03 April 2016

Lunch in a Georgian country
house overlooking Leixlip village

Leixlip House Hotel … a country house hotel with charm and 250-year-old history (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2016)

Patrick Comerford

Today was the Second Sunday of Easter, which is popularly known as “Low Sunday,” and it was a privilege to preside at the Eucharist this morning in Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin.

The setting this morning was Timothy Powell’s Melodious Sonnet described as a “Colonial American Mass,” sung by the Davidson Chorale from Augusta, Georgia. The composer Timothy Powell was present this morning, along with a large number of visitors from Augusta, Georgia, and an interesting number of students from Denmark too.

Later, after coffee in La Dolce Vita in Temple Bar, four of us met up for a late lunch this Sunday afternoon in Leixlip House Hotel, a masterfully transformed Georgian home on Captain’s Hill in Leixlip, Co Kildare. It dates back to 1774 and overlooks the picturesque village of Leixlip with its waterfall on the River Liffey.

Leixlip, which was a Norse settlement at the beginning of the 10th century, takes its name from the Danish for “Salmons Leap.” By the beginning of the 12th century, Newtown and Confey; near Leixlip, were formed into a parish with a church, and the ruins of the church can be seen in the present cemetery in Confey.

After the Anglo-Norman arrival in Ireland, Leixlip and the surrounding territories was part of the lands g anted to the de Hereford family in 1175.

By 1500, the Eustace family, who were related to the FitzGeralds of Kildare, owned great areas of land in Co Kildare, including the parish of Confey near Leixlip. In 1540, John Eustace was living in the castle at Confey and he also owned property in Thomas Street, James’ Street and neighbouring areas of Dublin.

Nicholas FitzJohn Eustace of Confey was among the principle gentry of Co Kildare in 1600, and other members of the family owned Clongowes Wood, Castlemartin, Harristown, Newlands and other estates in Co Kildare.

In 1641, James Eustace of Confey, who was described as an Irish Papist, owned about 100 acres of land in the townlands of Newtown and Confey. That year, the Eustace castle at Confey was destroyed in the rebellion of 1641.

A painting of Leixlip House in one of the corridors in the hotel (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2016)

Despite the Cromwellian Confiscations the Eustace family, the Plunketts and other leading local families succeeded in keeping their lands near Leixlip during. By 1659, the townland of Confey had 34 inhabitants, while Leixlip had 100 people, and James Eustace was one of the three principle citizens in the area.

However, many branches of the Eustace family in Co Kildare were outlawed in the 1690s and their estates possessions were confiscated because of their support of King James II in the Williamite Wars.

In 1728, William Connolly of Castletown House in neighbouring Cellbridge bought great tracts of these confiscated lands on easy terms, including the manor, town and lands of Leixlip and Newtown, for which he paid £11,883. The remaining portions of Leixlip, including the castle, were bought by William Connolly’s nephew in 1731.

Noble and Keenan’s map of Co Kildare in 1750 shows few, if any, buildings in Priest Lane, Leixlip, now called Captain’s Hill.

Captain William Brady held the Lime Kiln holding in Newtown Leixlip from the Conolly family in 1772. The other tenants in the area included Richard Guinness, a brother of Arthur Guinness, founder of the Dublin brewery, and Peter Berrill, the parish priest of Leixlip. Captain Brady, who may have come from Ballaghy in Co Derry, where the Connolly family then had an estate, probably built Leixlip House in the 1770s.

Major-General Brady was active with Thomas Conolly in arranging the surrender of local rebels in 1798. Two years later, his daughter Jane married John Downing of Co Derry, who assumed the additional name of Nesbitt when he inherited the Nesbitt estate in Edenderry. He married in 1800 Jane, the daughter of General Brady of Leixlip House.

When General Brady died in 1828, he was buried in Leixlip cemetery, where there is a monument in his honour. Leixlip House then became the residence of Mr John Nesbitt. At Griffith’s Valuation in the 1850s, William George Downing Nesbitt held Leixlip House and 15 acres, along with 21 acres from Thomas Conolly of Castletown.

