Kitesurfers and hardy swimmers in the winter cold at Dollymount

Kitesurfing on the beach at Dollymount this afternoon (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2015)

Patrick Comerford

It has been a busy Advent and Christmas season, with Carol services, Sung Eucharists, Choral Evensongs, seasonal sermons, cathedral meetings … as well as dinners, parties, shopping, cards and family visits.

I was preaching at the Sung Eucharist in Christ Church Cathedral this morning, and it was encouraging to see how many people were present this morning, both members of the cathedral congregation and visitors and tourists.

The Sunday after Easter is often known as Low Sunday, because of the low tone to celebrations after the climax of Easter. But it is also associated with the low numbers attending churches on that Sunday too. And the same might be said about the Sunday after Christmas.

Happily, this was not so at this morning’s Eucharist.

As the Communion Motet this morning, the Voluntary Choir sang ‘The truth sent from above,’ often known as the ‘Hereford Carol.’ This carol was collected early in the last century by Ralph Vaughan Williams, Cecil Sharp and other folk song collectors in Shropshire and Herefordshire, and the version the choir sang this morning is the one collected by Vaughan Williams.

Vaughan Williams collected this Dorian mode version of this carol at King’s Pyon, Herefordshire, in 1909 from Mrs Ella Leather, a folk singer. He later used this carol to open his Fantasia on Christmas Carols (1912).

Kitesurfers enjoying the high winds on Bull Island this afternoon (Patrick Comerford, 2015)

After coffee in the crypt and family visits in Clontarf, two of us decided to clear our heads this afternoon and went for walk along the length of the Bull Wall, with the waters of Dublin Bay to one side and the sands of Bull Island or Dollymount Beach on the other.

It was interesting to see how busy the port is, even on a Sunday afternoon during this extended holiday weekend. It was surprising too to see one or two swimmers braving the cold temperatures, the high tides and the choppy waters this afternoon.

Out on the long stretch of sand at Dollymount Beach, a dozen or more kitesurfers were taking advantage of the high winds along the shoreline.

It is good to get the salt air into my lungs after a few busy days like this.

Brave or foolhardy? A swimmer off the Bull Wall in Dublin Bay this afternoon (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2015)

An island beach walk, an old Jewish cemetery, and a musical start to Lent

Walking on the beach on Bull Island this afternoon (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2015)

Patrick Comerford

An “Orange Alert” storm warning is in place throughout Ireland this evening, there are high winds and the rains are heavy, with occasional flashes of lightning.

But before the storm broke, two of us headed out to Dollymount on Clontarf Road, immediately north of Dublin’s inner city, for a walk along the Bull Wall and the beach on Bull Island.

Despite the churning waters and rising tides, families in large number were enjoying the new vistas created by nature and the spectacular views along the beach north to Sutton and Howth Head and out to the Irish Sea.

Watching the ferries leaving Dublin Port from Bull Island this afternoon (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2015)

Close to the beach a number of ferries and cargo ships were making their way out of Dublin Port and gliding along the water, parallel to the beach. They were so close it was possible to imagine that one could still be hardy and foolish enough to swim out towards them, despite the threatened storm.

Even as the rains began to fall, car loads were still driving across the single-land wooden bridge linking Dollymount with Bull Island. Winter storms add an additional attraction to the sea and sand at this time of the year.

The gate lode to oldest Jewish cemetery in Dublin has a plaque saying in was ‘Built in the Year 5618’ (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2015)

On our way out to the Bull Wall, we stopped in Ballybough in search of Dublin’s oldest Jewish cemetery. The hint that the hidden cemetery is there is found on a gable-ended house with a plaque that is inscribed “Built in the Year 5618.”

The reference is to the year 1857 in the Hebrew Calendar. The house was built as a gate lodge for a much older cemetery that is almost 300 years old.

In the 1700s, a small number of Jews had settled in the Annadale area off Ellis Avenue (now Philipsburg Avenue), in Fairview. Most of these Marrano Jews were descendants of families who had fled the Inquisition in Spain and Portugal, and some also came from the Netherlands.

In 1718, Alexander Felix (David Penso), Jacob Do Porto, and David Machado Do Sequeira, on behalf of the Jewish community in Dublin, leased a plot of land for a burial ground from Captain Chichester Phillips, MP, of Drumcondra Castle.

The plot was bought in 1748 by the Spanish and Portuguese Synagogue in London acting with Michael Phillips, of Crane Lane Synagogue, Dublin, with a leasehold for 1,000 years at the annual rent of one peppercorn.

The gate lodge was built in 1857 to replace a temporary hut built by the Cohen family in 1798.

A glimpse of the old Jewish graveyard and the graves in Ballybough (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2015)

I caught a glimpse of the cemetery itself, which has more than 200 graves. In 1908, Lewis Harris was elected an Alderman of the City of Dublin. However, he died the day before he was to be made Lord Mayor and was buried in Fairview Strand, beside his wife Juliette.

