Patrick Comerford
As the sun sets on 2024, and as I look forward to the New Year and the promises of 2025, I find it helpful this evening to look back on the past year, with all its blessings, and at both the new and the missed opportunities.
The year began on a very low note, with two of us feeling sorry for ourselves and isolated with another round of Covid-19, with no opportunity and no inclination to ring in the New Year. Of course, we recovered, and it is good to reflect on what an interesting year this has been.
As well as visiting places throughout Ireland, north and south, and England, my travels this year brought me to France, Greece, the Netherlands, Singapore and Kuching in East Malaysia.
We spent almost five weeks in Kuching (15 October to 18 November), staying for the first week in the Marian, a boutique hotel that had once been the diocesan guesthouse, and before that a school boarding house for a girls’ school and the home of the Ong family.
For the rest of our visit, we stayed for four weeks in Charlotte’s flat in Chinatown, in the heart of the old town of Kuching.
In the past, I have had many working visits to Japan, Korea, China and Hong Kong in East Asia, but this was my first time to visit south-east Asia.
The highlights of the those five weeks in Sarawak included an afternoon on Damai Beach on the shores of the South China Sea as Charlotte and I celebrated our first wedding anniversary, seeing the Orangutans in Semenggoh Nature Reserve south of Kuching, a morning at the Sarawak Cultural Village, and a day in BaKo National Park.
We crossed the river on sampans at night, took a river cruise at sunset, ate out with family members and friends, went swimming in the pool at the Marian, and learned about the work in Kuching of the Irish architect Denis Santry from Cork. We also visited many cathedrals, churches, mosques, a Sikh temple and Chinese or Taoist and Buddhist temples, a theological college and graveyards. I even went in search of the Jewish community of Kuching that never existed.
Father Jeffry Renos Nawie of Saint Augustine’s Church, Mambong, brought us on whistle-stop tours of up to 20 churches in the Diocese of Kuching, including the seven churches and chapels in his own mission district.
In a thank-offering to celebrate our first wedding anniversary, Charlotte and I presented a new church bell to Father Jeffry, Saint Matthias Chapel and the people of Sinar Baru.
There were two stopovers in Singapore in October and November. Because of flight cancellations and rerouting, we missed the first opportunity to stay over in Singapore. But on the return journey we stayed in the Chinatown district of Singapore, visited many of the major sites, and, of course, sought out the street art, took a boat trip on the river and sipped a Singapore Sling in Raffles Hotel.
Once again, I went in search of churches, cathedrals, synagogues, mosques and Hindu, Buddhist and Chinese temples. It was particularly interesting to see the influence of five key Irish figures on the layout, streets and architecture of Singapore: Sir Orfeur Cavenagh from Wexford, George Drumgoole Coleman from Drogheda, and Denis Santry and Denis Lane McSwiney, both from Cork, and William Cuppage from Dublin.
My optimum definition of visiting somewhere is staying overnight. Using that yardstick, I have slept in 15 different beds in the past 12 months – not counting the sleeps I tried to catch on two overnight flights between Paris and Singapore, but including an unexpected stay in an hotel at Schiphol Airport in October when our flight from Birmingham to Amsterdam was delayed, and we were rerouted through Paris.
My minimum definition of visiting somewhere is if my feet are on the ground and I stop over long enough to have coffee and something to eat. This means we were in Paris three times this year: a delayed honeymoon in Paris in February, and two very brief stop-overs at Charles de Gaulle Airport in October and November on the way to and from Singapore and Kuching.
Our visit to Paris earlier in the year was what in reality was a delayed honeymoon, just two months after our wedding at the end of last year.
It was my first time to travel on the Eurostar, and we stayed in the Hotel Europe-Saint-Séverin on Rue St Séverin. We were in the heart of the Latin Quarter, a few steps away from the Boulevard Saint-Michel and across the river from Notre Dame Cathedral, where the restoration work was still under way but near completion.
We went in search of stories about Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, James Joyce and Samuel Beckett, I visited synagogues, churches and museums, and I found the house where Vladimir Nikolaievich Lossky, one of the more influential Orthodox theologians, had lived in the 1940s and 1960s.
I returned to Greece in April, spending almost a week between Western Easter and Orthodox Easter in Rethymnon, where I stayed in the Brascos Hotel, overlooking the Municipal Gardens and close to the old town and the Venetian harbour. Since the mid-1980s, Rethymnon has been the nearest I have to any home town in Greece.