When William Nesbitt died in 1857, he was succeeded in turn by his sister and their cousin Edward Beaumount Downing Nesbitt, but he did not live in Leixlip House. In the 1910s, Leixlip House was home to WA West, a land commissioner, and later to the Hone family. In the 1950s, it was bought by Colonel Head, who extended the house.

The gates, railings and pillars of Leixlip House came from the French Estate in Frenchpark, Co Roscommon (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2016)

In 1974, Leilxip House and the surrounding 15 acres but without the field across the road that had been sold previously, was bought by the O’Mahoney family from Mrs Carville. They installed the impressive gates, railings and pillars procured, which came from the French Estate in Frenchpark, Co Roscommon.

Leixlip House and lands were sold by the O’Mahoney family to local developers in 1982. A year later, a fire cause extensive damage to the house, particularly to the roof and the top floors. The cause of the fire was never established, and for some years the house lay derelict and faced a very uncertain future.

The Towey Family from Palmerstown, bought Leixlip House Hotel in 1996, and immediately they began an extensive refurbishment project. They opened the hotel with 19 bedrooms, a restaurant with a capacity for 50 guests, and a banqueting suite that can hold 140 guests.

They have secured the fabric of the house, and 20 years later Leixlip House is now in good shape for future generations.

The future of Leixlip House has been secured for future generations (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2016)

England and the world
celebrate Shakespeare
400 years after his death

William Shakespeare … he died on 23 April 1616 and his works were first published seven years later

Patrick Comerford

William Shakespeare died 400 years on 23 April 1616. To mark this anniversary year, his home town, Stratford-upon-Avon in Warwickshire, is celebrating the world’s greatest playwright and England’s national poet with performances and exhibitions at the Royal Shakespeare Company, tours of his birthplace and commemorative events at his grave in Holy Trinity Church.

Visitors can see Shakespeare’s birthplace, his school, the cottage where his wife grew up and his grave in the parish church. The one place they cannot see is the New House, the house he bought in 1597 and where he died on 23 April 1616.

Shakespeare’s birthplace … the principal attraction in Stratford-upon-Avon

Shakespeare’s house was demolished 300 years ago, and the house that replaced it was flattened in 1759 by the Revd Francis Gastrell in a row over taxes. Gastrell had already chopped down the mulberry tree under which Shakespeare sat and worked, saying he was irritated by visitors peering into his garden. A five-year archaeology project means the whole site is being redisplayed for the anniversary and the garden has been restored.

Shakespeare’s monument in the parish church in Stratford-on-Avon (Photograph: Tom Reedy/ Wikimedia)

Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre in London is completing its first world tour, in which Hamlet has been brought to almost every country. The production arrives back in London in time for the anniversary weekend of 23-24 April, along with a 37-screen pop-up cinema, one screen to showcase each of Shakespeare’s plays, along the South Bank.

A career after death

The Globe Theatre in London … bringing ‘Hamlet’ around the world

Shakespeare is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language, and his use of language helped shape modern English. His surviving works include 38 plays and 154 sonnets. His plays have been translated into every major language and are performed more often than those of any other playwright. Yet his plays might not have survived if friends and actors had not collected every scrap of every play they could find and published the First Folio in 1623, seven years after his death.

There is little documentary evidence for his life and times, and we have few records of his private life. This vacuum has stimulated considerable questions about his physical appearance, sexuality, and religious beliefs, and whether he was the author of the works attributed to him.

Juliet’s Balcony in Verona … love and tragedy in Shakespeare’s plays (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Shakespeare’s work displays accurate knowledge of the law, politics, history, geography and politics of England, Italy and France, yet there is no evidence that he ever travelled further than London.

Some scholars suggest the Shakespeare of Stratford did not write the sonnets and plays. Their alternative suggestions include Francis Bacon, Christopher Marlowe and Edward de Vere, Earl of Oxford. But few academics now question the traditional attribution.

Shakespearian figures on the façade of Cintra House on Hills Road, Cambridge (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

William Shakespeare may have been born on Saint George’s Day, 23 April 1564, and he was baptised on 26 April 1564. When he was 18, he married Anne Hathaway, and they had three children.

