Ave Maria – new rector of Tullow delighted to be here

“THIS is a dream coming true. When I was walking through town yesterday, I was going to Lidl to get some food and I was just thinking, ‘I’m here. I’m actually living here. It’s not just a vacation’,” said Rev Maria Karlsson of moving to Tullow, Co Carlow.

Maria (51) and her family moved to the town in late December so that she could take up the post of rector of Tullow Group of Parishes within the diocese of Cashel, Ferns and Ossory. She was instituted in St Columba’s Church on Sunday 8 February.

Raised in the Baptist faith, Maria was a Lutheran pastor at a multi-denominational school when she had a calling to join the Church of Sweden. She studied to become a minister at the University of Uppsala at the same time as having a child with her husband Johan.

Their daughter Jehlia was born prematurely and spent three and a half months in hospital. “I was actually able to do one of the courses at University of Uppsala at the time I was in hospital. I’m quite proud of that.

“While she was on my chest, I was reading from my books aloud. So I sometimes joke that she heard the whole of the Bible before she was even meant to be born,” said Maria.

She was ordained in June 2014 and since then has been a minister in the Karlstad diocese in the west of Sweden.

In celebration of her ordination, the family took a much belated trip to Galway in 2022. Maria had spent a year there in 1993 after finishing school, working for the Simon Community. “I have longed to come back ever since,” she said.

Thirty years later, a lot had changed, but “I showed them my Galway and I showed them Connemara. We had a trip to go horse riding on the beaches of Connemara,” said Maria.

“When we were going back to Sweden, I thought perhaps this was the last time I see Ireland. But as soon as we got home, my husband started sending me these vacancies links. I was like, ‘you mean that? You would come to Ireland with me?’ “And he said, ‘well, of course I would have preferred you to want to come with me to Spain or somewhere sunny. But since our daughter and you love Ireland, of course I’ll come with you’.” 

Jehlia, now aged 15, quickly made friends at her new school. When she had a sleepover in their new house “it felt like ‘oh, now we’re home’,” said Maria.

She is also enjoying the chance to wear a uniform to school. “It can take away a lot of the stress of being different. I don’t know how many families in Sweden have that problem in the morning of ‘what should I wear?’ But here, she knows what to wear. It’s not a question.” 

Johan has been preparing for the move to Tullow by listening to KCLR as he works. “He actually knows more about what’s happening in this area than I do at the moment. I’ve been focusing on learning about the Church of Ireland because it’s different from the Church of Sweden as well,” said Maria.

Both the Church of Sweden and the Church of Ireland are members of the Porvoo Communion, which made it possible for her to change ministry.

She knows from living here four decades ago that she must be patient about integrating into the community. “What I’ve learned is that it’s very easy to get to know people, people are so friendly in Ireland. They would reach out and say ‘hello’; everyone is very hospitable and welcoming. But to get a real, close friend, that takes time.

“In Sweden, it’s the other way around. It’s difficult to get to know people because we wouldn’t be welcoming or we mightn’t talk to someone we just met. But when you do get in contact, it’s easier to become friends.” 

She is also realising that there are different taboo subjects in Ireland compared to Sweden. Perhaps as a result of our troubled history, she perceives that “here, you talk a lot, but you don’t say anything. Whereas I come from a country where we haven’t had a war in 300 years or so. But that means that we have learned that we can talk about everything and there’s no consequences in a way.

“So that’s something I have to learn about, what the taboos are and what are not taboos.” 

She does admire the way Irish people deal with death, however. “Here, life stops when someone dies; you acknowledge that, and take time for it.” Whereas in Sweden “they postpone it for two to three weeks before they have the service. I’ve noticed that it’s because some people don’t want to talk about death because it’s awkward and you don’t want to be reminded that there is such a thing.” 

Similarly, when it comes to religion, “we are a very secular people in Sweden – our faith is supposed to be sort of private, whereas here you can talk about faith, you can be open and you can see each other. You acknowledge each other, and I find it very heartwarming that we care for one another.” 

The local parish has been “so nice”, said Maria, and the canons that she has been shadowing have been similarly welcoming.

“When I try to explain Tullow to my friends in Sweden, I say it’s a very small town, but we have everything we need,” said Maria. “We don’t have IKEA here yet, but everything we need for daily life,” she noted, laughing.

The only thing missing is Maria’s horse, an Irish cob born in England, whom she’s planning to bring over from Sweden during the summer.

“I jokingly say that both me and Bitsy, we were not born in Ireland, but I think both of us were born in Ireland in our hearts.”