This year seems to have been dominated by war and violence in Russia and Ukraine, in Gaza, Israel and Palestine, continuing wars and violence involving the US, Iran, Yemen, Sudan and Nigeria, the continuing rise in antimsemitism, Islamophobia and racism everywhere, and by the upsurge in ugly right-wing nationalism in Britain and across the world that hijacks the name of Christianity and its symbolism without heeding any of its values, teachings or demands.
The changes in the world this year included the return of Donald Trump to power in the US, the death of Pope Francis, the election of Pope Leo, the resignation of Archbishop Justin Welby, and the appointment of his successor, Bishop Sarah Mullally.
This year also marked the 80th anniversaries of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the liberation of the death camps, the end of the Holocaust, VE Day and VJ Day, and the end of World War II. This year would also have marked the 80th anniversary of the marriage of my parents, who waited until the end of World War II to get married on 8 September 1945.
Michael D Higgins, who retired last month as President of Ireland after two seven-year terms of office, was a life-long supporter of CND and many other campaigns I was involved in. We have known each other since the Labour Party conference in Cork in 1973, and I only wish that the values that marked his 14-year presidency could be mirrored by other world leaders today.
One of the emotional difficulties of having moved from Ireland to England is not being able to attend the funerals of dear friends and family members.
Don Buckley was a lifelong friend, a work colleague in The Irish Times for many decades, and my second cousin on the Crowley side of the family. His paternal grandmother and my maternal grandmother were sisters, and although his family live in Mallow, Co Cork, I knew him since childhood due to the amount of time he spent in hospitals in Dublin because of his haemophilia.
He encouraged me to follow him into journalism, and visited me in Wexford while I was with the Wexford People trying to persuade me to move to The Irish Times. He was a brave and pioneering journalist, who achieved national prominence for his work on fake charities, the ‘Heavy Gang’ and the ‘Kerry Babies’ case. He was a bon viveur and I enjoyed his parties and dinners, but we also shared similar political values and hopes and many cultural interests.
Other former colleagues from those days in The Irish Times who died during the years include Johnny Hughes, Ed Moloney, a former Northern Editor, Mickey McConnell and the writer Mary Russell, and Philip Molloy from my days with the Wexford People.
Father Louis Brennan, who died on 12 August, had been the Rector of Gormanston, and was perhaps the most inspiring teacher I had in my schooldays. He encouraged my interests in debating, drama and development and human rights issues, got me on stage, involved me in carol singing at Christmas, and counted me in on a drama production during the Easter holidays in 1969. Later, he was Minister Provincial of the Franciscan Province of Ireland, Definitor General of the Order, Secretary General of the Order.
Canon Billy Marshall, who died at the age of 90 on 26 September, had been the Vice-Principal of the Church of Ireland Theological College when I was training for ordination, and our lives overlapped in many ways. The Revd Canon Dr William John Marshall had spent a decade in North India with the Dublin University Mission to Chota Nagpur and USPG (1962-1972). Back in Ireland, he was Assistant Chaplain at Trinity College Dublin (1973-1976), where he completed his doctoral research on the Church of North India, and later was the Rector of Rathmichael (1976-1992), Chancellor of Christ Church Cathedral (1990-2002), and Vice-Principal of CITC (1992-2002).
He was a life-long supporter of USPG and he was one of the ‘go-to’ people when I was planning doctoral research on Irish Anglican missionaries. He continued his engagement with both CITC (later CITI) when I was on the staff and with Christ Church Cathedral when I was a chapter member.
Canon Walter Lewis died on 5 March aged 79. I first got to know him when I was on a student placement with the Irish School of Ecumenics on the Shankill Road in Belfast in the early 1980s. His style of ministry then impressed me so much that he was one of three priests I later asked to sign my pre-ordination papers in 2000, along with Canon Norman Ruddock and the Revd Robert Kingston.
The Revd Dr Ron Elsdon, who was 81 when he died on 25 July, was ordained a year before me, and together we shared in many mission projects. I first met him when he was a lecturer in geology and UCD, and we joked at times about the tectonic shift from geology to theology.
The Revd Mark Wilson, who died on 29 August, was originally Castlecomer, Co Kilkenny. Mark’s ministry brought him to parishes in Ireland, the UK, and the Algarve in Portugal, he was an army chaplain in Northern Ireland and Germany, and for 12 years he was the chaplain of Tallaght University Hospital, Dublin.
