Accord Catholic Marriage Care

Accord, supporting marriage and family life, aims to promote a better understanding of marriage recognised by the Catholic Church (Christian marriage and help people initiate, sustain and enrich their marriage and family lives. Accord serves the pastoral needs of couples at different stages in their relationship through marriage preparation courses, marriage support and marriage and relationship counselling.

Beginning Experience

Beginning Experience is a support group for those coping with the painful loss of their life partner through death, separation or divorce. Few people are able to cope alone with the pain of loss and may find that they need more support than family and friends can provide. Seeking help is a sign of strength and self-knowledge – not weakness. This is a healing ministry which helps to resolve the grief that goes with broken relationships.

Cana

CANA is a mission of the Chemin Neuf Community serving couples and families. It has its roots in Ignatian spirituality and the Charismatic Renewal and runs its programmes in over fifty countries. The six-day CANA Week is the heart of the CANA programme, and CANA Welcome invites couples for monthly meetings. Through these, plus retreats and thematic weekends and days, CANA provides a programme of progressive formation aiming to help couples deepen the vocation of marriage and lay the foundations of a strong, lasting and fruitful union, basing their married and family life on Christ.

Catholic Grandparents Association

The Catholic Grandparents Association (CGA) was founded by Irish grandmother Catherine Wiley with a mission to pass on the faith and to keep prayer at the heart of family life. The association strives to do this through pilgrimages, children’s prayer appeals, ministries in parishes and a monthly online Faith Café, as well as through newsletters and social media. The CGA also prepares parish resources for the World Day for Grandparents and the Elderly, celebrated each July.

Catholic Marriage Encounter

At Marriage Encounter, we believe every marriage has the potential to be a wellspring of joy, connection, and life. Our Weekend programmes invite married couples to step away from the busyness of daily life and rediscover the deep intimacy their relationship was made for.

Through simple, practical communication techniques, couples learn to talk — and truly listen — in ways that nurture closeness, trust, and a shared sense of purpose. 

The journey doesn’t have to end after the Weekend. We offer ongoing community and support for couples who want to keep growing alongside others who share their values and vision for married life.

Marriage Encounter draws on the richness of Catholic teaching, but its message speaks to couples of every background — Christian and non-Christian alike. Today, Worldwide Marriage Encounter is one of the largest and most enduring pro-marriage movements in the world, active in over ninety countries and offered in twelve faith expressions, so every couple can find a place that feels like home.

For couples preparing to marry, we also offer Engaged Encounter — a Weekend designed just for you. Through honest conversations and presentations led by married couples and a priest, you’ll explore the real questions and joys of married life, laying a strong foundation before your big day.

“Married life is a process of growth, in which each spouse is God’s means of helping the other to mature.” – Amoris Laetitia

Catholic Mothers Ireland

Catholic Mothers Ireland is designed to support women in the many roles we have in life as mothers, wives, daughters, sisters and friends. It is a growing community of mothers, where faith and friendship flourish. We run various events throughout the year, including Retreat Days for mums only, local meet-ups for mums and children and other days throughout the year for all the family. In addition to the in-person events, we have WhatsApp groups for daily support and connections, ensuring you’re never alone in your journey of motherhood and faith.

Couples for Christ

Couples for Christ is an international lay ecclesial movement founded in the Philippines whose goal is to renew and strengthen Christian values. The community consists of family ministries, social outreach and pro-life ministries. Couples for Christ programmes include married couple renewal, family restoration and  family ministries.

Communion and Liberation

Communion and Liberation is a proposal of education in the Christian faith, born from Fr. Giussani.

His personal encounter with Jesus as the source of ultimate meaning for every human being, and the relevance of faith to the needs of all persons’ life was the heart of his witness and his preaching.

“(..) It was in this way that he understood that Christianity is not an intellectual system, a collection of dogmas, or moralism. Christianity is instead an encounter, a love story; it is an event.” (Funeral Homily for Msgr. Giussani, J. Ratzinger)

The education in the Christian faith is proposed through community gestures that are open to everyone.

“We have to arrive at the point where the good that the intellect grasps can take root in us as a profound affective inclination, as a thirst for the good that outweighs other attractions and helps us to realize that what we consider objectively good is also good “for us” here and now..” – Amoris Laetitia

Domestic Church

Domestic Church is the family branch of the Light-Life Movement. Originating in Poland under the guidance and support of the then Auxiliary Bishop of Krakow, Bishop Karol Wojtyła – later Pope St John Paul II – it draws from the pedagogy of Equipes Notre-Dame. It is a movement for sacramental marriage spirituality – including couples and their children – and promotes an attitude of service. Domestic Church is a community in which spouses care for and develop relationships with God and with each other. This attitude allows us to build a good Christian environment for our children to grow
up in, based on respect and love for the family and for God.

