A stopover at Kuala Lumpur International Airport during the long marathon journey from Heathrow to Kuching

The ‘forest in the airport’ is one of the most unsual features of Kuala Lumpur International Airport

Patrick Comerford

We had just 2½ hours between flights in Kuala Lumpur late on Thursday night, between one flight arriving from Muscat in Oman and the next, much shorter flight on to Kuching in Sarawak, arriving after midnight on Thursday night or early on Friday morning.

For some international travellers, I imagine, Kuala Lumpur International Airport is probably just another airport transit lounge they pass through as they catch their next flight.

The airport is about 55 km from Kuala Lumpur city centre, but transport links are good enough to allow a short city visit possible if your stopover is long and well-timed. Passengers with at least six hours – and ideally more – may find it worthwhile to make the journey. The fastest option is the KLIA Ekspres train, which connects the airport to KL Sentral in under 30 minutes. KLIA Transit trains are slower with more stops, while buses and taxis are also available.

Once in the city centre, many visitors head for the Petronas Twin Towers or Kuala Lumpur Tower for city views. Areas like Chinatown and Little India offer quick cultural snapshot, Jalan Alor is popular for casual street food, and KL Forest Eco Park is a pocket of greenery close to the city centre.

But getting into Kuala Lumpur’s city centre needs at least an hour and then another hour to get back to the airport – a return trip that requires better planning and more time that we thought we had on our hands. Allowing at least two hours of travel time to and from the city centre and then at least another hour back at the airport for security and passport controls and to check back in again.We were on a marathon journey or odyssey that was taking 26 hours in all, and, apart from it being very late at night, we simply did not have those six hours on hand.

Kuala Lumpur International Airport (KLIA) is a massive hub in Sepang, about 55 km south of the Malaysian capital. It is the busiest airport in Malaysia, one of the largest in south-east Asia by land area alone – about 100 sq km – and one of the 30 busiest airports in the world, with over 57 million passengers a year.

The concept for Kuala Lumpur International Airport dates back to 1993, when the Malaysian government decided that the old airport, Subang International Airport, was too small for future needs and that Kuala Lumpur needed a bigger, more modern airport.

KLIA was planned as part of the Multimedia Super Corridor, a major project to develop technology and business in Malaysia. The main terminal was designed by the Japanese architect Kisho Kurokawa (1934-2007), and features Islamic-inspired roof structures.

The plan was ambitious, with three main stages, and the goal was to have three runways and two terminals, each with two satellite terminals.

The first stage involved building the main terminal and one satellite terminal. This allowed the airport to handle 25 million passengers. It also included two full-service runways. In this first stage, the airport had 60 gates where planes could connect directly to the terminal. It also had 20 remote parking spots and 80 places for aircraft to park. There were also four maintenance hangars and fire stations.

The second stage was designed to increase the airport's capacity to 35 million passengers a year. The third stage aims to make the airport big enough for 100 million passengers a year.

KLIA officially opened on 27 June 1998, just a week before Hong Kong International Airport opened, and in time for the 1998 Commonwealth Games in Malaysia.

One of the more unusual features is the ‘forest in the airport’, with a transplanted rainforest that includes real plants and elevated walkways, trees and a stream, and a complete section of rainforest transplanted from the Malaysian jungle.

The airport even has a free cinema lounge in the Satellite Building. The space features couches and reclining seats, with popular films shown on large screens.

The airport has two terminals: KLIA1 and KLIA2. Terminal 1 is the main airport, the busiest in Malaysia and the primary hub for Malaysia Airlines; Terminal 2 is the low-cost carrier terminal from which Air Asia operates. KLIA2 is connected to a full shopping centres, known as Gateway@klia2, that includes shops, restaurants and services, and it feels more like a city-centre shopping area than a terminal add-on.

Eventually, we had a stopover of just 1½ or 2 hours but – and forgive the pun – it flew by. We had to change terminals, get a light rail, check-in all over again. We got out next departure gate on time, but with only 15 or 30 minutes to spare, enough time to grab that mandatory cup of coffee but notthing more.

Traffic, passport queues, and security re-entry all add time, so city sightseeing probably works best for confident travellers with a generous buffer before the next flight. With tight schedules, it never even entered our minds late on Thursday night.

Perhaps on the return journey from Kuching two weeks from now, I may look at the option for short peek at Kuala Lumpur. But it’s obviously going to involve clever booking so that I don’t miss my flights back to Muscat and on to London.

Kuala Lumpur International Airport was designed by the acclaimed Japanese architect Kisho Kurokawa

Time enough to catch a coffee in Muscat airport on my first visit to Oman on the way to Kuala Lumpur and Kuching

Does a quick coffee in Muscat airport count as my first visit to Oman? (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Patrick Comerford

In my books, I have been somewhere if I have at least enough time to have a coffee. It doesn’t count for me as a visit if I pass through an airport, and it certainly does not count if I fly over a country or travel through a place by car or on a bus or train.

We had a 2 ½-hour stopover in Muscat early this morning when we arrived from Heathrow as we changed planes and transferred to a flight to Kuala Lumpur, where the next part of the odyssey now involves catching a third flight to Kuching late tonight (as I write it’s almost (10:30 pm).

I have travelled through and worked in the Middle East in the past, and had short, brief stopovers in Abu Dhabi and Dubai about 45 years ago, back in the early 1980s. But this is my first time to have ever stopped over in Muscat or to have been in Oman.

Muscat International Airport, formerly known as Seeb International Airport, is the main international airport in Oman. It is 32 km outside the old city and capital Muscat, so there was never going to be any possibility of getting to see Muscat itself, and certainly so chance of seeing any of Oman. The airport is the hub for Oman Air, the flag carrier we are flying with, and SalamAir, Oman’s first budget airline.

Muscat’s original airport, Bayt al-Falaj Airport, was established in 1929 and became known for sharp turns and steep descents. It was mainly used for military purposes and was regularly used by oil companies.

Bayt al-Falaj Airport eventually became too small for increasingly large planes, and was considered too dangerous because of the steep approach caused by the surrounding mountains. Consequently, a new airport with larger spaces to expand operations was needed.

The new airport opened as Seeb International Airport in 1973. At first, it had only a single terminal building and two check-in and immigration desks. It was extended in the 1980s and 1990s with new facilities, a new passenger terminal and a new cargo terminal. The airport was given its present name in 2008.