Canon Robert Deane, who died on 21 September, was the same age as me. We were canons of Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin, at the same time, and when he was the Rector of Swords, with Donabate and Kilsallaghan (2000-2018), he invited me to preach in his churches, to do occasional Sunday duty, and to conduct a baptism in Saint Patrick’s Church, Donabate. He also made the church in Donabate available one year for the Ash Wednesday retreat for CITI staff and students, and I remember his kindness when he was the acting chaplain in Tallaght Hospital.
Canon Ian Coulter, who died on 22 November, was the Canon Treasurer of Saint Canice’s Cathedral, Kilkenny and priest-in-charge of Templemore. We regularly bumped into each other in Kilkenny, where he was active in many civic, charitable and local organisations in Kilkenny, including Kilkenny Archaeological Society, the Rotary Club, Kilkenny Arts Festival, Saint Canice’s Credit Union, the Good Shepherd Centre and the Butler Gallery.
Father Dermod McCarthy, who died at 83, was once the editor of religious programmes at RTÉ. He was part of the team that produced the ground-breaking Radharc programmes for RTÉ from 1965, including documentaries on the famine in Nigeria and the last interview with Oscar Romero before he was martyred in 1980. Dermod was the administrator of the Pro-Cathedral, Dublin, from 1982 to 1991, and the editor of religious programmes until 2007.
Canon Michael Woods died on 17 December, a week before Christmas and only days after he had visited us in Stony Stratford. At different times he had been deputy principal and warden of the House of the Epiphany, the Anglican theological college in Kuching.
Other people I had known in Church life and who died this year include John Martin of CMS, from Australia – we travelled together on a number of church ventures, including China and Egypt; Brother Kevin Crowley of the Capuchins at Church Street; and Sister Stanislaus Kennedy (Sister Stan).
The writer and historian Dr Brid McGrath was also a long-time supporter of the Irish Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament. Another long-time supporter of CND, John Goodwillie, died last December, although I only heard of his death well into this year.
Dr Martin Mansergh, who died aged 78, was known to many for his political role alongside Charlie Haughey and Bertie Aherne. But now that both he and Haughey are dead, I can tell how we once met quietly in Lincoln’s Inn at the back of TCD and Government Buildings, where he persuaded me to draft a speech for Haughey on nuclear disarmament. He was an academic historian, and at one reception in the Taoiseach’s office during Aherne’s tenure, we ended up having a lengthy discussion on how his ancestor Bryan Mansergh had acquired Ballybur Castle from my ancestor John Comerford in the 1650s and how the Mansergh family had usurped the Comerford family.
Martin was quietly supportive of the CND, the Anti-Apartheid Movement and other campaigns and during the 1798 bicentenary encouraged my research on the role of clergy and members of the Church of Ireland.
Another quiet supporter of CND was Henry Mountcharles, who died on 18 June at 74. Although he never paid his subscription or had a fundraiser at Slane Castle, he donated to the Festival of Life long before he ever succeeded as the 8th Marquess Conyngham.
Peter Watkins, the filmmaker best-known for The War Game also died this year. I once borrowed The War Game from the Revd George Ferguson and the peace film library of the Glencree Centre in Belgrave Square, Rathmines, for Irish CND and was surprised to find the small theatre in Liberty Hall was filled beyond capacity, with many people disappointed at not being able to get in.
This year marked the 80th anniversary of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and I was invited to record Hiroshima Day addresses for Christian CND and Anglican Pacifist Fellowship and for the Peace and Neutrality Alliance in Ireland. Later, on the evening of 6 August, Charlotte and I attended the annual commemorations at the Japanese Peace Pagoda by Willen Lake.
Throughout the year, I had visits to Milton Keynes University Hospital, the John Radcliffe Hospital and the Churchill Hospital, Oxford, University College Hospital London, and clinics in both Milton Keynes and Oxford, as doctors continue to monitor my progress following a stroke almost four years ago and as I continue to have concerns about my sarcoidosis and B12 levels.
A health scare caused me to cancel a planned visit to Dublin in June, but I was back in Dublin in August and December for family visits and a pre-Christmas book launch, staying in Rathmines and Harcourt Street.
I stayed at home in Stony Stratford while Charlotte visited Kuching and Singapore this year, but I did return to Crete, spending Holy Week and Easter in Rethymnon. There was time to meet old friends in Rethymnon, Platanias, Tsesmes, Iraklion and Panormos, and walks on the beaches and around the harbours. But this was also a time for pilgrimage and for spiritual retreat.