There was time for coffee, drinks, and even a long lingering lunch or two with old friends in Rethymnon, Platanias, Koutouloufari, Piskopiano, Iraklion and Panormos.
I had walks on the beaches and harbours in Rethymnon, Platanias, Hersonissos and Panrmos, it was exhilarating to stroll again in the hills and by the olive groves in Koutouloufari and Piskopiano. And I visited some favourite old churches and monasteries, browsed in the bookshops in the narrow streets of the old town, and watched the sunset behind the harbour and the Fortezza.
There were six visits to Ireland this year, including five return visits to Dublin. They included three family visits in June, August and shortly before Christmas this month. I stayed over on those three visits, in the Harcourt Hotel on Harcourt Street (June), the Martello Hotel in Bray, Co Wicklow (August), and the Travelodge in Rathmines (December).
During the visit in August, we had opportunities too to see the Iveagh Gardens in detail and to visit Newman House and the Museum of Literature Ireland (MoLI) on Saint Stephen’s Green.
We were in Belfast for two nights in September, when we were invited to a family celebration near Templepatrick, Co Antrim.
A school reunion in September involved lunch in Peploe’s restaurant on Saint Stephen’s when about 30 or more of us who left school at Gormanston, Co Meath, after the Leaving Certificate exams in 1969. It was surprising to see so many of us still looking hale and hearty in our early-to-mid 70s. But that lunch in September and a business meeting in October were flying visits, literally, flying into Dublin in the morning, and back to Birmingham late in the evening.
My family visit to Dublin shortly before Christmas was also an opportunity to hear about the current campaign to protect Kenilworth Square, Rathgar, from plans by Saint Mary’s College to develop its rugby and cricket facilities in the square.
I have been living in Stony Stratford, on the northern edges of Milton Keynes, for almost three years, and it offers me many opportunities to explore neighbouring cities, towns and countryside, to return to parts of England I have known for most of my life, and to see some new parts of England that I am only beginning to explore on my ‘escapades’.
I was in Norwich for the first time this year, when we stayed there in March while visiting an old friend. This was also an opportunity to visit Norwich Cathedral, the house and church associated with Julian of Norwich, and some of the places associated with Quaker history.
I was in Oxford for hospital tests towards the end of the year, but there were visits to Oxford throughout the year, to meet an old friend from India who is an Orthodox priest and theologian, to visit the exhibition ‘Kafka, Making of an Icon’ in the Weston Library, for the Corpus Christi procession from the Chapel of Pusey House to Saint Barnabas, Jericho, to see Holman Hunt’s ‘Light of the World’ in the Chapel of Keble College and visit other churches and chapels, to follow parts of the ‘Alice in Wonderland’ trail, for long lingering pub lunches in the King’s Arms with friends, and time to browse in bookshops, especially Blackwells.
There were walks through Christchurch Meadows, by the Cherwell and the Isis and by the boathouses, and to search for the oldest and longest-established coffee house in Europe.
I was back in Cambridge three times this year – twice on the way to and from the USPG conference in High Leigh, and again in November for the seminar and celebrations in Westminster College marking the 25th anniversary of the Institute for Orthodox Christian Studies. During those visits I also had the opportunity drop in again to Sidney Sussex College.
There have been days in London amd short ‘escapades’ to Aston, Beachampton, Bedford, Blisworth, Eaton Socon and Eaton Ford, Hampstead, Handsworth, Hoddesdon, Lamport, Leicester, Loughton, Northampton, Roade, St Neots, and Woughton-on-the-Green, there were forays in search of the traditional coffee houses that give their names to streets in Coffee Hall in Milton Keynes, and there was another visit to the museum at Bletchley Park.
I was in Lichfield and Tamworth throughout the year. In Lichfield, I attended the mid-day Eucharist and Choral Evensong in the cathedral, had lunch in the Hedgehog and went for long walks along Cross in Hand Lane, through Beacon Park and by Minster Pool and Stowe Pool.
In Tamworth, there were return visits to the Comberford Chapel in Saint Editha’s Collegiate Church and the Moat House, the former Comberford family home on Lichfield Street, and I was invited by the Tamworth and District Civic Society to deliver a lecture in April on the Wyatt architectural dynasty.
Each time I pass Comberford and Comberford Hall on the train between Tamworth and Lichfield, I continue to be filled with warm feelings and to recall past family stories.
However, one visit to Lichfield and Tamworth almost became a catastrophe when I lost my phone on the train. I never recovered it, and trying to recover contacts and update passwords and accounts remains a Sisyphean task even months later.