The current terminal makes Muscat airport the biggest airport in Oman. Building began in 2007, and the airport opened in 2018. In 2019, Muscat International Airport became the first international airport in the world to possess an operational drone detection system.

The airport’s newer and significantly larger terminal, located north of the existing terminal and first runway, opened in 2018. Later expansions are increasing the airport’s capacity to 24 and 48 million passengers a year, with 118 check-in desks, 10 baggage reclaim belts, 82 immigration counters, 45 gates, and a 97 metre high control tower.

The airport promises that ‘for a memorable and comfortable family vacation, there are no better options than Oman’ with its ‘white sandy beaches, palm trees, tropical and Khareef weather’ and that the hospitality of Omani resorts ‘is incomparable to any place in the world.’

It is Ramadan throughout the Muslim world. But were still able tofind time to grab a cup of coffee in Muscat, as we moved through the transfer lounges in the airport to catch our connecting flight to Kuala Lumpur. I am travelling back through Muscat in two weeks’ time.

Waiting to leave Muscat for Kulala Lumpur this morning (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Setting out on the journey on Ash Wednesday with Samuel Johnson’s prayer at the beginning of Lent

Ready for takeoff … a wall painting in a coffee shop at Heathrow Airport (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

We are at Heathrow Airport at the beginning of a lengthy odyssey that begins this evening, arriving in Muscat early tomorrow, and continuing on through Kuala Lumpur, expecting to arrive in Kuching shortly after midnight tomorrow or in the very early hours of Friday morning.

Lent, which began today (Ash Wednesday, 18 February 2026), is a spiritual journey that leads us to the pains of the Crucifixion on Good Friday and the hope and joy of the Resurrection on Easter morning.

In previous years, my morning Lenten reflections have journeyed with the saints, looked at Lent in Art, reflected in the music of Vaughan Williams or the writings of Samuel Johnson, and similar themes.

I was writing yesterday about Samuel Johnson (1709-1784), and how my photograph of his bust recently restored in Bird Street, Lichfield, by the local historian and tour guide Jonathan Oates, has been used by Jono in his design of a new lapel badge or pin as a fundraiser for the Johnson Birthplace Museum.

The Lichfield lexicographer and writer compiled the first authoritative English-language dictionary. Perhaps I am sympathetic to Johnson because of his origins in Lichfield. Perhaps I am drawn to him because he recalled that when he lived in in London he went ‘every day to a coffee-house.’ But he was also a pious Anglican, a regular communicant, and he wrote regularly and carefully about his observance of Lent and Easter.

At an early age, his mother encouraged Johnson to learn the Book of Common Prayer by heart, including its many rich collects in Lent. The Book of Common Prayer invites us ‘to the observance of a holy Lent, by self-examination and Repentance; by prayer, fasting, and self-denial; and by reading and meditating on God’s holy Word.’

Johnson once declared, through his amanuensis James Boswell, that unless we set aside certain days for particular remembrances, we will probably fail to remember.

Johnson was generally negative about religious verse and his own devotional poems, marked by earnestness and humility, were composed mainly in his later years. There are several meditations and seven Latin prayers, the majority of them based on the Collects in The Book of Common Prayer.

David Nichol Smith, in Samuel Johnson’s Poems, says these verses ‘are preserved for us in sufficient numbers to rank [Johnson] as a religious poet, though a minor one.’

John Myatt’s mural on a wall in Bird Street, Lichfield, commemorating Samuel Johnson (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

The Collect of Ash Wednesday in its traditional version in The Book of Common Prayer prays:

‘Almighty and everlasting God, who hatest nothing that thou hast made, and dost forgive the sins of all them that are penitent; Create and make in us new hearts, that we, worthily lamenting our sins and acknowledging our wretchedness, may obtain of thee, the God of all mercy, perfect remission and forgiveness; through Jesus Christ our Lord.’

Johnson translates this into Latin as:

Summe Deus, qui semper amas quodcunque creasti,
Judice quo scelerum est poenituisse salus,
Da veteres noxas animo sic flere novato,
Per Christum ut veniam sit reperire mihi.

His translation, written 245 years ago, is dated 13 April 1781 and was first published in Works in 1787 (see Poems, pp 229-230).

Translated back into English, this reads:

Almighty God, who dost always love what thou hast made,
before whom as judge to have repented of one’s sins is salvation,
grant that with my soul made new I may so lament my former sins
as to be able to obtain forgiveness through Christ.

Johnson condensed the original without losing very much and made it a personal prayer. But his emphasis is a positive one, so that he begins with an affirmation of God’s love rather than asserting that God does not hate.

It is a twist in emphasis that reveals much about Johnson’s piety and his confidence in the love of God. And it is an emphasis worth reflecting on as we begin Lent and as we set off on this lengthy, marathon journey.

Samuel Johnson’s statue in the Market Place in Lichfield, facing the Samuel Johnson Birthplace Museum (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Daily prayer in Ordinary Time 2025: 127, Tuesday 16 September 2025

The Widow of Nain … a window by Hardman at the west end of the south aisle in Saint Mary’s Church, St Neots, Cambridgeshire (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

We are continuing in Ordinary Time in the Church Calendar and this week began with the Thirteenth Sunday after Trinity (Trinity XIII, 14 September 2025), which was also Holy Cross Day. The calendar of the Church of England in Common Worship today (16 September 2025) remembers Saint Ninian (432), Bishop of Galloway, Apostle of the Picts, and Edward Bouverie Pusey (1823-1882), Priest and Tractarian.

After a lengthy return trip to Heathrow Airport last night, the two of us are back in Stony Stratford. Before today begins, I am taking some quiet time this morning to give thanks, for reflection, prayer and reading in these ways:

1, today’s Gospel reading;

2, a reflection on the Gospel reading;

3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary;

4, the Collects and Post-Communion prayer of the day.

The resurrection of the young man of Nain, by Lucas Cranach (1569)

Luke 7: 11-17 (NRSVA)

11 Soon afterwards he went to a town called Nain, and his disciples and a large crowd went with him. 12 As he approached the gate of the town, a man who had died was being carried out. He was his mother’s only son, and she was a widow; and with her was a large crowd from the town. 13 When the Lord saw her, he had compassion for her and said to her, ‘Do not weep.’ 14 Then he came forward and touched the bier, and the bearers stood still. And he said, ‘Young man, I say to you, rise!’ 15 The dead man sat up and began to speak, and Jesus[b] gave him to his mother. 16 Fear seized all of them; and they glorified God, saying, ‘A great prophet has risen among us!’ and ‘God has looked favourably on his people!’ 17 This word about him spread throughout Judea and all the surrounding country.

