Daily prayer in Lent 2026: 20, Monday 9 March 2026

They … led him to the brow of the hill on which their town was built, so that they might hurl him off the cliff (Luke 4: 29) … looking down on Çavuşin in Cappadocia from a rock-hewn church in the ridge above the town (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

We are in the middle of Lent, which began almost three weeks ago on Ash Wednesday (18 February 2026), and yesterday was the Third Sunday in Lent (Lent III).

Before today begins, I am taking some quiet time this morning to give thanks, to reflect, to pray and to read in these ways:

1, reading today’s Gospel reading;

2, a short reflection;

3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary;

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

They … led him to the brow of the hill on which their town was built, so that they might hurl him off the cliff (Luke 4: 29) … a view from the edge of the Fortezza down to the streets of Rethymnon in Crete (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Luke 4: 24-30 (NRSVA):

24 And he said, ‘Truly I tell you, no prophet is accepted in the prophet’s home town. 25 But the truth is, there were many widows in Israel in the time of Elijah, when the heaven was shut up for three years and six months, and there was a severe famine over all the land; 26 yet Elijah was sent to none of them except to a widow at Zarephath in Sidon. 27 There were also many lepers in Israel in the time of the prophet Elisha, and none of them was cleansed except Naaman the Syrian.’ 28 When they heard this, all in the synagogue were filled with rage. 29 They got up, drove him out of the town, and led him to the brow of the hill on which their town was built, so that they might hurl him off the cliff. 30 But he passed through the midst of them and went on his way.

The story of the widow at Zarephath and her son has parallels with the story of the widow of Nain and her son in Luke 7 … a window in Saint Mary’s Church, St Neot’s, Cambridgeshire (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Reflections:

In pastoral and parish ministry, priests find few crisis moments where they are confronted with the needs and challenges of kings and generals, but on a daily basis we come close to the plight of widows and the marginalised.

The prophets Jesus names in today’s Gospel reading (Luke 4: 24-30), Elijah and Elisha, respond to the plight of a king’s general and a widow in crisis moments, and both are outsiders.

The king’s general, Naaman the Syrian, is a gentile, an Aramean, who is afflicted with a skin disease. When he seeks help from King Jehoram of Israel, his appeal is misinterpreted as a threat, yet he is healed trough the intervention of Elisha. Naaman was unclean, a gentile and a perceived enemy. But his story holds out the promise of all being counted in when it comes to the fulfilment of God’s promises.

The widow at Zarephath offers to share with the Prophet Elijah what might have been the last supper she and her son can put on their table. In turn, they find their food does not run out and Elijah brings the widow’s dying son back to life. Commentators note the parallels in this story with the story of the raising of the son of the widow of Nain later in Luke 7. But there are parallels too with the story of the Syrophoenician woman from Tyre and Sidon and her daughter, which is not found in Saint Luke’s Gospel (see Matthew 15: 21-28; Mark 7: 24-30).

This unnamed widow is a reminder of the central role widows, often unnamed, play in the Bible. Think of the widowed Naomi and her widowed daughter-in-law Ruth; the widowed Anna in the Temple (Luke 2: 37); the widowed mother of Peter and Andrew; the poor widow who offers all she has in the Temple Treasury (Mark 12: 42-43); Mary the widowed mother of Jesus; or how the office of deacon is created in the early church in response to the needs of the widows (Acts 6: 1-6).

Today’s Gospel reading follows on from the temptations in the wilderness (Luke 4: 1-13), where Jesus too was confronted with the prospect from being hurled from precipices, and comes immediately after reads from the scroll in the synagogue and the place where it was written: ‘The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour’ (Luke 4: 18-19).

In ministry, it is easier to succumb to the temptations offered by the kingdoms and kings of the world, seldom though they may be, than it is to deal with the day-to-day, everyday problems faced by the widows, those in need of health care and the misunderstood, of the poor, the captives, the blind and the oppressed.

When priests side with the powerful and presidents, generals and despots, we have our rewards on this earth; when we name with empathy the needs of those who would remain nameless on the margins, we are vilified from bring politics into religion.

