Is a parish-based group who gather together to form a little community of friendship and faith with other parishioners who have special needs. St. Patrick's group meet on Wednesdays from 7.30 pm - 9.30p.m. in Mile End on the Avenue Road.

In the 1960s three priests in Europe struggled with the question of HOW to do Religious Education with people who had a learning disability. Realising that a rational, logical and wordy method was totally inappropriate, they developed an intuitive approach, paying much more attention to the environment and the sense of the sacred within the context of community. They wrote down their "lessons" in books called the Method Vivre. This written text was discovered by members of the Religious Education Staff (Special Needs) in the Archdiocese of Chicago. They translated the books into English and spent two years studying and researching the Method under the guidance of the priests from Europe. The result was SPRED. SPRED's beginnings in Ireland date back to 1980. Today there are SPRED groups in the dioceses of Down and Connor, Armagh, Derry, Dublin and Limerick.