Jesus Raising the Widow’s Son at Nain (James Tissot, ca 1890)

Today’s Reflection:

Funeral stories and the stories of children being raised to life, like the story in the Gospel reading this morning, are not always the most cheerful Bible readings. This reading was particularly difficult when I was preaching one Sunday morning many years ago in Saint Patrick’s Church, Donabate, Co Dublin, when I was baptising a little baby boy.

But at the moment in the lectionary each weekday morning we are working our way through Saint Luke’s Gospel. It is full of stories about healing and wholeness. And I found myself that morning asking who does Jesus bring healing and wholeness to in this reading.

When we look at any Gospel story it is always good to ask a few basic questions, like who, what, where, when and why.

If you want to watch a movie on Netflix this evening, you would probably ask a few basic questions before making your choice:

• What’s the story all about?

• Who are the principal characters, the main actors?

• In other words, is there anything in this for me?

In a similar way, if we are to find anything in a Gospel story that not only makes it interesting but makes it relevant for me, then I suppose I could approach a Gospel reading with the same questions:

• What’s the story all about?

• Who are the main characters?

• Where’s the action?

In today’s Gospel story, there is a lot of action, and a lot of people. In fact, there are two large crowds, and the drama is created in the way they meet each other, in an unexpected and unplanned way.

The first crowd is made up of those following Jesus, who have just arrived after a long, 20-mile walk with him from Capernaum.

This group includes not just those who are his disciples. But a lot of other people too – people are there to see what he is doing, what’s going on. Like Netflix viewers after a hard day’s work, they are looking for the entertainment, looking for the drama, perhaps even hoping for a miracle or too … after all, at Capernaum they have seen him heal the centurion’s servant.

And we ought not to be too dismissive of this crowd following Jesus, or their motives. After all, that is the way a lot of people end up coming to church. They go with the flow, they like what is on offer for their children, it gives them a sense of identity. And, in coming along, they find out who Jesus really is, why it matters to follow him.

Perhaps they were expecting nothing. Perhaps they were just tired, and after a 20-mile walk are anxious about whether there are enough beds in the tiny village of Nain for them all to stay overnight.

And, unexpectedly – in a way that no-one could have planned – this large crowd bumps into another, second large crowd. Nain is called a town here, but it was more like a village, about nine or ten miles south of Nazareth. Until the mid-20th century, it had a population of less than 100 or 200, so we can imagine a tiny place in the days of Jesus.

So, one large crowd bumps into another large crowd. And it is bad news for the large crowd that has been following Jesus.

In a tiny place like Nain, to have a large crowd they must have been drawn from every house and dwelling place, every family in the village. If they are all in mourning, not only are they unlikely to be able to offer anyone bed and breakfast for the night, they probably are ritually unable to do so: a dead body, a corpse, a funeral, a burial, all make a practising, observant Jew ritually unclean.

The disciples and the other people who are following Jesus on the road from Capernaum to Nain must have taken pity on themselves. Where are they going to go tonight? What can they do? Where can they stay?

Perhaps the appeal of following Jesus, waiting for the miracle to happen, suddenly evaporated as this reality dawned on them.

Perhaps they even thought that Jesus should have pity on them, pity on their plight.

But instead, Jesus takes pity, not on them, and not even on the poor young lad who has died either. Instead, he takes pity on the boy’s widowed mother. He has compassion for her, he tells her not to weep.

However, having compassion and doing something about it make two separate sets of demands.

The love of a mother for her young son is incomparable, as people knew too that Sunday morning at the baptism in Donabate.

Jesus recognises, Jesus identifies with, Jesus is consumed with, the love of this widowed, probably young widowed, mother. As a widow, left financially ruined, her only hope of survival in this world may have been in the livelihood her son would eventually attain.

She has already been widowed, now her son has died. She faces not only emotional devastation, but financial destruction and social ruin … she will have no-one to work her fields, no-one to provide an income, no-one to guarantee her safety and security.

Jesus recognises her plight … and he does something about it. First he does something that is shocking in his day, shocking behaviour for a rabbi in those days. He touches the bier, he touches the dead body. It is no wonder the bearers stood still. He has identified so much with the widow’s plight that he too becomes ritually unclean. In Christ, God’s identification with our humanity is so complete that he takes on everything about us. God so identifies with us in Christ that he even identifies with us in birth, in life, and in death.

The miracle is amazing. The fact that God identifies so much with us is even more amazing. God’s compassion should be more amazing than God’s miracles. It is because of his love and compassion in the first place that there are miracles.

No wonder the crowds, the two large crowds, all of them, are seized with fear. It is awesome.

And yet, in telling this story, Luke rises to some of his most poetic language in this Gospel.

He looks back to the words of the pregnant Mary and ageing Zechariah in the canticles Magnificat and Nunc Dimittis, when Saint Luke says they glorified God (7: 16, cf Luke 1: 47-48), when they realised a great prophet had risen among them (cf Luke 1: 69-70), when they said God has looked favourably on his people (cf Luke 1: 48), when they realised a new day had dawned. She has been shown mercy, she has been saved from the hands of her enemies, she has received the tender mercy of God.

Luke looks forward to that moment when the suffering Christ meets the weeping women outside the gates of Jerusalem (Luke 23: 28-29). And he looks forward to that moment on the Cross, in Saint John’s Gospel, when the dying Jesus takes pity on his widowed mother and entrusts her and the Beloved Disciple to the mutual care of each other (John 19: 26-27).

What we are invited to be witnesses to this morning is not some old-fashioned miracle show. That’s what the large crowd was hanging around Jesus for what the large crowd was hanging around the funeral procession for.

What we are being invited to this morning is the realisation that in his compassion, in his actions, in his caring, Jesus shows us that God loves us, each of us individually, as a mother loves her only and precious child.

If you imagine for one moment the love that little boy who was being baptised in Donabate that morning could expect from his parents, then you can catch, just catch, a glimpse of the love that God has for each of us, individually. God loves you and God loves me as if were the only child in the world that matters … and even more than that.

This is a new dawn. That is what the promise of baptism is: it is about dying to sin, to the old ways, rising to new life in Christ, and continuing for ever.

