually the media that cause her to keep buying houses which cost crazy prices.

2. They believe that the H of P is a genuine Catholic group and no evidence to the contrary can be brought to their attention. Significantly as the Catholic Church has done very little to check Christina and Gerard McGinnity they in practice enable this elder abuse and allow it to continue.

We have the largest archive on this issue in the world, so in order to understand please go to:

https://dialogueireland.wordpress.com/category/christian/house-of-prayer

This reference to Pat Coleman in the Sunday World was the first I had heard about him in 2011:

Fanatical
Because the Virgin Mary has supposedly appeared so many times in the House of Prayer, her followers have been snapping up pieces of the old carpet for €20, €50 and even €100 donations. The four-week campaign to raise funds for a new carpet was run by one of the house’s new directors, Pat Coleman, a fanatical follower of Christina Gallagher. His family, from Co Limerick, has given a vast fortune to the money-loving guru who lives in a palatial mansion in Malahide, Dublin. Coleman and his brother Niall, both stewards at the House of Prayer, have been pressing farmers in their home county to sell their land and cattle and give the money to Gallagher’s cause. The heartbroken sister of one farmer, who has handed over more than €100,000, said: “This has destroyed our family.
“It is terrible to see someone taken for a ride like that. “They targeted my brother when they realised he had land. “My brother has nothing to do with me now. They encouraged him not to talk to me because I was opposed to them. That place is a cult.

https://dialogueireland.wordpress.com/2011/07/25/house-of-prayer-christinas-boot-boy-by-jim-gallagher-the-sunday-world-sun-july-24-2011/

Then in late August 2011 I came across Pat Coleman as part of HofP flying column. Read all about it here and watch the videos:

https://dialogueireland.wordpress.com/2011/09/27/tv3-irelands-secret-cults/

https://dialogueireland.wordpress.com/2012/07/24/reply-included-in-the-text-of-father-gerard-mcginnity-p-p-legal-threat-in-2011/

https://dialogueireland.wordpress.com/2011/07/31/house-of-prayer-rte-prime-time-april-03-2008-now-on-youtube/

https://dialogueireland.wordpress.com/2011/09/07/fr-gerard-mcginnity-is-parish-priest-of-knockmore-co-louth-2/

Pat is mentioned as a Director here:

https://dialogueireland.wordpress.com/2014/03/04/house-of-prayer-detailed-breakdown-of-the-accounts-and-list-of-directors/