I also need my regular retreats and spiritual refreshment in the Chapel of Saint John’s Hospital, Lichfield, and in Lichfield Cathedral, including the mid-day Eucharist and Choral Evensong. There were four return visits to Lichfield, and three each to Tamworth and Comberford during the year.
These included speaking in the Comberford Chapel in Saint Editha’s Church on the tercentenary of the Comberford family memorial plaque erected by Joseph Comerford in 1725, being a guest at the opening of the new facilities for Lichfield Discovered in the Old Grammar School on John Street, Lichfield, and work on Samuel Johnson that still has to bear fruit.
I was at the patronal festival celebrations in Saint John’s, had lunch in the Hedgehog, walked along Cross in Hand Lane, in Beacon Park and by Stowe Pool and climbed Borrowcop Hill in Lichfield, walked by the Tame in Tamworth and through the fields and by the river in Comberford, and visited both Comberford Hall and the Moat House, the former Comberford family home on Lichfield Street in Tamworth.
My continuing research on the work of the Stony Stratford architect Edward Swinfen Harris has brought me to Addington, Buckingham, Maids Moreton, Newport Pagnell, Road and Wolverton and back to Stony Stratford, and brought invitations to speak at events organised by the Milton Keynes Forum for Heritage Week, the Friends of Stony Stratford Library, the Wolverton and District Archaeological Society and the architecture group of the University of the Third Age in Buckingham.
There have been four or five visits to Oxford, including one overnight visit. But apart from hospital appointments, these have included opportunities to browse in the bookshops, visit college chapels, to walk by the river and to attend Choral Evensong in Pusey House. Regrettably, I never got to attend the ‘Receiving Nicaea’ conference in Pusey House last month. Nor did I get to Cambridge this year, and another conference I missed this year was ‘Rebooting Ecumenism: New Paradigms for the 21st Century’, organised by the Institute for Orthodox Christian Studies in Cambridge earlier this month.
We stayed over in York twice during family visits in January and September, which also included visits to Durham Cathedral and Durham Cathedral for the first time and family meals in Harrogate and York, and Sunday mornings in Saint Olave’s Church, York.
My visits to London included Choral Evensong in Southwark Cathedral marking the retirement of Paul Timms, coffee with family members and friends in Friends’ House, visits to churches in Bloomsbury, Clarence Gate, Fitzrovia, Marylebone, Mayfair and Soho and close to Euston Station. On one visit to London in February, I tripped and fell on Oxford Street, badly injuring many part of my face and I ended up in A&E in UCL Hospital in London.
There has been afternoon tea at Saint Guthlac’s Church in Passenham, another guided tour of Bradwell Abbey, pleasant afternoon and evening visits toand meals in Ye Olde Swan in Woughton on the Green, the Swan Inn in Milton Keynes village, the Black Horse, Great Linford, the Cock Hotel in Stony Stratford, and the Cosy Club in Milton Keynes.
My ‘escapades’ and short visits during the year included exploring churches, architecture, local history and sometimes the local countryside in Addington, Aylesbury, Bedford, Bicester, Bradwell, Buckingham, Castlethorpe, Colchester, Durham, Deanshanger, Frating, Friern Barnet, Gawcott, Gerards Cross, Hanslope, Leighton Buzzard, Knaresborough, Leighton Buzzard, Linslade, Luton, Maids Moreton, Middleton, Newport Pagnell, Olney, Padbury, Seer Green, Shire Oak, Stantonbury, Thame, Towcester, Watford, Wavendon, Wolverton, Winslow and Watford. And there have been visits to synagogues and synagogue sites in London, Luton, Watford, Durham Colchester and Rethymnon, and to mosques in Luton.
There have been walks by the Thames in London, the Wear in Durham, the Ouse in York, and the Great Ouse in Stony Stratford and Buckingham, by the Grand Union Canal at Campbell Wharf, and in Cosgrove, Great Linford, Leighton Buzzard, Wolverton and Woughton in the Green and by Willen Lake.
I have enjoyed Cricket on long sunny Saturday afternoons throughout the summer, spent some afternoons watching Irish and English rugby in the Old George, and I have been entertained and delighted by Aston Villa’s record-breaking performance in the Premiership that came to end last night with a stunning defeat by Arsenal. I have enjoyed street art in London, Oxford, Wolverton and Dublin, Greek coffee mornings and festivals in Stony Stratford, meals out in Milton Keynes, Harrogate, Stony Stratford, York, Dublin, Lichfield, Great Linford, Tamworth and Cosgrove, and explored bookshops in Oxford, London and Dublin, and had my first visits that I can recall to both Hatchard’s and Dillons bookshops in London.