The raising of the son of the widow of Nain … a modern icon in a Greek Orthodox church

Today’s Prayers (Tuesday 16 September 2025):

The theme this week (14 to 20 September) in Pray with the World Church, the prayer diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), is ‘Standing in Solidarity with the Church in Myanmar’ (pp 38-39). This theme was introduced on Sunday with a programme update from Rachael Anderson, former Senior Communications and Engagement Manager, USPG.

The USPG Prayer Diary today (Tuesday 16 September 2025) invites us to pray:

Father God, we pray for The Most Revd Stephen Than Myint Oo, Archbishop of Myanmar and Bishop of Yangon, all Bishops, clergy and staff at the Church of the Province of Myanmar. Grant them strength and resolve to shepherd your people.

The Collect:

Almighty and everlasting God,
who called your servant Ninian to preach the gospel
to the people of northern Britain:
raise up in this and every land
heralds and evangelists of your kingdom,
that your Church may make known the immeasurable riches
of your Son our Saviour Jesus Christ,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

The Post Communion Prayer:

Holy Father,
who gathered us here around the table of your Son
to share this meal with the whole household of God:
in that new world where you reveal
the fullness of your peace,
gather people of every race and language
to share with Ninian and all your saints
in the eternal banquet of Jesus Christ our Lord.

Yesterday’s reflection

Continued tomorrow

The Irish-born architect Temple Lushington Moore designed the chapel and college buildings at Pusey House, Oxford … Edward Bouverie Pusey is remembered on 16 October (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Scripture quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicised Edition copyright © 1989, 1995 National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide. http://nrsvbibles.org

Back in Rethymnon again for five days to mark Good Friday and celebrate Easter

The Venetian harbour and old town of Rethymnon … I am staying here for the rest of Holy Week and the Easter celebrations (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

I am back in Crete this evening, planning to mark the end of Holy Week and Good Friday and to celebrate Easter in Rethymnon, following the daily rhythm of prayer and liturgies in the Cathedral and the Church of the Four Martyrs.

I am staying for the next five days in the centre of Rethymnon in the Hotel Brascos, overlooking the Municipal Gardens and just a few steps from the Church of the Four Martyrs and a few steps more from the cathedral.

Easter is the most important and moving festival in Greek life, and the commemoration of Good Friday and the celebration of Easter this year coincide for both the Western Church and the Greek Orthodox Church.

This my third time to stay in the Hotel Brascos: I was there in April last year, and stayed there too for a week 11 years ago (2014). The hotel is on the corner of Moatsou Street and Daskalaki Street (Μοάτσου και Δασκαλάκη), close to the Porto Guora or old gate leading into the old Venetian town, with its labyrinthine network of narrow cobbled streets and squares. The old Venetian port is only 350 metres from the hotel, and the beach – the longest sandy beach on the island – is a mere five-minute walk away.

The roof garden and bar in the Brascos Hotel were closed last year, but I hope when I arrive they have reopened this month. They offer panoramic and dramatic views over the old town with its Turkish minarets, Byzantine towers and Venetian fortezza, and out across the harbour. The small swimming pool was being drained and refurbished last year, so I hope it too is open and I can have a swim on some of the coming days.

I have visited Crete most years since the mid-1980s, and I have probably lost count of the numbers of times I have stayed in Rethymnon over these 40 years or so, in the town itself or in the suburban villages of Platanias and Tsesmes out to the east. By now, Rethymnon feels like my home town in Greece. In addition, in the past, I have stayed in Crete in the hilltop villages of Piskopiano and Koutouloufari above Hersonissos, in Iraklion, in Chania, in Georgioupoli half-way between Rethymon and Chania, in Kolymvari west of Chania, and in Paleochora on the south coast.

The Hotel Brascos in the centre of Rethymnon is beside the Municipal Gardens and a few steps from the Porto Guora (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

I have flown into Nikos Kazantzakis International Airport in Iraklion tonight and now face a long journey to Rethymnon. A recent survey named the airport as Europe’s worst airport, with reviewers describing it as overcrowded, dirty and ‘like an apocalypse’. Reports described nightmare airport experiences and survival challenges, with people spending hours standing in a crowded, sweltering terminal, wading through seas of passengers, and dealing with poor amenities.

The airport received the lowest rating among Europe’s 85 busiest airports according to a Holidu ranking, with frequent complaints about the lack of seating, poor cleanliness, and inadequate facilities. In a recent article, the Telegraph travel writer Heidi Fuller-Love said: ‘Approaching Heraklion’s airport, cars were abandoned along either side of the road – it was like a scene from a post-apocalyptic film.’

That feature described scenes of chaos, overcrowded terminals, and inadequate air conditioning. Queues for different airlines merged into a single chaotic crowd, and the airside facilities are equally dismal with limited seating, bad coffee, and poor amenities.

Holidu, a booking portal for holiday homes, ranked the worst airports by looking at millions of Google reviews, and showed that Iraklion airport scored just 2.6 out of 5. Frequent complaints included a lack of seating, dirty toilets, and poor cleanliness, all of which appeared often in its 21,000 reviews.

One of the reviews said: ‘The Heraklion airport has not been updated since the 1950s’.

Iraklion is the main airport on Crete and the second busiest airport in Greece after Athens International Airport. However, a new airport is expected to open in 2027, with promises of better amenities, more boarding gates, and a significantly improved travel experience. When it opens in 2027, Kastelli International Airport will replace Nikos Kazantzakis International Airport in Iraklion.

Nikos Kazantzakis International Airport opened 1937. Today it is stretched sorely to cope with the 8-9 million passengers who travel through it each year. When Kastelli International Airport opens, it will become the second-largest airport in Greece, with the ability to handle around 18 million passengers a year.

The first tourists of this year’s season Crete arrived last month [8 March] with the arrival of travellers at Heraklion Airport from Germany, the Netherlands and France, followed the next day by arrivals from Switzerland. By early this month, the tourist season was in full bloom, and it seems Crete is promised a vibrant summer ahead.

But I have quieter plans for the next few days. After my late arrival in Iraklion this evening, there may be no time for dinner in the old town In Rethymnon. But I am looking forward to walks through the old town or around the harbour, swimming in the sea at Pavlos Beach in Platanias, watching the sunsets from my balcony or sipping a drink near the Fortezza, enjoying the view of the domes, bell towers and minarets.