Burials had stopped around 1900, with just a few burials in 1901, 1908, 1946, and 1958. After that last burial in 1958, most Jewish burials in Dublin now take place in Dolphin’s Barn.

Today, 148 tombstones are still standing in the cemetery and are inscribed in Hebrew, and English, with the Jewish calendar month of death, along with the birth, age and place of origin of the person. The Cohen tombstones all have a depiction of hands over their remains. The reason for this is to show that they were descendants of the Cohens who were the Priests of Israel and the hands are shown as blessing the people.

Looking across Dublin port at the twin towers of the Pigeon House (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2015)

Before arriving in Ballybough, we also visited Dublin Port. It is ten years or more since I travelled across the Irish Sea on a ferry from Dublin Port, and today – perhaps because it was a Sunday afternoon – the place seemed eerily quiet, despite the steady flow of shipping out of the port.

It is estimated that about two-thirds of port traffic in the Republic of Ireland passes through Dublin Port. The Port is located on both sides of the mouth of the River Liffey, out to its mouth. The main part in on the north side of the river, and covers 205 hectares at the end of East Wall and North Wall, from Alexandra Quay. The smaller part of the port, on the south side of the river, covers 51 hectares and lies at the beginning of the Pigeon House peninsula.

But the mediaeval port of Dublin was a short distance upstream, on the south bank of the Liffey, below Christ Church Cathedral, from its current location. In 1715, the Great South Wall was built to shelter the entrance to the port, and Poolbeg Lighthouse at the end of the South Bull Wall was built in 1767.

Looking east along the River Liffey this afternoon (Photograph: Patrick Cmerford, 2015)

When James Gandon’s Custom House was built further downstream in 1791, the port moved downstream to the north bank of the river estuary. In 1800, Captain William Bligh, better known for his part in the mutiny on the Bounty, recommended building the Bull Wall. When the Bull Wall was built in 1842, the North Bull Island formed slowly as sand built up behind it.

We had driven along the north banks of the Liffey on our way to and from the port and the Bull Island.

With the Revd Dr Patrick McGlinchey and the Revd Mpole Samuel Masemola in the Chapter House of Christ Church Cathedral

Earlier in the day, I was in Christ Church Cathedral, where I was deacon at the Cathedral Eucharist for the First Sunday in Lent, reading the Gospel (Mark 1: 9-15) and assisting at the administration of Holy Communion.

The Dean, the Very Revd Dermot Dunne, presided at the Eucharist, and the preacher was my colleague, the Revd Dr Patrick McGlinchey. It was also good to see the Revd Mpole Samuel Masemola from South Africa robe for the Eucharist this morning. He is the Assistant Chaplain at the Anglican Chaplaincy in Oslo, which is part of the Diocese of Europe in the Church of England.

The setting was Collegium Regale by Herbert Howells (1892-1983). This setting and its name find their origins in a challenge from Eric Milner-White when he was the Dean of King’s College, Cambridge.

Throughout Lent, I am reflecting each morning on a hymn setting or a piece of music associated with Ralph Vaughan Williams. It is interesting that Howells was confirmed in his conviction that he should become a composer when he was in his late teens and heard the premiere of Vaughan Williams’s Fantasia on a theme by Thomas Tallis at the Gloucester Three Choirs Festival in Gloucester Cathedral in September 1910.

Howells recalled later in life how Vaughan Williams sat next to the awestruck aspiring composer for the remainder of the concert and shared with him his score of Edward Elgar’s The Dream of Gerontius.Both Vaughan Williams and the Tudor composers, including Tallis, profoundly influenced Howells’s, and the friendship between Howells and Vaughan Williams developed into an interesting musical understanding.

A tour through the battlefields of Clontarf

The tide was out at the Bull Island and Clontarf at mid-day today (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2014)

Patrick Comerford

I am working throughout the weekend with students who are on a residential weekend, and I had spent time with my GP on Thursday evening, going through the results of a blood tests and a hospital check-up and receiving another injection for my B12 deficiency.

When my B12 levels run down and my sarcoidosis symptoms play up as I face tough working demands, no matter how pleasant, the physical symptoms can be quite demanding and trying. So it was good to get the opportunity to head off after this morning’s service in the institute chapel, and to spend some time taking photographs for a magazine feature I am writing for next month, marking the 1,000th anniversary of the Battle of Clontarf on Good Friday 1014.

There are many questions to ask about the Battle of Clontarf and the myths that surround out, including why it has come to be regarded as an Irish victory over the Vikings when Brian Boru was slain on the battlefield, the O’Brien dynasty eventually lost its grip on the Irish monarchy, and the Vikings prospered, seeing Dublin prosper as a city and staging a major invasion of England.

The towers and turrets of Clontarf Castle under blue skies today (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2014)

Indeed, the battle was fought on a far wider landscape than Clontarf, and my photographic tour took me through Phibsboro, Glasnevin, Finglas, Drumcondra, Fairview, Clontarf and Dollymount.