Last year, Saint Joseph’s Day (19 March) was marked at Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago, private club in Palm Beach with a $1,500-a-head cocktail reception and dinner, at which the speakers included Bishop Joseph Strickland, who was forced by Pope Francis to stand down as Bishop of Tyler, Texas, in 2023 because of his extreme views.

Strickland’s cosying up to the Trump regime is in sharp contrast to the empathy and prophetic bravery expressed by Bishop Mariann Edgar Budde in Washington two months earlier.

While Strickland was dining at Mar-a-Lago and hundreds of migrants were being deported by the Trump regime forcibly and illegally to El Salvador, the home of the martyred saint and bishop Oscar Romero, who once declared: ‘I must tell you, as a Christian, I do not believe in death without resurrection. If I am killed, I shall arise in the Salvadoran people.’

In today’s Gospel reading, Jesus faces death threats after he challenges the authority of religious and civil leaders of the day, and he does so by quoting from Scripture, with Biblical authority. He speaks truth to power, and the crowd tries to kill him.

Being a true prophet is risky and dangerous. Lent leads us to the Cross, but it also brings the promise of Resurrection.

They … led him to the brow of the hill on which their town was built, so that they might hurl him off the cliff (Luke 4: 29) … looking from the edge of the Acropolis down on the streets of Athens (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Prayers (Monday 9 March 2026):

The theme this week (8-14 March 2026) in ‘Pray With the World Church,’ the Prayer Diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), is ‘Biblical Sisterhood’ (pp 36-37). This theme was introduced yesterday with reflections by Dr Sanjana Das, PhD feminist theologian, advocate for the dignity and rights of trafficked and migrant working women.

The USPG Prayer Diary today (Monday 9 March 2026) invites us to pray:

Gracious God, we give thanks that when fear, pain, and uncertainty surround us, your Word brings hope and healing.

The Collect:

Almighty God,
whose most dear Son went not up to joy but first he suffered pain,
and entered not into glory before he was crucified:
mercifully grant that we, walking in the way of the cross,
may find it none other than the way of life and peace;
through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

The Post Communion Prayer:

Merciful Lord,
grant your people grace to withstand the temptations
of the world, the flesh and the devil,
and with pure hearts and minds to follow you, the only God;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Additional Collect:

Eternal God,
give us insight
to discern your will for us,
to give up what harms us,
and to seek the perfection we are promised
in Jesus Christ our Lord.

Yesterday’s Reflections

Continued Tomorrow

They … led him to the brow of the hill on which their town was built, so that they might hurl him off the cliff (Luke 4: 29) … looking from the edge of a precipice at Dromana in Villierstown down on the River Blackwater below Cappoquin, Co Waterford (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

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

Childhood memories of waiting for Tomorrow with Petticoat Loose by the shores of Bay Lough

Bay Lough, the ‘bottomless’ lake near the Vee in the Knockmealdown Mountains … ‘Petticoat Loose’ and the monsters were condemned to its waters until ‘Tomorrow’ (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

I was musing a few evenings ago about the Greek word for tomorrow and how we can joke that the word avrio (αύριο) can never convey the same urgency that mañana has in Spanish.

Our anxieties about tomorrow are raised again in the Gospel reading tomorrow (Matthew 6: 25-34), when Jesus says: ‘But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you – you of little faith? … Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own’ (Matthew 6: 30, 34).

Tomorrow seemed to be a far-away world to us as children on those Sunday afternoons when we were regularly brought on family outings to the ‘Vee’, a scenic, V-shaped hairpin bend in the Knockmealdown Mountains, with spectacular views across the Golden Vale and three counties, Waterford, Tipperary and Cork.

At the Vee we were halfway between Cappoquin and Clogheen, and only a few miles from my grandmother’s farm, we were entertained with stories and tales about Samuel Grubb and the grave where he was buried standing, and about ‘Petticoat Loose’ and the monsters in Bay Lough, the ‘bottomless’ lake, who came up and asked, day after day, ‘Is it tomorrow.’