There may even be time too to visit a monastery I know in the hills above Rethymnon, or perhaps to visit Chania or Iraklion, and perhaps lunch or dinner with some old friends in Platanias and Tsesmes, or in Panormos, Iraklion or Hersonissos, before I catch a return flight from Chania to Luton on Monday evening.

Nikos Kazantzakis International Airport in Iraklion … a recent survey named it Europe’s worst airport (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Back in a ‘Winter Wonderland’ after a snow-bound escapade and an unplanned night in Dublin

‘So that the villagers can say / “The church looks nice” on Christmas Day’ (John Betjeman) … Saint Mary’s Church, Shenley Church, in winter snow earlier today (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2022)

Patrick Comerford

As I waited in Dublin Airport for (yet another) delayed flight to Birmingham on Tuesday morning, childish shouts of joy and glee echoed around the departures gates as voice announced boarding for the Ryanair flight to the North Pole.

Of course flights constantly fly overt the North Pole on routes to Anchorage and Japan. But what inner child could not resist the idea of wanting to go to the North Pole and visit Santa with less than two weeks to go to Christmas.

Many bleary-eyed adults – and not just parents – must have wondered how a snow-bound Santa had magically managed to wangle this one route that was not delayed or cancelled due to snow on the runways or dense fog enveloping the airport.

I spent almost 36 hours in transit, between leaving the front door in Stony Stratford early on Monday morning and arriving back late on Tuesday afternoon. In between, there were five bus journeys, two delayed flights, one cancelled flight, one delayed train journey, one cancelled return train journey, one cancelled lunch, one taxi run, one short airport monorail transfer, countless double espressos, and three hours of intermittent sleep in an airport hotel – all to complete an undertaking to bring Christmas presents to family members in Dublin.

I had intentionally booked return flights between Birmingham and Dublin on Monday in the hope of avoiding Tuesday’s train strikes in England. But Monday’s early morning train journey from Milton Keynes to Birmingham provided the first premonition that all was not going to go well throughout this escapade.

The train was late, and as a consequence got stuck among commuter trains between Coventry and Birmingham. A plan to arrive at the airport in plenty of time to get through security came to naught. As the queues snaked out of the security area into the main airport and the monorail area, rumours passed down the line that it would take an hour or an hour and a half to get through to the other side.

Thankfully, airport staff members had the wit to call people out of the queues as the screens began to warn that boarding gates were about the close.

It still took almost 1½ hours to get through from one side to the other. The staff were doing their best, but not enough security staff are available. It’s easy to calculate how many staff members are needed on mornings like this – after all, all flights are booked in advance. I put this down to recruitment difficulties created by a government that refuses to give enough work visas … and for that I blame the post-Brexit racism that is endemic in this Tory government and its decision making.

I made it to the boarding gate with just five minutes to spare – only to find that the flight to Dublin was delayed … and delayed … and delayed yet again.

A call had to be made to Mykonos, one of my favourite Greek restaurants in Dublin, to cancel the table for three booked for 1. But at least I had time to return to the duty free shopping area to buy some of the liquid items that could not have been bought beforehand because of security restrictions.

It had been a 5:15 start in Stony Stratford; eventually, I arrived in Dublin at 3 pm. In normal weather, journeys to Greece or Italy would take far less time.

Lunch in Mykonos had been cancelled and we made do with coffee together in Dublin Airport.

But even as three of us tried to catch up with one another, I was interrupted with a text from Ryanair telling me flight FR 670 at 20:00 on Monday evening had been cancelled. I would have to rebook with Ryanair, and I would have to find an hotel room near the airport.

Hundreds more would-be passengers were going through the same experience, over-and-over, in queues throughout the airport. The Clayton Hotel let me know I had managed to get the one last available room that night.

By then, eating a proper meal had also become a priority. But I had also travelled without my medication for my sarcoidosis and without a toothbrush.

Leaving the Clayton Hotel in Dublin with its Christmas tree and decorations (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2022)

I managed to sleep for about three or four hours, but I was back on an airport bus from the hotel at 4:15. Leaving the hotel, The Christmas tree and Christmas lights in the hotel entrance and lobby looked like so welcoming in the winter darkness, and I was regretting leaving without even a short opportunity to get to see Dublin city centre in all its Christmas glory, even for an hour or two, the previous afternoon.

When it comes to morning queues and security clearance, Dublin Airport was a pleasure on Tuesday morning compared with Birmingham Airport the previous morning. There was time for breakfast, time to catch up on emails, time to enjoy the sight of children excited about the promise of a flight to visit Santa at the North Pole, or at least a Ryanair flight from Dublin to Lapland, landing in Rovaniemi in Finland.

The flight to Birmingham was called on time. Now all I needed to worry about was the rail strike in England. I did not want to spend another night in another airport hotel, and needed to book a National Express coach from Birmingham Airport to Milton Keynes.

But the escapade seemed to be in danger of being prolonged once again. After a brief run along the runway, the plane returned to the gate. A change of crew was needed, and we sat on the tarmac for another two hours … and waited.

Eventually, when I got to Birmingham. The National Express driver was flexible and I changed onto an earlier coach, going through Coventry and Northampton.

Winter snow at Saint Mary’s Church, Shenley Church, earlier today (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2022)

Milton Keynes looks like a ‘Winter Wonderland’ after the snowfalls earlier this week. The roads and paths and fields are covered in snow, and the gritters are out keeping the roads open. The Peace Pagoda with its gold trimmings stands out in the white-covered park, and it is possible to imagine how Willen Lake could freeze over.

In all of this, full marks and my thanks, praise and gratitude go to the Ryanair cabin crew on Flight FR 666 from Dublin to Birmingham. In my fraught confusion and tiredness, I had left my wallet and all cards on the seat beside me on the plane. They chased after me, called out my name, and found me just moments before the bus pulled off for the airport buildings.

The environmentalist Guy Shrubsole says in an interview with India Bourke in the current edition of New Statesman that the idea of England as a ‘green and pleasant land’ has not been true ‘in the last century and probably longer.’ Nor is it Santa’s ‘North Pole hideaway in Lapland’.

But, despite all its problems – from the post-Brexit economy with food shortages, rising inflation and fuel and heating costs, and the wilful political neglect of the NHS and public sector workers to a kleptocratic government riddled with racism, indifference and self-serving cronyism – it is good to be back safely in this ‘Winter Wonderland’ in time for Christmas.