“Marriage is an act of will that signifies and involves a mutual gift, which unites the spouses and binds them to their eventual souls, with whom they make up a sole family – a domestic church.” – Amoris Laetitia

Encounters of Married Couples Ireland

Encounters of Married Couples Ireland is part of an international movement with its origins in Poland. It focuses on strengthening, deepening and reviving spouses’ unity within marriage and with God. It encourages reflection and witness of the heart of the matter of the sacrament of marriage. Encounters of Married Couples offers formation programmes, starting with weekend retreats relating to marriage dialogue and the relationship between spouses.

“Marital love is a sign of how God loves his people and at the same time it makes that love present.” – Amoris Laetitia

Focolare Movement

Focolare is a global community. It is a gospel-based ecclesial movement for spiritual and social renewal. It is committed to building fraternal relationships among individuals, families, peoples, religions and cultures by engaging in dialogue. New Families, one of the branches within the Focolare Movement, is made up of families who try to live and spread these values to other families. Its style of life is rooted in the gospel lived out in all aspects of family life: the relationship between the couple, upbringing of children, building relationships with other families and involvement within society, especially with those who are suffering and on the margins of society.

“Love opens our eyes and enables us to see, beyond all else, the great worth of a human being.” – Amoris Laetitia

Grásta

“The joy of love experienced by families is also the joy of the Church.” – Amoris Laetitia

Living Family

Living Family is an initiative for Catholic families founded and supported by former leaders of Youth 2000 Ireland. Living Family runs family retreats across Ireland with activities including catechesis, adoration and games for children, as well as adoration, talks and workshops for parents. The retreat days also include Mass and eucharistic family blessings for all. Living Family’s motto is: ‘Families leading families to the heart of the Church’.

“The welfare of the family is decisive for the future of the world and that of the Church.” – Amoris Laetitia

Love & Truth

Love and Truth is an outreach of the Emmanuel Community – a ministry to couples and families. Love and Truth accompanies couples and families, whatever their situation, and offers them a path of growth under God’s gaze in a fraternal and joyful setting.

“In marriage, the joy of love needs to be cultivated.” – Amoris Laetitia

Mothers Prayers

Mothers Prayers was formed in 1995 to help mothers who wished to come together to pray for their children and grandchildren. The movement has now spread to over 120 countries. Through
meeting together, mothers can experience great peace with the blessing of this wonderful prayer support. You do not need to be a mother to join this movement of prayer.

“Love is a single reality, but with different dimensions; it always seeks the good of others and its joy in giving.” – Amoris Laetitia

Nazareth Family Institute

Nazareth Family Institute was founded by members of the Community of Nazareth. It grew out of the experience of members of the community who had been active in the service of Catholic marriage and family and life programmes. Nazareth Family Institute offers programmes for marriage preparation, marriage enrichment, retreats, and marriage renewal.

“Every family should look to the icon of the Holy Family of Nazareth.”  – Amoris Laetitia. 

Retrouvaille Ireland

Retrouvaille Ireland presents a programme designed to help heal and renew marriages at all stages. The word ‘retrouvaille’ simply means rediscovery. The programme offers the chance to rediscover yourself, your spouse, improved communication and a loving relationship in your marriage.

“Each marriage is a kind of ‘salvation history,’ which from fragile beginnings — thanks to God’s gift and a creative and generous response on our part — grows over time into something precious and enduring.”  – Amoris Laetitia. 

Tandem Teams

Tandem Teams is a programme of fourteen monthly meetings for couples (engaged or sacramentally married up to five years). Each team, meeting in person or online, consists of four or five couples and an experienced accompanying couple. A chaplain may also be present. Each meeting focuses on a topic that the couples are invited to reflect on during the previous month. The topics – some reflective, some practical – are relevant to the daily life of the couple. The programme offers participants an opportunity to grow together, sharing their experiences and discovering or renewing their faith in a confidential, open-minded and safe environment. There is no cost to participate.

“The sacrament of marriage flows from the incarnation and paschal mystery, where God expressed His love for the Church.” – Amoris Laetitia

Teams of Our Lady / Equipes Notre-Dame

Teams of Our Lady / Equipes Notre-Dame is an international Catholic lay movement for Christian married couples. Aiming to make good marriages better, the Movement helps couples to live out the richness of their sacrament, deepening their own married relationship and their relationship with God, while drawing on the support of their team. Typically a team consists of up to five couples and a spiritual counsellor / adviser. They meet monthly in each other’s homes for a simple meal and a sharing of what has been happening in their lives. There is time for prayer, reflection and discussion. The couples aim to focus on different aspects of their relationship between each meeting. Over time this creates a strong, supportive group and deep friendships.

“Married couples joined by love speak well of each other; they try to show their spouse’s good side, not their weakness and faults.” – Amoris Laetitia