The grave of Samuel Grubb overlooking the Vee and the Golden Vale (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Samuel Richard Grubb (1855-1921) was a wealthy landowner of Quaker descent and a former High Sheriff of Co Tipperary. His distinctive, beehive-shape grave stands on Sugarloaf Hill overlooking the Vee and the Golden Vale. He said he wanted to be buried on the mountainside, standing upright, so that he could keep watch over ‘his people’ and ‘his fields’ at Castle Grace, where he farmed over 1,600 acres.

Before he died, Grubb designed his grave of rubble stone, looking like one of the clochans on the Great Skellig. Some say he asked to be buried there because the Grubb family had been by the Society of Friends or Quakers before Samuel was born for attending ‘balls at which music and dancing form a chief part’.

Grubb died on 6 September 1921 and was buried four days later, with the Revd J Talbot of Clogheen conducting the burial service. Grubb was buried standing up, with his dog beside him, although some people in the area said the men who buried him put him in the grave upside down.

From his grave 2,000 ft up in the mountains, there are panoramic views across the Golden Vale, and of the Galtee Mountains, the Comeragh Mountains and Slievenamon. On clear summer days as we looked across the valley below, and the villages of Clogheen, Ardfinnan and Ballyporeen (later known as the ancestral home of Ronald Reagan) were pointed out to us, and the towns of Cahir and Clonmel. The Grubb family sold Castle Grace near Clogheen in 2019, although many of his descendants continue to live in the area, including Nicholas Grubb who lives in Dromana House at Villierstown, near Cappoquin.

The panoramic view from the Vee across south Tipperary (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Close to the Vee Gap, on the county boundaries of Waterford and Tipperary, Bay Lough is on the side of Knockaunabulloga in the Knockmealdown Mountains, close to Saint Declan’s Way, the path Saint Declan trod as he made his way from Ardmore to Cashel.

Bay Lough is easily accessed from a car park on the Co Waterford side of the lake. Many people believe it is a ‘bottomless’ lake and that it is not possible to swim across it, even though it is quite small. In late May and early June, the rhododendrons are in bloom at the lake, providing spectacular views from Bay Lough to Clogheen.

Folklore in South Tipperary and West Waterford says the lake is the place where Petticoat Loose was banished, condemned as penance to drain the ‘bottomless’ lake with a thimble until tomorrow came.

Local folklore portrays Petticoat Loose as a vengeful ghost, a banshee or a haunting witch and sometimes identify her as Mary Hannigan. She was said to be a 6-ft tall, strong woman who did a man’s work on the farm, drank like a man, fought like a man and wrestled and fought the local men when they mocked her. But she was known too for adulterating milk and for her wicked behaviour. They say she killed a bull with a single blow of her first, killed a farmhand with his own spade, and threatened to kill anyone who told on her.

Mary Hannigan was born in the early 19th century, the only child of a well-to-do farming family who lived in the townland of Colligan, near Clogheen, and she was known for her love of dancing and drinking. During one drunken dance, as she spun around, her skirt was caught on a nail and fell to the ground, causing mirth and leading to laughter and jeering. The incident raised her anger and left her with the name ‘Petticoat Lucy’ or ‘Petticoat Loose’.

She met her future husband on the dance floor, but the marriage lasted only a year, and he met an early death. Local people whispered that Mary’s lover, a local hedge-school teacher, had murdered him.

Then, one night during a drinking session in a pub in Dungarvan, Mary drank half a gallon of beer, suddenly slumped forward onto the table and died. There was a big wake but no priest was called, even for the burial.

Seven years after her death, there were several sightings of Petticoat Loose, seen as a ghost with red hair or as a monstrous horse-headed figure who had returned to haunt people on the Vee road. She was also seen in the pubs and dance halls and became the terror of the Vee road, although – for some inexplicable reason – she never harmed any man with the name John.

She continued to haunt the Vee road close to Bay Lough, and it became a common practice for people travelling at night to carry religious relics or hazel sticks as protection.