Stony Stratford looks like a ‘Winter Wonderland’ after this week’s snow (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2022)

On the way through Dublin Airport as it celebrates its 80th birthday

Early morning at Dublin Airport … celebrating 80 years of flights (Photograph: Patrick Comerford; click on image for full-screen view)

Patrick Comerford

I am in Dublin Airport this morning on my way to London for a quick overnight visit, including a reception in the House of Lords to mark the 75th anniversary of the end of the Holocaust and a planned visit to the Bevis Marks Synagogue.

On my way through Dublin Airport this morning it is interesting to note the celebratory mood and decorations. Dublin is celebrating its 80th birthday, having opened 80 years ago yesterday, on 19 January 1940.

As I pass by the old terminal building on the way to the Ryanair Departure Gates, I am reminded how novel Dublin Airport was for our parents’ generation. How many of us remember a visit to the airport as a day out in itself, brought there to see the planes landing and taking off and ending up playing on the escalators.

Going to the airport for dinner was still the height of glamour in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Pubs in the area around the airport, such as the Coachman’s Inn and the Cate and Cage, developed a particular relationship because of their proximity, and pubs and hotels with names like the Viscount and the Airport were seen as being very fashionable and modern.

Around the airport this morning, images recall celebrated arrivals and departures over the past eight decades, including John F Kennedy’s visit, the Beatles’ arrival for two concerts at the Adelphi Cinema, and the return of the Ireland team after Italia 90.

Dublin Airport opened at 9 a.m. on Friday 19 January 1940, when the first commercial flight, an Aer Lingus Lockheed 14 aircraft, left for Liverpool.

Development work on a terminal building and grass runways began at the site in Collinstown in the late 1930s. The architect of the new terminal building was Desmond FitzGerald, an elder brother of the former Taoiseach, Dr Garret FitzGerald.

The curved building with its tiered floors was designed to echo the lines of a great ocean liner and won many architectural awards for its design. This original terminal building was designed to cater for just 100,000 passengers a year.

The airport opened with just one flight a day to Liverpool and it was effectively mothballed during World War II, as Aer Lingus operated a twice-weekly service to Liverpool. Aer Lingus resumed its London service to Croydon in November 1945.

By 1947, flights departing from Dublin had ventured as far as Continental Europe, with Dutch airline KLM beginning the first European service to Dublin. New concrete runways were completed in 1948, and in 1950 – after 10 years in operation – the airport had been used by a total of 920,000 passengers.

By the late 1950s, the original terminal was incapable of handling growing passenger numbers, so the new North Terminal was opened in June 1959. Originally it was planned that this building would handle all US and European flights, but instead it became the arrivals area for all passengers. By the 1960s, new departure gate piers were added beside the old terminal to cope with larger aircraft.

The Airport Church, with its concrete bell tower and landscaped courtyard, was designed by the Limerick-born architect Andrew Devane of Robinson, Keeffe & Devane (now RKD) of Dublin. It was built in 1964, and was one of the first modernist churches in Dublin.

Meanwhile, it soon became apparent that the original terminal building could no longer cope with passenger demand. Work began in 1971 on a new terminal building designed to cater for an expected six million passengers a year. The new £10 million terminal opened in June 1972.

Terminal 2 opened ten years ago (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

The airport has greatly expanded since then with the addition of a new terminal, new departure gate piers, an extension to the 1971 terminal building, a new runway and taxiways.

Terminal 2 and its connected boarding gate pier opened in November 2010. Today, Dublin Airport handles more than 31.5 million passengers, with more than 233,000 flights a year, including flights to almost 200 destinations in 43 countries, operated by 53 airlines.

It is the 11th busiest airport in the EU, and is one of Ireland’s key economic assets, generating or facilitating 117,300 jobs and €8.3 billion worth of economic activity.

More than 400 million passengers have travelled through Dublin Airport since that first flight took off in 1940. The old terminal, which is a listed building, is still partially used for daily passenger operations and many of the internal design features of the building have been retained as a reminder of those early days.

● A calendar with a series of photos from the past 80 years can be bought for €10 in Dublin Airport. All proceeds go to Dublin Airport’s charity partners: Debra Ireland, Gary Kelly Cancer Support Centre and Spina Bifida Hydrocephalus.

Early morning at Dublin Airport (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Dublin Airport Church: the airport’s ‘most beautiful’ and ‘best-kept secret’

The Church of Our Lady Queen of Heaven has been described as ‘the most beautiful part of Dublin Airport’ and ‘its best-kept secret’ (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2019)

Patrick Comerford

The Church of Our Lady Queen of Heaven has been described as ‘the most beautiful part of Dublin Airport’ and ‘its best-kept secret.’

The church is hidden from most people travelling through the airport. Today it is tucked in between the Terminal 1 car park and a traffic hub for airport buses. But it was designed 55 years ago to sit in an open-air precinct in the church, far away from the bustle of taxi ranks, duty-free shopping and continuous announcements.

I have passed it by on countless occasions since it was first built in the 1960s, but only visited it for the first time 10 days ago, when I passed through the airport on way back from Cornwall.

The church is just a minute away from Terminal 1 and the Short-Term Car Park, but now almost inaccessible to passengers using Terminal 2, which is served by a multi-faith room.

The church, with its concrete bell tower and landscaped courtyard, was built in 1964 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2019)

When this church, with its concrete bell tower and landscaped courtyard, was built in 1964, it was one of the first modernist churches in Dublin.

One writer points out that ‘some of Ireland’s most interesting and bold modern movement architecture can be seen in churches, not least because the clients were very committed, the desired result was something monumental and the brief to the architect was specific but also pretty simple compared to other building types: one large, beautiful space and a number of other rooms.’

The church was designed by the Limerick-born architect Andrew Devane (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2019)

The Church of Our Lady Queen of Heaven was designed by Andrew Devane of Robinson, Keeffe & Devane (now RKD) of Dublin.

This architectural partnership was formed in 1946 when Andrew Devane joined John Joseph Robinson and Cyril Keefe of Robinson & Keefe. Robinson and Keefe both died in 1965. The practice has continued under the same name until it was renamed RKD.

Andrew Devane (1917-2000) was born in Limerick, a doctor’s son, on 3 November 1917. He studied architecture at University College Dublin under Rudolf Maximilian Butler and graduated in 1941. He was awarded the Taliesin Fellowship in 1946 and this allowed him to study in the US under Frank Lloyd Wright until 1948.