My researches on Comberford and Comerford links continued throughout the year. I was in Aston, near Birmingham, not only to visit the home of Aston Villa at Villa Park, but also to visit Aston Hall and to visit Saint Peter and Saint Paul Church to see an unusual Comberford family monument.
There were Comberford connections to explore closer to home too, at Stoke Bruerne in Northamptonshire and the neighbouring village of Shutlanger, where the house now known as the Monastery in Shutlanger was the main house on the Parles and Comberford estate in that part of Northamptonshire in the 15th and 16th centuries.
The year began wrapped up in bed with two of us feeling very sorry for ourselved during yet another attack of Covid-19. But my major health concerns this year included monitoring my continuing recovery from a stroke almost three years ago, and monitoring the symptoms of my pulmonary sarcoidosis and a severe deficiency of Vitamin B-12.
I returned to Milton Keynes University Hospital on 18 March to remember the second anniversary of my stroke in March 2022. There were seven other visits to the hospital in Milton Keynes, in March, June, twice in July, August, October and November, for respiratory and cardiac tests and CT scans, and further tests in the Whitehouse Health Centre near Milton Keynes in October and the John Radcliffe Hospital, Oxford, earlier this month.
I have yet another respiratory or lung test in Milton Keynes Hospital later this week.
This has been a year of milestone anniversaries in my life story, some of which have been a delight and pleasure, but some of which I have not responded to with the grace and generosity that I ought to expect even of myself:
It is 55 years since I finished school at Gormanston College (1969).
It is 50 years since I left Wexford and the Wexford People and moved to Dublin and The Irish Times in 1974 and got married the first time in Dublin.
It has been 45 years since I was student in Japan, based in Tokyo for a full term in 1979 on a fellowship from Journalistes en Europe and Nihon Shimbun Kyokai, and with the support of Douglas Gageby, editor of The Irish Times.
It has been 45 since years since I became involved in re-founding the Irish Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) and as chair of Irish CND.
It has been 40 years since Mercier Press published my first book, Do You Want to Do for NATO? (1984).
It has been 40 years aince completing a Post-Graduate Diploma in Ecumenical Theology at the Irish School of Ecumenics and Trinity College Dublin in 1984, and beginning the BD course at the Kimmage Manor and the Pontifical University Maynooth.
It is 35 years since my elder son was born in 1989.
It has been 30 years since I was appointed Foreign Desk Editor of The Irish Times in 1994, and 30 years since I was commissioned in Christ Church Cathedral as a diocesan reader in the Church of Ireland.
It has been 25 years since I began training for ordination at the Church of Ireland Theological College (now CITI) in 1999.
It has been 20 years since my father died in December 2004.
It is 15 years since I stood down as chair of the Dublin University Far East Mission in 2009.
It has been 10 years since my mother died in May 2014.
I am still waiting for Permission to Officiate (PTO) in the Diocese of Oxford. It is a difficult and at times heart-breaking process, and more difficult in the major Church seasons such as Easter and Christmas, and as I look forward to the 25th anniversary of my ordination as deacon in 2000.
But the local clergy in the Milton Keynes deanery have gone out of their way to welcome me to chapter meetings in the past year in local churches and parishes, including Bletchley, Shenley, Shenley Church End, Wavenden and Wolverton.
I continue to sing with the bass line in the parish choir in the Church of Saint Mary and Saint Giles, Stony Stratford. We rehearse each Wednesday, sing at the Parish Eucharist most Sundays, and we have also sung in All Saints’ Church, Calverton.
I attended the Cathedral Eucharist in Saint Thomas’s Cathedral each Sunday while we were staying in Kuching. During those five weeks, I visited the two cathedrals in Kuching and countless churches throughout the Diocese of Kuching.
There have been visits to Christ Church, Oxford, Lichfield Cathedral, Southwark Cathedral, Saint Anne’s Cathedral, Belfast, St Alban’s Cathedral, Leicester Cathedral, the two cathedrals in Norwich, the cathedrals in Rethymnon and Iraklion in Crete, the two cathedrals in Dublin, Christ Church and Saint Patrick’s, the two cathedrals in Kuching, Saint Thomas’s and Saint Joseph’s, and the two cathedrals in Singapore, Saint Andrew’s and the Good Shepherd.