Finally, people who were living in fear of Petticoat Lucy called on a local priest to rid the area of Mary and her nightly visits. One night, the priest and two men spotted her coming across a field. When the priest asked her name, she replied ‘I’m Petticoat Loose’, telling him she would do evil wherever she was.

‘We will see’, the priest replied. ‘I will place you head downwards.’ He took out a bottle of holy water and sent her to the far banks of the deepest lake, telling her: ‘You shall be condemned until judgment day to empty it with a thimble!’

The priest is said to have died two weeks later – some say she had drained the life out of him.

Many people say Petticoat Loose still sits on the far bank of Bay Lough with her thimble, vainly trying to empty the lake, waiting for tomorrow. Some say she sometimes appears out of the water and asks the same questions over and over again: ‘When will judgment day come?’ ‘Is it tomorrow?’

She is often associated with other spirits and monsters trapped in the lake by Saint Patrick. He told them to stay there and wait, and that he would be back tomorrow. So, they are still there, deep in the dark waters, waiting for tomorrow. Petticoat Loose, or one of the monsters, is said to surface occasionally to ask ‘Is it tomorrow?’

It is only possible to walk about half way around Bay Lough and few ever swim in the lake (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Bay Lough is a favourite for walkers and family outings, although it is only possible to walk about half way around the lake, and few ever swim in it, frightened off by tales that Petticoat Loose waits below to grab your legs and pull you down.

Perhaps the idle tale that Samuel Grubb was buried upside down was conflated or confused with the story that Petticoat Loose had been sent head down into the lake. As children we revelled in those stories, pretending to be only slightly scared. But in the 1950s and the early 1960s, the men in the family had probably driven up to the Vee and Bay Lough to get better radio reception.

Back on my grandmother’s farm near Cappoquin, in a valley below the Knockmealdowns, the mountains often blocked reception of what was then Radio Éireann. Instead, I grew up listening to the BBC Light Programme, nourished by a daily diet of programmes that included the Archers, Mrs Dales Diary, Hancock’s Half Hour, Housewives’ Choice, Listen with Mother, Woman’s Hour, and, of course, the Goons. Petticoat Loose may have been as far from Petticoat Lane as I could imagine, yet I understand how I grew up in rural Ireland with Received Pronunciation or ‘BBC English’ as my first language.

In those years, the Waterford hurlers were at their peak, reaching the All-Ireland finals in 1957, 1959 and 1963, and the men in the family needed better reception to hear the match commentaries. The ‘wireless’ was taken from the house, brought with us up to Bay Lough or Grubb’s Grave and connected to the car battery so my uncles could listen to Mícheál Ó hEithir’s match commenaties while we children played and picknicked by the lake shore or on the mountainside.

As a treat later, we were brought back to the ‘Cats’ near Melleray for lemonade and crisps, while the men celebrated the match result – or drowned their sorrows. Later we might even be allowed to listen to the music or watch the dancing at the ‘Stage’ … if we behaved ourselves.

The working week resumed on Monday morning. Cows were to be milked, animals had to be fed, there was shopping to do in Cappoquin, and children had to go to school. Tomorrow always came.

Tomorrow brought work, school and shopping in Cappoquin (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Saint Dunstan-in-the-West remains a constant presence in the midst of change on Fleet Street

The Guild Church of Saint Dunstan-in-the-West, next door to the former DC Thompson building on Fleet Street, London (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

Patrick Comerford

During all the years I worked as a journalist with The Irish Times, I had many working visits to Fleet Street, when the London offices were based in the old PA Building at 85 Fleet Street, a building designed by the architect Sir Edwin Lutyens.

There were colleagues to meet from other newspapers too, and exchanges with the Guardian. In those days, liquid lunches were popular among journalists on the ‘Streets of Shame,’ and at a time when many journalists still worked on Fleet Street, Private Eye developed the character of Lunchtime O’Booze as the archetypal drunken journalist.