Between 1585 and 1592, he began his career in London as an actor, writer, and part-owner of a playing company. He produced most of his work between 1589 and 1613. He appears to have retired to Stratford around 1613 at the age of 49, and died there three years later.

David Garrick in the role of Richard III … a portrait in the Samuel Johnson Museum, Lichfield (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2016)

By the 18th century, Shakespeare had lost his popularity and his plays were seldom staged, even in Stratford-upon-Avon. Samuel Johnson’s friend and former pupil, the actor David Garrick, was singularly responsible for reviving his plays on the English stage and defined the way Richard III has been played ever since.

The site of David Garrick’s childhood home in Lichfield … he was responsible for bringing Shakespeare back to the stage (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2016)

In his Dictionary, Dr Johnson quotes Shakespeare more often than any other author, and expressions such as “with bated breath” (Merchant of Venice) and “a foregone conclusion” (Othello) have found their way into everyday English speech. A series of scholarly editions of his works, beginning with Samuel Johnson’s in 1765, revived his reputation, and by 1800 he was firmly enshrined as the English national poet.

David Garrick revived the performance of Shakespeare’s plays in Stratford-upon-Avon, and he was buried close to Shakespeare’s monument in Westminster Abbey (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2016)

Shakespeare in Ireland

Samuel Johnson’s monument in Lichfield … he was the first major biographer of Shakespeare (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

The Dublin Shakespeare Society (or ‘Shakes’), founded in 1907, is the oldest non-professional theatre company in Ireland. Their first production was Romeo and Juliet at the Molesworth Hall in April 1910, and since then the Shakes have staged some of the best Shakespeare productions in Dublin.

The Dublin Shakespeare Society is the oldest non-professional theatre company in Ireland

The inaugural meeting was held in the Theatre Royal, Dublin. The Revd John Pentland Mahaffy, later Provost of TCD, was the first president, and he was succeeded in 1908 by Edward Dowden (1843-1913), Professor of English and a brother of John Dowden, Bishop of Edinburgh.

Edward Dowden’s biographical and critical concepts of Shakespeare are played with by Stephen Dedalus in the library chapter of James Joyce’s Ulysses.

For decades, a stained glass window of Shakespeare, once thought to be the work of Harry Clarke, decorated the La Scala Theatre, later the Capitol Cinema, in Prince’s Street, Dublin. The site was demolished to make way for the British Home Stores (now Penney’s). The window was saved by the Dublin Shakespeare Society and is now stored in the library in Ballyfermot.

An Irish accent

Shakespeare’s plays are often performed in crisp English accents. But experts claim the original pronunciation had echoes of Irish, New England and Cockney accents. Professor Paul Meier of the University of Kansas suggests the original audiences would have heard accents with “strong R-coloured vowels” that contrast with the polished deliveries of actors like John Gielgud and Laurence Olivier.

In the early 20th century, two Irish writers, PW Joyce and Sir Dunbar Plunket Barton, claimed that English as spoken in Ireland preserved 16th century speech, and that Ireland retains the language of Shakespeare’s time.

Some Irish words found in Shakespeare’s works include ‘Puck’ for a spirit in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, from the Irish Púca meaning a ghost; and there is a reference to Queen Mab as a fairy queen in Romeo and Juliet.

Some also find Irish colloquial phrases in his plays. For example, Agrippa greets Coriolanus with “a hundred thousand welcomes,” Hamlet swears “by Saint Patrick”, and in Pericles we hear the questions: “Did you ever hear the like? … Did you ever dream of such a thing?”

It is said Shakespeare follows the Irish and Scottish use of ‘shall’ rather than the English method. Some Irish pronunciations are said to include the rhyming of ‘again’ and ‘pen’ with ‘pin,’ ‘tea’ with ‘obey,’ ‘drought’ with ‘youth,’ ‘conceit’ and ‘receipt’ with ‘bait’ and ‘straight',’ and ‘devil’ with ‘evil.’ A pun by Falstaff can only be understood if ‘reason’ is pronounced like ‘raisin’: “If reasons here as plentiful as blackberries.”