Although I am no longer a trustee of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), I continue to be involved in its work, and deaw on the USPG prayer diary in my own online prayer diary each morning. I took part in the annual conference of USPG in High Leigh, near Hoddesdon, Hertfordshire, in July, when I was invited to lead the intercessions at the Eucharist on the closing day, and attended the annual founders’ day celebrations for USPG and SPCK in Saint Alban’s Church, Holborn, earlier in the year.
I watched the new iconostasis being put in place in the Greek Orthodox Church in Stony Stratford, where I have been warmly welcomed at the Good Friday and Easter liturgies and other celebrations, as well as numerous coffee mornings.
As well as churches, cathedrals and synagogues, there have been visits to mosques in England, Kuching and Singapore, and to Buddhist, Chinese or Taoist, Hindu, Jain and Sikh temples.
I took part in the Holocaust Memorial Day commemoration at the MK Rose in Campbell Park, Milton Keynes, and the Hiroshima Day commemorations at the Japanese Peace Pagoda by Willen Lake, and attended the Kol Nidre Service at Yom Kippur and the Chanukah party last weekend in our local synagogue.
During the summer months, Charlotte organised a street party, so we all got to know each other better as neighbours in Church Mews and White Horse Lane.
Living off the High Street in Stony Stratford for almost three years now, I miss being close to the sea, and opportunities to walk on a beach or by the sea. But during one visit to Dublin there were opportunities for walks by the shore in both Blackrock and Bray; there were walks on the beaches in Rethymnon, Platanias and Panormos and by the harbours in Rethymnon and Iraklion in Crete; and walks on the beaches in Sarawak in Bako National Park and by the South China Sea at Damai Beach Resort.
There were walks by the Ouse in Stony Stratford, Bedford and St Neots, the Cam in Cambridge, the Cherwell and the Isis or Thames and the boat clubs in Oxford, the Thames in London, the Liffey in Dublin, the Seine in Paris and by the rivers in Kuching and Singapore; there were strolls by Willen Lake in Milton Keynes and the Balancing Lakes near Wolverton; I had canal-side walks in Great Linford, Stoke Bruerne and Wolverton; there were boat trips on the canal in Stoke Bruerne, on the rivers in Kuching and Singapore and in Bako National Park in Sarawak; and there was time to enjoy the regatta and Dragon Boat races in Kuching.
Although I walk 3-5 km a day, I remain a couch potato when it comes to sports. But I was an enthusiastic television fan of the Irish rugby team, of the Irish and English rowers in the Olympics and the Cambridge crew in the boat race, enjoyed the spectacular opening and closing ceremonies at the Paris Olympics, enjoyed the Euros 2024, and kept up-to-date with results for Aston Villa, the Leinster rugby team and the Wexford hurlers.
I continue to contribute to books, write papers and reviews for journals and magazines, and some of my photographs have been published too in books, magazines – and even in one calendar for next year.
My publications in 2024 included the Προλογος (‘Foreword’) in Ελληνικα Δημοτικα Τραγουδια, Greek Folk Songs by Panos Karagiorgos, (Thessaloniki, Εκδοτικος Οικος Κ & Μ Σταμουλη); a paper on ‘The Lamport Crucifix’ and photographs in 50 Years of the Lamport Hall Preservation Trust, edited by Catriona Finlayson (Lamport, 2024); a short description of ‘Bourke’s House’ in Denis O’Shaughnessy’s The Story of Athlunkard Street, 1824-2024 (Limerick, 2024), which has run to three printings and has sold out each time; the ‘Foreword’ and a photograph in Rod Smith’s Clancarty – the high times and humble of a noble Irish family (Tauranga, New Zealand: Eyeglass Press); and a small, six-page pamphlet with Sarah Friedman, Milton Keynes & District Reform Synagogue: an introduction, with six of my photographs.
I wrote a paper on Saint Patrick for Conversations, a new journal edited by Bernard Treacy and published by Dominican Publications in Dublin; and wrote a book review for The Journal of Malankara Orthodox Theological Studies, published by the Orthodox Theological Seminary in Kerala, India.
There were features and photographs about Bishop Richard Rawle, a 19th century Vicar of Tamworth and SPG-supported Bishop in Trinidad, and about the stained glass artist William Wailes in Tamworth Heritage Magazine; a photograph of Bryce House illustrating February 2025, in ‘Garnish Island Calendar 2025’ produced for a school, Glengarriff, Co Cork; and a photograph in The Liberty, a local newspaper in Dublin. I also continue to write occasionally for The Irish Times.
We visited Lamport Hall in rural Northamptonshire for the launch of Catriona Finlayson’s lavishly illustrated 50 Years of the Lamport Hall Preservation Trust, and met many of the other contributors to the publication.