But all has changed in recent years, and DC Thomson journalists were the last on Fleet Street until they left in 2016.

During those working visits to Fleet Street, there were visits too to Saint Bride’s, the journalists’ church on Fleet Street, which also had a family link through a former rector, the Revd Edwards Comerford Hawkins (1827-1906), father of Anthony Hope, author of The Prisoner of Zenda. In the 1980s and 1990s, there were constant vigils in Saint Bride’s for John McCarthy, Terry Anderson and other journalists held hostage in Lebanon.

Yet, until last week, I had never visited the Guild Church of Saint Dunstan-in-the-West, next door to the former DC Thompson building on Fleet Street. The church has links with the media barons Lord Rothermere and Lord Northcliffe, who were brothers, and Lord Camrose, and it appeared as the ‘journalists’ church’ in the 2018 TV series Press. But Saint Bride’s, not Saint Dunstan’s, has always been the real journalists’ church on Fleet Street.

Saint Bride’s and Saint Dunstan’s are two of the remaining constants on Fleet Street, reminders of what this street was in the past. Saint Dunstan-in-the-West is impressive inside, with an octagonal nave that creates the impression of a round church. However, this is not the original church, and it was built in the 1830s to designs by John Shaw to replace an earlier mediaeval church demolished to allow for a 19th century street widening programme.

Saint Dunstan depicted in a stained glass window above the High Altar (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

Saint Dunstan-in-the-West is dedicated to Saint Dunstan, one of the most venerated saints in England before the cult of Saint Thomas Becket became popular. He was born in 909 and was taught by Irish monks at Glastonbury Abbey, Somerset. He became Abbot of Glastonbury in 945, and was Bishop of Worcester and then Bishop of London before becoming Archbishop of Canterbury in 960. When he died in 988, he was buried at Canterbury Cathedral.

The Church of Saint Dunstan-in-the-West is first mentioned in written records in 1185, but there is no evidence of the date of its original foundation. Some accounts say it was built by Saint Dunstan or by priests who knew him well. Others suggest a foundation date between 988, when he died, and 1070.

It could be that a church on this site was one of the churches of the Anglo-Saxon settlement of Lundenwic, such as Saint Martin within Ludgate, Saint Martin in the Fields, the first Saint Mary le Strand, Saint Clement Danes and Saint Bride’s, which may pre-date any churches within the walls of the City of London.

King Henry III gained possession of site of Saint Dunstan’s and its endowments from Westminster Abbey by 1237. He then granted them to the Domus Conversorum (‘House of the Converts’) in Chancery Lane, housing converted Jews. This led to neglect of the parochial responsibilities of the church until a separate rector was appointed in 1317.

Inside the Church of Saint Dunstan-in-the-West, facing the north or liturgical east (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

William Tyndale (1494-1526), an early translator of the Bible into English, was a lecturer at the church. The priest-poet John Donne (1572-1631) was the vicar (1624-1631) while he was also Dean of Saint Paul’s (1621-1631), and preached in the church.

George Calvert, Lord Baltimore, who founded Maryland, was buried in the church in 1632, as was his son.

The church narrowly escaped the Great Fire of London in 1666. In the middle of the night, the Dean of Westminster, John Dolben, woke up 40 schoolboys from Westminster School to form a fire brigade that extinguished the flames with buckets of water. The flames reached a point three doors away.

Samuel Pepys mentions the church in his diary and was a regular worshipper. Izaak Walton (1593-1683), author of the Compleat Angler and biographer of John Donne, George Herbert and Richard Hooker, was a sidesman.

Inside the Church of Saint Dunstan-in-the-West, facing the south or liturgical west (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

The mediaeval church underwent many alterations over time. Small shops were built against its walls, and the churchyard became a centre for bookselling and publishing: John Milton found a publisher there for Paradise Lost in 1667.

Later repairs were carried out in an Italianate style. Rusticated stonework was used, and some of the Gothic windows were replaced with round-headed ones. The old vaulted roof was replaced in 1701 with a flat ceiling, ornamented with recessed panels.

The London clockmaker and watchmaker Charles Gretton was a churchwarden and was buried there in 1731. The church has a bronze memorial plaque for Thomas Mudge (171516-1794), inventor of the lever escapement and watchmaker to George III.

The baptismal font in the Church of Saint Dunstan-in-the-West (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

The mediaeval church was spilling onto what is now the tarmac of Fleet Street, and was removed to allow the widening of Fleet Street in the early 19th century, when a new church was built on its burial ground. An Act of Parliament in 1829 authorised the demolition of the church, and some of the materials of the old church were auctioned off in December 1829 and September 1830.

The new building was designed by John Shaw Sr (1776-1832). The first stone was laid in July 1831 and building went ahead proceeded rapidly. The last part of the old church, left as a screen between Fleet Street and the new work, was removed in August 1832.

Shaw handled the restricted site by designing a church with an octagonal central space. Seven of the eight sides open into arched recesses, the northern one containing the altar. The eighth side opens into a short corridor, leading beneath the organ to the lowest stage of the tower, which serves as an entrance porch. Shaw designed a clerestory above the recesses, with a groined ceiling above the clerestory.

The square tower has an octagonal lantern, resembling those at Saint Botolph’s Church, Boston, and Saint Helen’s Church, York (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

The square tower has an octagonal lantern, resembling those at Saint Botolph’s Church, Boston, and Saint Helen’s Church, Stonegate, York. Shaw died in 1833, before the church was completed, leaving it in the hands of his son John Shaw jr (1803-1870).

The communion rail has survived from the old church. It was carved by Grinling Gibbons when John Donne was the vicar (1624-1631). Some of the monuments from the mediaeval building were kept in the new church, and a fragment of the old churchyard remains between Clifford’s Inn and Bream’s Buildings.

The church survived the London Blitz largely intact, though bombs damaged the open-work lantern tower and the church lost its stained glass. The church was damaged again on the night of 24-25 March 1944.

The church was designated a Grade I listed building in 1950, and it was largely restored that year, when the tower was rebuilt through the generosity of newspaper magnate William Ewart Berry (1879-1954), Viscount Camrose, proprietor and/or editor at various times of the Sunday Times, the Financial Times and the Daily Telegraph.

Saint Dunstan-in-the-West became a Guild Church in 1952, dedicating its ministry to the daytime working population around Fleet Street.

The chiming clock on the façade has figures that strike the bells with their clubs (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

The chiming clock on the façade has figures of giants, said to represent Gog and Magog, who strike the bells with their clubs. It was installed on the previous church in 1671, and may have been commissioned to celebrate its escape during the Great Fire in 1666. It was the first public clock in London to have a minute hand. The figures of the two giants strike the hours and quarters, and turn their heads.

When the mediaeval church was demolished, the clock was removed in 1828 by the art collector Francis Seymour-Conway, 3rd Marquess of Hertford, to Winfield House, his mansion in Regent’s Park, which became known as Saint Dunstan’s. During World War I, Winfield House was a hostel for blinded soldiers, and the new charity took the name Saint Dunstan’s – now Blind Veterans UK.

The clock was returned to the church to mark the Silver Jubilee of King George V in 1935 by the press baron Harold Harmsworth, Lord Rothermere, brother of Alfred Harmsworth, Lord Northcliffe.

There are numerous literary references to the clock, including in Tom Brown’s Schooldays, the Vicar of Wakefield and a poem by William Cowper (1782).

The statue of Elizabeth I in the courtyard dates from 1586 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

The statue of Queen Elizabeth I above the entrance to the old parochial school in the courtyard is the only one known to have been carved during her reign.

The statue by William Kerwin dates from 1586 and is said to be the oldest outdoor statue in London. It was moved from the old Ludgate when it was demolished in 1760.

In the porch below are three statues of ancient Britons also from the old Ludgate, and said to represent King Lud, the mythical sovereign, and his two sons.