His Irish characters include Captain Macmorris – probably the Irish rebel Captain James Fitzmaurice of Munster – who in Henry V says “Of my nation? What ish my nation? Ish a villaine, and a bastard, and a knave, and a rascal. What ish my nation? Who talks of my nation?”

The list of titles of John Talbot, Earl of Shrewsbury, in Henry VI Part 1 include “great Earl of Washford, Waterford and Valence,” a reference to Talbot’s two Irish titles as Earl of Wexford and Earl of Waterford.

But Ireland has a shadowy presence in Shakespeare’s works, and his references to Ireland are fewer than those to Wales (think of Owen Glendower), to Scotland (think of Macbeth), or Denmark (think of Elsinore in Hamlet).

Irish claims to Shakespeare

Saint Aidan’s Cathedral, Enniscorthy … WH Grattan Flood claimed many Shakespeare connections with Ireland (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

The American writer, Flannery O’Connor, in The Habit of Being, tells Sally and Robert Fitzgerald in 1953: “My mamma asked me the other day if I knew Shakespeare was an Irishman, I said no I didn't. She said well it’s right there in the Savannah paper; and sure enough some gent from the University of Chicago had made a speech somewhere saying Shakespeare was an Irishman.”

However, the historian and composer William Henry Grattan Flood (1859-1928), makes some of the most curious claims for Shakespeare’s Irish links. Grattan Flood was born in Lismore, Co Waterford, and was the organist of Saint Aidan’s Cathedral, Enniscorthy, Co Wexford (1895-1928). While he was living in Enniscorthy, he wrote his History of Irish Music (1905), in which he devotes a full chapter to Shakespeare’s knowledge of Irish songs, suggesting allusions to 11 Irish songs in his plays.

Coliemore Harbour in Dalkey … an inspiration for Elsinore in ‘Hamlet’ (Patrick Comerford, 2016)

Some legends claim Shakespeare wrote Hamlet while visiting his friend the poet and composer John Dowland at Dalkey, Co Dublin, and that his account of the shore of Elsinore is based on the shoreline at Coliemore in Dalkey. Grattan Flood claims Dowland was from Dalkey and published this theory in 1922. He claims that while Shakespeare was writing Hamlet in 1601, he asked Dowland about life in Denmark, and that Dowland compared Elsinore with Dalkey.

Sarah Purser’s mosaic of John Dowland in Sorrento Park, Dalkey (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2016)

But there is nothing to connect Dowland with Dalkey apart from the name of a John Dowlan who died there in 1577, or to link the topography of Dalkey with Elsinore. Nevertheless, there is plaque by Sarah Purser commemorating John Dowland in Sorrento Park in Dalkey, and there is a Victorian house called Elsinore on Coliemore Road.

In a more extravagant claim, the Meath historian Elizabeth Hickey suggests in her book The Green Cockatrice that the author of Shakespeare’s plays was William Nugent (1550-1625), a Catholic rebel from Ross Castle, near Lough Sheelin, Co Meath, and the descendant of an old Co Westmeath family.

William Nugent was brought up in England from the age of nine in the household of his guardian, Thomas Radclyffe, 3rd Earl of Sussex, a poet who was fluent in Latin and Italian and a patron of literature and drama. During his career in Ireland, Sussex had restored part of Christ Church Cathedral. He was the uncle of the poet Sir Philip Sidney, the writer of sonnets, and of two of Shakespeare's patrons, Henry Wriothesley, 3rd Earl of Southampton and Robert Radclyffe, 5th Earl of Sussex, also the patron of poets and dramatists. His widow endowed Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge in 1596, 20 years before Shakespeare’s death.

The Sussex monument in Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Shakespeare’s Anglican identity

Some scholars claim that members of Shakespeare’s family were recusant Roman Catholics. His mother Mary Arden was from a pious Catholic family. A Catholic statement of faith said to have been signed by his father, John Shakespeare, was found in the rafters of his former home in 1757, but the document is now lost and scholars question its authenticity.

In 1591, John Shakespeare was reported for not going to church, and in 1606 Shakespeare’s daughter Susanna is named on a list of people who failed to attend Easter Communion in Stratford.