Devane had written to Wright ‘I cannot make up my mind whether you are in truth a great architect – or just another phony,’ to which Wright replied, ‘Come along and see.’

When he returned to Ireland in 1948, he re-joined Robinson and Keefe as a partner. After he retired, he devoted much of his time devoted to working with Mother Teresa in India, and he died in Calcutta on 15 January 2000.

Andrew Devane’s work was influenced by Frank Lloyd Wright (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2019)

His other churches include: Umtali Cathedral, Rhodesia (now Mutare, Zimbabwe); the reordering of Ennis Cathedral, Co Clare; Saint Fintan's Church, Sutton, Co Dublin (1973); Manresa House Chapel, Dollymount, Dublin; Saint Patrick’s College Church and campanile, Drumcondra; Gonzaga College Chapel, Ranelagh; and alterations to Saint John’s Cathedral, Limerick.

He also designed Mount Carmel Hospital in Rathgar, Tallaght Hospital, and Saint Vincent’s Private Hospital, Dublin, and the Shannon Shamrock Hotel, Bunratty. His Technical School at Emmett Road, Inchicore (1953-1958) includes a staircase based on Wright’s ‘Falling Water’ house.

The building contractor for Devane’s airport church was Seamus Murphy Ltd of Templeogue. The church opened on 26 July 1964 with a Mass celebrated by Archbishop John Charles McQuaid of Dublin.

‘A remarkable building’ that ‘has been able to survive many attempts to remove it’ (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2019)

At the fiftieth anniversary celebrations in the church in 2014, Archbishop Diarmuid Martin described it as ‘a remarkable building which I am happy … has been able to survive many attempts to remove it.’

The church is built in brick and concrete, with flat roofs and with a concrete bell tower rising above.

The atrium buffers the church from the airport sound and provides a quiet, contemplative space where people can meet. The peristyle or columned porch around the atrium shelters a generous walkway with benches projecting from the walls.

Imogen Stuart’s sculpture, Madonna Fountain (1969), is in the centre of the atrium landscaping.

Imogen Stuart’s sculpture ‘Madonna Fountain’ in the centre of the atrium landscaping (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2019)

Inside, the church is brick-lined, with a timber backdrop to the altar, and quite dimly lit, but the bands of stained-glass Stations of the Cross set into the walls fill the interior with lines of bright colour. The nave is raised above the side aisles and allows for strips of stained glass between the two levels, subtly defining the traditional zones of the church.

The clerestory windows have timber frames and there are tongue and groove timber doors.

A banner in the sanctuary in the Church of Our Lady Queen of Heaven at Dublin Airport (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2019)

The initiative for building the church came from a group of aviation staff and with the support and cooperation of the then Chief Executive of Aer Lingus and Aer Rianta, JF Dempsey, who allocated the site at what was then the centre of the airport. The new Airport Chaplain became the airport’s sole resident.

Many airport staff members have celebrated their weddings, baptised their children and held their funeral services in this church. The funding and early maintenance of the church was provided by airline and airport staff, enabled through payroll deductions authorised by airport and airline management.

Many Dublin diocesan priestunders have served in the Dublin Airport chaplaincy over the years. They include John Fenlon, Ben Mulligan, Martin Tierney, Tommy McCarthy, Declan Doyle, Jim Kenny and Dermot Doyle. Father Tommy McCarthy is remembered as the pilot priest who also acted as a commercial pilot training instructor during his leisure time.

The annual 9/11 memorial Mass is supported by the Airport Police Fire Service Brass and Reed Band.

One of the high-profile funerals in the church was of murdered journalist Veronica Guerin. A quotation from the homily of the then chaplain, Father Declan Doyle, is engraved on her tombstone: ‘Veronica’s death was one of these events when a nation stops, when time stands still, when we look at ourselves as a society and ask: where are we going? This line of questioning is a special moment of history.’

A stained-glass window and one of the Stations of the Cross in the church (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2019)

At the fiftieth anniversary celebrations in 2014, Archbishop Diarmuid Martin said ‘the idea of the architect has been realised: realised in the sense that the complex has become a place where men and women working in the airport or travelling though are able to come aside from the hustle and bustle of work and life and anxiety, and walk through the calm of the courtyard into the quiet and peaceful and prayerful atmosphere of the Church.’

The church remains one of the more unique and beautiful aspects of this airport complex. It is an oasis of silence and contemplation in a world that it so busy with functionality that it finds it hard time to think about the deeper things, the things that give meaning and hope and dignity to people and their lives.

Sunday Mass in the Church of Our Lady Queen of Heaven is normally at 11 a.m.

A banner in the church … it remains an oasis of silence and contemplation (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2019)

The poet who invited Ireland’s best harpists to play in her home

One of the two 18th century stucco alcoves from Corballis House in the multi-faith room at Terminal 2 in Dublin Airport (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2019)

Patrick Comerford

The two stucco niches from Corballis House that survive in the multifaith prayer room in Terminal 2 at Dublin Airport are reminders not only of the loss of a once graceful house, but also of a musical and poetic tradition that blossomed in Ireland at turn of the 18th and 19th centuries.

I was writing about the multifaith prayer room this morning [5 July 2019] and the beauty of these surviving stucco niches, without realising the cultural role played by the Wilkinson family of Corballis House in Georgian and Regency Ireland.

Sir Thomas Wilkinson, who was Lord Mayor of Dublin in 1719-1720, is said to have invited the blind harpist Turlough O’Carolan (1670-1738) to play at Corballis House. A planxty by O’Carolan, Planxty Wilkinson, is one of the 214 Carolan compositions identified by Donal O’Sullivan, and may have been dedicated this to Sir Thomas Wilkinson.

O’Carolan is said to have given his last public performance at Corballis House. He died on 25 March 1738, and was buried in the MacDermott Roe family crypt in Kilronan, near Ballyfarnon, Co Roscommon. A memorial in Saint Patrick’s Cathedral, Dublin, the gift of Sydney, Lady Morgan, describes him as ‘Carolan, the last of the Irish Bards.’

Sir Thomas Wilkinson was the grandfather of Sir Henry Wilkinson (1749-1831), Recorder of Kilkenny, who continued to live at Corballis House. His daughter, the poet Anna Liddiard (1773-1819), who died 200 years ago, was the most important cultural figure to live at Corballis House.

She was a romantic poet whose work draws on the themes of patriotism, Irish culture and history, landscape, and human relations. Liddiard’s verse is patriotic and romantic, in particular her poem Addressed to Albion and Conrade.

Jane Susannah Anna Wilkinson was born in Co Meath on 29 April 1773. She married the Revd William Liddiard (1773-1841), a vicar’s son from Wiltshire, on 12 February 1798. He was a former army officer hoping to become an Anglican priest and was an aspiring poet and artist.

Anna continued the cultural and musical traditions introduced to Corballis House by hear great-grandfather. The interior decorative plasterwork of Corballis House was commissioned by the Wilkinson family. The musical theme of these decorative plaster niches inside one of the upper-storey bay rooms indicated the room may once have been the venue for fashionable recitals and parties hosted by Anna Liddiard around the turn of the 18th and 19th centuries.

The musicians she invited to play at the house included the Armagh harper Patrick Quin from Portadown, who was also blind. Quin performed in the Rotunda in Dublin in 1809, at a concert in commemoration of Carolan, and probably stayed at Corballis House.

Anna and William were advocates of religious tolerance. She dedicated her book of Poems, published in Dublin in 1809, to her husband.

The couple moved to Bath in 1811, living there for two years. In Bath, she published The Sgelaighe or A tale of old (1811), supposedly drawing on an old Irish manuscript.

She describes her return from Bath to Ireland in Kenilworth and Farley Castle (1813). This book is addressed to the ‘Ladies of Llangollen,’ whom she visited.

A tale in verse, Evening after the battle, was published in 1819 along with her husband’s Mont St Jean both based around the battle of Waterloo. An anonymous work, Mount Leinster (1819), also published that year, blamed the 1798 Rising in Co Wexford on the Penal Laws.

Anna died later that year at Corballis on 30 October 1819.

Her husband, the Revd William Liddiard, was a son of the Revd William Stratton Liddiard of Wiltshire. He matriculated at University College Oxford, but he left in 1794 without receiving a degree to enlist in the army. After reaching the rank of captain, he left the army in 1796 with the intention of seeking ordination.

William was ordained after graduating BA at Trinity College Dublin in 1803. On the recommendation of the Duke of Bedford, he was appointed chaplain to Charles Lennox (1764-1819), 4th Duke of Richmond, Lord Lieutenant of Ireland and a cousin of the 1798 leader Lord Edward FitzGerald.

William Liddiard was the vicar of Culmullen, Co Meath (1807-1810), and then of the united parish of Knockmark (1810-1831). After resigning the living to his son, Liddiard spent his later years in Bath, and died at Clifton, near Bristol, on 11 October 1841.

Anna and William Liddiard had one son, the Revd Henry Liddiard, born in 1800. He succeeded his father as the Rector of Knockmark and also inherited Corballis House.

The second of two 18th century stucco alcoves from Corballis House in the multi-faith room at Terminal 2 in Dublin Airport (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2019)

A journey begins on ‘a wing and a prayer’ in Dublin Airport

Prayer mats on a shelf in the multi-faith room at Terminal 2 in Dublin Airport (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2019)

Patrick Comerford

The old phrase ‘on a wing and prayer’ sometimes comes to mind when I begin a journey.

The phrase seems to date from World War II and the 1942 film The Flying Tigers (1942). The screenplay was written by Kenneth Gamet and Barry Trivers, and John Wayne stars as Captain Jim Gordon, and co-stars John Carrol land Anna Lee.

Captain Gordon refers to the flight of replacement pilots, and asks: ‘Any word on that flight yet?’

The Rangoon hotel clerk replies: ‘Yes sir, it was attacked and fired on by Japanese aircraft. She’s coming in on one wing and a prayer.’

The phrase was repeated by the songwriters Harold Adamson and Jimmie McHugh in their war-time song Coming in on a Wing and a Prayer (1943).

The phrase and the song inspired the title of a second war-time movie, Wing and a Prayer (1944), starring Don Ameche and Dana Andrews, and based on the story of the bombing of Pearl Harbor.

These allusions to stricken aircraft limping home may have been inspired by an earlier theatrical phrase, ‘winging it,’ that refers to actors struggling through lines they have recently learned on the wings of the stage.

Prayer books, pamphlets and tracts on a shelf in the multi-faith room at Terminal 2 in Dublin Airport (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2019)

Although I am in and out of Dublin Airport regularly each month, I generally fly with Ryanair, which means I usually use Terminal 1. Even on one recent Aer Lingus flight I was redirected to Terminal 1.

However, I recently passed through Terminal 2, and before boarding my flight decided to look at the Prayer Room before passing through the passport and security checking areas.

This is a simple room, with very few markings and emblems, apart from an ambo or lectern and a qibla on the floor pointing the direction for Muslims to pray facing Mecca.

The qibla in the multi-faith room at Terminal 2 in Dublin Airport (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2019)

A few shelves hold prayer mats in colourful array, while a facing set of shelves hold an array of religious books, texts and tracts, mainly copies of the Quran, but also a small number of Bibles, many evangelical pamphlets, some Bibles, and a few copies of the Book of Mormon.

It seems Christian fundamentalists, both evangelical and Catholic, are more proactive than mainstream religious groups in placing their publications in the room.

Two stucco alcoves are the only decoration on the walls. These were once part of Corballis House, which stood on the site of Terminal 2.

Corballis House was a protected structure dating from the late 18th or early 19th century. It stood on the site of an earlier house dating from 1641 or 1642, and this in turn may have been built on the site of an earlier mediaeval castle or tower house levelled by Lord Ormond in a battle around 1641.

Corballis House was a listed protected structure, but despite its ‘protected’ status, Fingal County Council agreed to its demolition after proper archaeological and historical recording.

The interior decorative plasterwork of Corballis House dated from the late 18th century, when the house was owned by the Wilkinson family. The musical theme of these decorative plaster niches inside one of the upper-storey bay rooms indicated the room may once have been the venue for fashionable recitals and parties hosted by Sir Henry Wilkinson’s daughter, the poet Anna Liddiard (1773-1819) around the turn of the 19th century.

The design team for Terminal 2 considered incorporating Corballis House into the project and also looked at the feasability of relocating the house.

The two stucco alcoves in the prayer room are a tiny remnant of this graceful old house.

A sign tells visitors ‘They stand here in this multi-faith room in memory of the house and its people and to also remind us that only faith, hope and love are immortal.’

One of the two 18th century stucco alcoves from Corballis House in the multi-faith room at Terminal 2 in Dublin Airport (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2019)