The memorial to Lord Northcliffe has an obelisk by Sir Edwin Lutyens and a bronze bust by Kathleen Scott (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

The wall of the church also has a memorial to Lord Northcliffe, co-founder of the Daily Mail and the Daily Mirror. The obelisk was designed by Sir Edwin Lutyens, with a bronze bust by Kathleen Scott, and was unveiled in 1930.

Next to Lord Northcliffe is a memorial tablet to James Louis Garvin (1868-1947) was a journalist, author and editor of The Observer (1908-1942).

The High Altar and reredos are Flemish woodwork dating from the 17th century (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

Much of the internal fabric predates the rebuilding in the 1830s. The High Altar and reredos are Flemish woodwork dating from the 17th century, and many of the monuments have been retained from the original church.

The church is often associated with the legend of Sweeney Todd, the ‘demon-barber’ of Fleet Street. It was mentioned in the original ‘penny dreadful’, The String of Pearls. According to some sources, Sweeney Todd set up shop as a barber, tooth-puller and surgeon at 186 Fleet Street in 1785.

He is said to have murdered over 100 clients, selling their flesh to Margery Lovett who owned a pie shop in nearby in Bell Yard, and dumping the remnants of their victims in the church crypt.

The Hoare family donated the stained glass window showing Archbishop Lanfranc, Saint Dunstan, Saint Anselm and Archbishop Langton (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

The church has been associated with the Worshipful Company of Cordwainers (shoemakers) since the 15th century. Once a year the company holds a service in the church to commemorate two of its benefactors, John Fisher and Richard Minge.

The church also has a long association with C Hoare and Co, whose bank has stood facing the church from the other side of Fleet Street since 1690. The Hoare family donated the four-light stained glass window above the high altar and the carved canopies of the altar-piece. The window shows Archbishop Lanfranc, Saint Dunstan beside a roaring furnace into which he has thrust his pincers ready to pull a devil’s nose, Saint Anselm and Archbishop Langton with King John at the signing of Magna Carta.

Members of the Hoare family have been generous benefactors and many have been churchwardens over the centuries. Two have been Lord Mayors of London and a family vault still lies in the church crypt.

The Romanian iconostasis was brought from Antim Monastery in Bucharest in 1966 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

Saint Dunstan’s is also home to the Romanian Orthodox Church in London, and serves as Saint George’s Church. The chapel to the left of the main altar has beautiful iconostasis or icon screen, brought from Antim Monastery in Bucharest in 1966.

Behind the iconostasis, high on a wall, is a marble memorial tablet to the 17th century clockmaker Henry Jones (1634-1695), who worked in the Inner Temple, and his wife Hannah.

Saint Dunstan-in-the-West is home to the Anglican and Eastern Churches Association, and is a centre of prayer for Christian Unity. The side chapels contain altars dedicated to various traditions, including the Lutheran Church in Berlin (EKD), the Oriental Orthodox Churches (Armenian, Coptic, Ethiopian, Syrian, Syro-Indian), and a shrine of the Lutheran and Reformed Churches.

Saint Dunstan’s continues in its special role of promoting good relations with Churches outside the Anglican Communion, including through its role as the Diocese of London’s Church for Europe.

Meanwhile, any journalist feeling nostalgic about the ‘Old Fleet Street’ and its memories must be heartened by the news last week that the Tipperary, one of Fleet Street’s best-known and oldest pubs, is to reopen, after closing during the pandemic two years ago and never reopening. Save London Pubs, a social media campaign, reported last week that the Tipperary is to reopen after a refurbishment, with repairs to the exterior and interior, new seating, and work to preserve its old features.

• The Priest-in-Charge of , the Revd James Wilkinson, became Associate Vicar at Saint Andrew, Holborn Circus, last month. Mass is celebrated at 12.30 pm every Tuesday, and the church is open 10am-3pm Monday-Friday. Friends of the City Churches are there from 11am-3pm on Tuesdays to answer questions.