Shakespeare was never a regular churchgoer in London, but many members of his acting company were on the parish register of Saint Saviour’s Church, now Southwark Cathedral, where Shakespeare is commemorated by a window and statue in the South Aisle.

Whatever his private views, Shakespeare was baptised and confirmed member in the Church of England, he was married in church, his children were baptised, and he was buried in his parish church when he died on 23 April 1616, at the age of 52.

A memorial window in the Freemasons Hall, Dublin, commemorates the members of the Shakespeare Lodge and Chapter in World War I (Photograph: Michael Pegum)

Canon Patrick Comerford lectures in the Church of Ireland Theological Institute. This feature was first published in the ‘Church Review’ (Dublin and Glendalough) and the ‘Diocesan Magazine’ (Cashel, Ferns and Ossory) in April 2016.

Presiding at the Eucharist in
the Cathedral on ‘Low Sunday’

Easter scenes in stained-glass windows in Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2016)

Patrick Comerford

This Sunday, the Second Sunday of Easter [3 April 2016], is traditionally known as Low Sunday, although in some parts of Europe it is also known as Saint Thomas Sunday, Quasimodo Sunday and Quasimodogeniti.

The traditional English name of Low Sunday may reflect the contrast with the high celebrations of Easter last Sunday [27 March 2016], although some say the word “Low” may come from the Latin Laudes, the first word of a sequence used in the Sarum Liturgy. The name Quasimodo Sunday comes from the first words of the introit in Latin.

In Victor Hugo’s novel Notre Dame de Paris or The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1831), Quasimodo is so named because he was found abandoned on the doorsteps of Notre Dame Cathedral on the Sunday after Easter, 1467, by Archdeacon Claude Frollo.

As the bells ring out in Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin, this morning, I am presiding at the Cathedral Eucharist, and the preacher is the residential priest vicar, the Revd Garth Bunting.

The setting this morning is Timothy Powell’s Melodious Sonnet, described as a “Colonial American Mass,” sung by the Davidson Chorale from Augusta, Georgia.

There is an American flavour to some of the hymns too. The processional hymn, ‘Love’s redeeming work is done,’ by John Wesley, is sung to the tune ‘Savannah’ (‘Herrnhut’), a melody found in John Wesley’s ‘Foundry Collection’ (1742).

This morning’s Communion Motet, ‘Steal away, steal away, steal away to Jesus,’ is a traditional African-American spiritual, sung this morning to an arrangement by Joseph Jennings.

The Davidson Chorale is in Christ Church Cathedral again tomorrow evening [4 April 2016], giving a concert at 7.30 p.m. with the New Dublin Voices.

The Davidson Chorale under the baton of the conductor Phillip Streetman is the top performing choir at the Davidson Fine Arts Magnet School in Augusta, Georgia, a 2004 Grammy Signature School, and is one of the most acclaimed high school choirs in the world.

The Chorale has been recognised by numerous associations, including winning the 2012 American Prize in Choral Performance. They have toured extensively, performing for Easter services at the Saint Thomas Church in Leipzig in 2010 and at the Vatican in 2012.

The Chorale performs a variety of literature, with numerous concerts throughout the year.

Accompanied by members of the Davidson Chamber Orchestra with director and violinist Dr Laura Tomlin, guest conductors and composers Dr Tim Sharp and Dr Tim Powell, and the Irish composer Patrick Cassidy, the Davidson Chorale’s concert tour of Ireland will include American spirituals, music by John Williams, and the premieres of compositions by Powell and Cassidy, as well as Tim Sharp’s High Lonesome Bluegrass Mass.

Collect:

Almighty Father,
you have given your only Son to die for our sins
and to rise again for our justification:
Grant us so to put away the leaven
of malice and wickedness
that we may always serve you in pureness of living and truth;
through the merits of your Son
Jesus Christ our Lord.

Readings:

Acts 5: 27-32; Psalm 118: 14–29; Psalm 118: 14–29; John 20: 19-31.

Post Communion Prayer:

Lord God our Father,
through our Saviour Jesus Christ
you have assured your children of eternal life
and in baptism have made us one with him.
Deliver us from the death of sin
and raise us to new life in your love,
in the fellowship of the Holy Spirit,
by the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ.