A look at Celtic Spirituality in the churches and towns of Cornwall

Patrick Comerford

I begin my monthly columns in the Church Review this year by taking a look at Celtic Spirituality in Cornwall.

The feature, with 16 of my photographs from towns and churches throughout Cornwall, is published in a double-page, colour spread in the January 2020 edition of the Church Review, the magazine of the Diocese of Dublin and Glendalough, which goes on distribution in parishes on Sunday morning.

In recent decades there has been a renewed interest in Celtic Christianity and Celtic spirituality. Celtic Christianity is usually linked with Ireland as the ‘Land of Saints and Scholars,’ but it is also associated with Scotland and Wales.

However, standard textbooks on Celtic Christianity pay little or any attention to Cornish Spirituality and the story of Christianity in Cornwall.

Indeed, I had little knowledge of these traditions either until I visited Cornwall at the end of autumn last year.

I was struck by the large number of towns and villages, from Saint Ives to Saint Agnes, named after Celtic saints, many of them from Ireland, others came from Wales and Brittany.

But more about that on this blog, hopefully, on Sunday afternoon HERE, after the Church Review has been published.