I was supposed to launch Rod Smith’s book, Clancarty – the high times and humble of a noble Irish family, on the history of the Trench family in London in October. But, in my haste to get to London on time, I boarded the wrong train at Milton Keynes, and ended up instead in Crewe. A return train was never going to get me back to London on time. My embarrassment was redeemed in part, I hope, by recording what I had planned to say first on the train and later when I got back to Stony Stratford, and posting both recordings on YouTube.
I felt so sorry for Rod Smith, who had travelled all the way from New Zealand for the book launch, and we had met in Hampstead a few days earlier to plan what I was going to say. I could only hope the other book launch in Ballinasloe was less of a disaster.
I continue to blog about twice a day, with a prayer diary each morning and a second posting later in the day.
Thoughts shared for the launch of Rod Smith’s book ‘Clancarty – the high times and humble of a noble Irish family’ in London (Patrick Comerford, 2024)
I continue to serve as a trustee of the Retreat, a local almshouse off the High Street in Stony Stratford, and took part in a training day for almshouse trustees in Birmingham.
Throughout the year I have been involved in the Town Centre Working Group, a committee of Stony Stratford Town Council and successfully completing a commission for a public sculpture for Stony Stratford. In the course of that project, I have visited and photographed public sculptures already in situ in Stony Stratford, Wolverton, the campus of the Open University in Milton Keynes and in the grounds of Tamworth Castle.
It was a duty and a privilege to vote in this year’s local and general elections in May and July. I canvassed on the day of the general election and while I am pleased with the election results, including the results in Milton Keynes and Lichfield, I am concerned about the rise of Farage and Reform as part of the rise of the far-right across Europe and North America.
I was in Dublin to vote in the European elections, but this year’s general election in Ireland is probably the first I have not been able to vote in. From a distance, I was sorry to see my old friend Brendan Howlin retire from politics, I was delighted to see George Lawlor, former Mayor of Wexford, elected to the Dail, and I could breathe a sigh of relief that the expected upsurge in support for Sinn Fein was never realised.
A morning with the orangutans in Semenggoh Wildlife Centre (Patrick Comerford, 2024)
On the overnight flight from Paris to Singapore in October, I found it difficult to sleep and kept my eye on the flight path. It was interesting how many conflict zones had to be avoided: Ukraine, Russia, Syria, Israel, the West Bank, Yemen, many parts of the Gulf, Afghanistan … It made the map more interesting, but may have added up to an extra hour to the flight time, and made me more acutely aware of how fragile the world is.
Of course, I am deeply concerned about the continuing aggressive war Russia is waging in Ukraine and the conflicts being fought on so many fronts in the Middle East – in Gaza, Israel, Palestine, Lebanon, Syria and Yemen.
Of course, I am deeply concerned about the plight of refugees the world seems to have forgotten trying to cross the Mediterranean and the Channel and living in hellish conditions in northern France, on Greek islands, and in so many places across the world.
Of course, I am worried about the real threat Nigel Farage and his party could still pose to democracy in Britain, and about the rise of the far throughout Europe.
Of course, I am worried about the rise in antisemitism, Islamophobia, racism and misogyny, remembering that January 2025 marks the 80th anniversary of the liberation of the concentration camps, and that the coming year marks the 80th anniversary of the end of World War II.
And, of course, I am worried about the damage that is going to be wreaked not only in the US but across the globe during another four years of a Trump presidency, with Elon Musk pulling the strings as the puppet master, and what this could mean for the world economy, for democracy, for human rights, the climate change, for fundamental justice, decency and honesty in the public sphere.
There is no Planet B, as one campaign slogan reminds us. There is Nowehere else to go.
During our visit to Norwich earlier this year, we had dinner one evening in the small town of Acle on the Norfolk Broads. But it was too late in the evening to think of going to Great Yarmouth 8 or 9 miles to the east for a walk by the sea.
There is a marshy area by the River Bure about three miles from Acle that was once known as Nowhere or No-Where. The villagers of Acle had salt-pans there to produce salt and in 1861 there were four inhabited houses in Nowehere and 16 residents. Originally, Nowhere was an extra-parochial liberty, until it was formally incorporated into Acle parish in 1862.
The name Nowhere no longer appears in maps and gazetteers, so I cannot say that this year I actually visited Nowehere. But then, there’s nowhere in Nowhere to have a coffee, and certainly nowhere there to stay overnight.
Happy New Year
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