My publications this year included two chapters in Salvador Ryan’s latest book, Childhood and the Irish, A miscellany (Dublin: Wordwell), launched in the Royal Irish Academy, Dublin, at the beginning of this month; a brief introduction to ‘Diversity in Sarawak’ in Pray with the World Church: Prayers And Reflections from The Anglican Communion, 1 June 2025 – 29 November 2025 (London: USPG); a paper on ‘The Ikerrin Crown’, in Under Crimblin Hill, Historical journal of Dunkerrin Parish History Society (Vol V, 2026); a book review in the Irish Theological Quarterly (Maynooth, Volume 90 Issue 2, April 2025); and photographs in the Co Clare Visitor Guide and the County Kerry Visitor Guide (ed Sally Davies), and in Herald Malaysia. I have also been cited in a new Spanish book on the Duke of Wharton, who had Comerford family connections and links with Rathfarnham Castle.
I continue to blog twice a day, and this blog has had about 11.5 million hits this year alone, over half the total of 21 million hits since I began blogging over 15 years ago in August 2010.
During the year, I have celebrated the 25th anniversary of my ordination to the diaconate, and in the year to come I shall celebrate the 25th anniversary of my ordination to the priesthood. It is almost four years since I retired, and I continue to find support from colleagues at local clergy meetings, which took place this year in Wavendon, Furzton, Water Eaton, Shenley Church End and Wolverton.
Although I missed this year’s USPG conference in Swanwick, Derbyshire, I continue to support the work of USPG, writing for the Prayer Diary, taking part in this year’s celebrations of Founder’s Day or Bray Day in Saint James’s Church, Piccadilly, and drawing on USPG prayers for own prayer diary on this blog each morning.
I continue to sing with the choir in Saint Mary and Saint Giles Church, Stony Stratford, where I am involved in leading intercessions and readings. Charlotte and I were invited guests at the visit of Archbishop Nikitas to the Greek Orthodox Church in Stony Stratford, I spent Kol Nidre, the evening of Yom Kippur, in my local synagogue in Milton Keynes, and we attended the Holocaust Memorial Day commemoration in Christ the Cornerstone Church in Milton Keynes.
Locally, I am a member of the Town Centre Working Group of Stony Stratford Town Council, I am a trustee of the Retreat, a local almshouse and charity, I am part of the Stony Playreaders, currently rehearsing for production in the Stony Words Festival next month, and I was asked toplay Santa in Stony Stratford at the Christmas Fair and Farmers Market in the Market Square.
This past year must not become Trump’s year, with his violence, vulgarity and vitriol, stoking up racism and hatred, shattering the lives and hopes of families, the marginalised and the most vulnerable, denying any wrong-doing yet suppressing the Epstein files and shifting the blame to the BBC and to journalists in other mainstream media who asking plain and direct questions. Nor must we allow his capricious and authoritarian rule to dim our hopes for the future.
Instead, for me, the Person of the Year is Bishop Mariann Edgar Budde, who spoke truth to power at the inaugural prayer service in Washington National Cathedral in January.
She spoke directly to Trump with a plea for mercy toward LGBTQ people and immigrant families, and then suffered a torrent of attacks and even calls for her deportation for defending. Her response was clear, sI am not going to apologize for asking for mercy for others.’
She called on him ‘to have mercy upon the people in our country who are scared now … some who fear for their lives.’
The backlash was swift and severe, but many theologians welcomed her sermon as a clear depiction of moral leadership and moral clarity, her book How We Learn to Be Brave: Decisive Moments in Life and Faith, has become a New York Times bestseller, and she was invited to deliver a Christmas meditation on BBC Radio 4.
Preaching at the funeral of Dr Jane Goodall in Washington National Cathedral, Bishop Budde said: ‘In the place where I am now, I want to make sure that you understand that each of you has a role to play. Even where the planet is dark, there is still hope. Get up. Go ahead. Do something. Move to preserve our beautiful planet for all living beings.’
‘We can do this,’ she has said throughout the year, ‘especially if we remember we are never alone. Together, God will work through us to bring about the kind of society, the kind of community we all deserve and that we want to pass on to those who come after us. Take good care, have courage, and remember that together, we can all be brave.’
I am enveloped in Love, upheld by Faith, encouraged by Hope. The sun will rise tomorrow.
Happy New Year.
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