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Taoiseach Micheál Martin TD will be among those attending the annual Remembrance Day ceremonies on Sunday in Enniskillen.
The Taoiseach will lay a wreath at the Cenotaph in the town of Co Fermanagh before attending a memorial service at St. Macartine Cathedral.
This year is the 33rd anniversary of the Enniskillen IRA bombing in which 11 people were killed and a 12th victim, Ronnie Hill, who was in a coma and died 13 years later.
In 2012, Enda Kenny started the tradition of the taoiseach being represented at Remembrance Day ceremonies in Enniskillen.
This year’s ceremonies will be severely affected due to the restrictions imposed for Covid-19.
Seating in the cathedral will be restricted to a limited number of guests representing VIPs, dignitaries and special guests, cornet and flute player. A limited number of parishioners may attend.
The preacher will be the Archbishop of Armagh and Primate of all Ireland, the Most Reverend John McDowell, and the service will be streamed live on the Enniskillen Cathedral website at enniskillencathedral.com.
The Dean of the Diocese of Clogher, the Most Reverend Kenneth Hall, welcomed the visit from the Taoiseach and said it was a sign of outreach to the Fermanagh community.
“The visit is done with great importance as it gives visible expression to the community connections here. Every year the Taoiseach comes to affirm us as a community, to reach out to us as a community and to show sympathy and solidarity with a community that has suffered terribly at the hands of terrorism, ”he said.
“Like the queen and the president, he comes in friendship. It is an approach, wanting to cross the barriers and suspicions that the years built ”.
The British Legion is organizing the laying of the wreath at the Cenotaph in Enniskillen before the service at the cathedral, but the public has been advised to stay away to avoid gatherings, the diocese said.
Before Remembrance Sunday, the leaders of the major churches in Ireland released a joint video message.
Filmed separately in their studios, offices and places of worship last week, leaders of the Roman Catholic, Church of Ireland, Methodist and Presbyterian Churches in Ireland, and the Irish Council of Churches, recalled the sacrifice made during the conflict and lamented loss of life.
They also prayed for those who had lost loved ones to the coronavirus and were unable to fully cry during the restrictions on religious services.
The video was recorded by Rt Rev Dr. David Bruce, Moderator of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland; Most Reverend John McDowell, Church of Ireland Archbishop of Armagh and Primate of All Ireland; The Rev. Dr. Thomas McKnight, President of the Methodist Church of Ireland; The Catholic Archbishop of Armagh and Primate of all Ireland, Dr. Eamon Martin; and the Reverend Dr. Ivan Patterson, President of the Irish Council of Churches.
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