It was a beautiful sunny, spring morning, with clear blue skies, and an ideal day for concentrating on photography. The tide was out at Fairview, Clontarf and Dollymount, but it all added to the beauty of the locations for my photographs.

Later two of us headed further north to Howth, which is still associated with King Sitric, the Viking King of Dublin. We walked along the West Pier before having lunch in Il Panorama, a crowded and delightful Italian-style café and bistro.

By the time it came to returning to work, I felt refreshed and ready to go again.

‘Ye who now will bless the poor shall yourselves find blessing’

The tide covered the sands and there were no cars on the beach at Dollymount after last night’s storm (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2014)

Patrick Comerford

It seems every piece of coastline on these islands took a battering over the last few days, and that nowhere escaped the high tides, the gales and the storms.

This afternoon, council workers were diligently reinforcing the sea defences along the coastline in Clontarf after yesterday’s heavy battering, moving and replacing sandbags and clearing away some of the heavier debris that has been deposited along the seafront.

But the sunshine was strong despite the low temperatures, and I could feel the strength of the sun against my face as I walked across the wooden bridge at Dollymount and along the Bull Wall that link Clontarf with the Bull Island.

Walking along the wooden bridge connecting Clontarf and the Bull Island (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2014)

On my regular beach walks, I constantly wonder why local authorities allow cars onto our beautiful beaches. The breach at Dollymount is firm and flat and stretches for 5 km, and it is said many Dubliners learned to drive on this beach at low tide.

However, there were no cars on the beach early this afternoon. Traffic across the wooden bridge was slow, and cars could get no further than the entrance to the Royal Dublin Golf Club. The popular, narrow, sandy access to beach used like a road at weekends by motorists to gain access to the beach was now like a river as the waves continued to push the water in past the sand dunes.

A redundant warning at Dollymount this afternoon: ‘Emergency Access No parking This Side’ (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

The signs on the northern side of the passageway read: “Emergency Access No parking This Side.” But with the long grass banked up behind the new flow of water this looked more like a reminder of the canal leading from the Bay of Fethiye into Çaliş in south-west Turkey.

The lengthy, sandy beach was covered by the tidal waters, and the quaintly-names Ladies’ and Gents’ Bathing Shelter offered no shelter at all, with the waves and debris lapping against the steps leading into the water from these concrete structures.

The exceptional winter sunshine and the aftermath of the storm had many walkers out on the wall. No-one dared wade down onto the beach itself.

The water covers the steps beneath the ‘Gents’ Bathing Shelter’ (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2014)

From Dollymount, two of us continued on along the road by Saint Anne’s Park and through Bayside and Sutton to Howth. Once again, people were out in large numbers, attracted by the sunshine and the aftermath of last night’s storm.

We had two double espressos and two panini in Il Panorama, a pleasant if packed Italian-Australian café and wine bar on the seafront. The Perth was filled with mozzarella di bufala, artichokes and aubergines; the Alice Springs had pesto, fresh tomatoes and pecorino cheese.

Ireland’s Eye and the Lighthouse at the end of the East Pier seen from the end of the West Pier in Howth this afternoon (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2014)

But the sea was still calling, and we walked the length of the West Pier, past the restaurants and fish shops, to the end, to see Ireland’s Eye and the Lighthouse at the end of the East Pier across the narrow passages, and beaches at Clermont and the Burrow near Sutton to the west.

On the way back, we stopped once more to look at the mop-up operation in Clontarf. Between the North Wall and the East Wall, Dublin Bay was deceptively calm.

Looking back at the wooden bridge at Dollymount with the twin towers of the Pigeon House beyond (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2014)

Until now I have never liked winter – the cold, the snow and the ice may look pretty, but I have seldom enjoyed them, and at this time of the year I tend to cope with this attitude by planning or imagining summer holidays in the Mediterranean. However, we have had one of the most wonderful summers, and one of the warmest autumns in recent memory, and this has turned out to be a beautiful winter despite the harsh weather in the past two weeks or so.

Calm waters at Clontarf this evening (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2014)

Yet the cold, the floods and the rains must be making life even more difficult for those who already find it harsh: the homeless, those living on the streets, those in sheltered housing or housing that is vulnerable in this weather, people who cannot afford adequate heating. And I am reminded of the words in the Christmas carol ‘Good King Wenceslas’:

Sire, the night is darker now,
and the wind blows stronger.
Fails my heart, I know not how.
I can go no longer.
Mark my footsteps my good page,
tread thou in them boldly:
Thou shalt find the winter’s rage
freeze thy blood less coldly.

In his master’s step he trod,
where the snow lay dented.
Heat was in the very sod
which the saint had printed.
Therefore, Christian men, be sure,
wealth or rank possessing,
ye who now will bless the poor
shall yourselves find blessing

Debris washing against the North Wall this afternoon (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2014)