Looking out onto the world … with a glimpse of the Hoare Bank to the left on the other side of Fleet Street (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

Love, unrequited love, and a village wedding in the poetry of John Betjeman

‘How new its weathered stone appears / When vows are made in Heaven’ … reading the poetry of John Betjeman (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

For decades, Sir John Betjeman (1906-1984) was Britain’s best-loved poet. Since Betjeman’s death, his statue at Saint Pancras Station – which he campaigned to save – has become a popular wedding venue.

He was the Poet Laureate from 1972, and was known for his television appearances and for his love of architecture and churches. He was a life-long friend of the artist John Piper, known for his Baptistry window in Coventry Cathedral and his East Window, ‘Christ in Majesty’ (1984), in the chapel of Saint John’s Hospital, Lichfield, and Betjeman and Piper worked together on the series of illustrated Shell Guides to English counties.

Betjeman was born in London in 1906. He had an interest in poetry from an early age and his interest in churches and architecture was kindled at the Dragon School, Oxford. He was part of the ‘literary set’ at Magdalen College, Oxford and after Oxford he was determined not to join his father’s business but to carve out a literary career instead.

Betjeman was married to Penelope Chetwode, the daughter of a former commander-in-chief of the Indian army. They were married for 53 years and had two children, Paul and Candida.

But Betjeman also had lengthy affairs with many women, including a lifelong affair with his muse Lady Elizabeth Cavendish (1926-2018) of Lismore Castle. They first met in 1951, and she was a daughter of Edward Cavendish, 10th Duke of Devonshire. Betjeman also had a four-year affair with Margie Geddes in the 1970s.

John and Penelope Betjeman rented Garrard’s Farm in Uffington in 1934. They soon became immersed in village life and entertained many famous friends there. Their son Paul was born in Uffington in 1937, and their daughter, Candida, was born in Dublin in 1942 while they were in Ireland.

Betjeman was the press attaché to John Maffey at the British Embassy in Dublin from 1941 to 1943, and during that time the family lived in Collinstown House, near Clondalkin in Dublin.

Betjeman wrote a number of poems inspired by his experiences in Ireland. ‘The Irish Unionist's Farewell to Greta Hellstrom in 1922’, is set in west Waterford, with each stanza closing with the line ‘Dungarvan in the rain.’ The poem recalls the story of his unrequited love for a woman called Greta Hellstrom. It opens with the lines:

Golden haired and golden hearted
I would ever have you be,
As you were when last we parted
Smiling slow and sad to me.

The woman Betjeman refers to as ‘my Swedish beauty’ was, in fact, Emily Sears, an American who later married Ion Villiers-Stuart of Dromana House, near Cappoquin, Co Waterford.

Their granddaughter Barbara Grubb, who now lives at Dromana, said in recent years that Betjeman ‘was stunned by my grandmother’s extraordinary beauty, but though he worshipped her, it was only from afar, for she was in fact in love with my grandfather, Ion Villiers-Stuart, whom she married. They did, however, remain good friends right up to the end of his life.’

The final lines of the poem show the poet’s respect and his final acceptance of Emily’s decision to remain friends and never to be lovers:

You were right to keep us parted:
Bound and parted we remain,
Aching, if unbroken hearted –
Oh! Dungarvan in the rain.

After World War II, the family moved to Farnborough in 1945, then to Wantage in 1951. One of Betjeman’s poems set in Farnborough, ‘A Subaltern’s Love Song, is one of Betjeman’s best-known love poems. The narrator, a junior army officer, is beguiled by the doctor’s daughter, attractive and athletic young Joan Hunter Dunn. The young officer is defenceless in the face of ‘strenuous singles’ with her on the tennis court.

And the scent of her wrap, and the words never said,
And the ominous, ominous dancing ahead.
We sat in the car park till twenty to one
And now I'm engaged to Miss Joan Hunter Dunn.

The real Joan Hunter Dunn (1915-2008), later Joan Jackson, was a daughter of Dr George Hunter Dunn, a GP in Farnborough, Hampshire. Her grandfather, Andrew Hunter Dunn, was Bishop of Quebec in 1892-1914, and her uncle Edward Dunn was Bishop of Honduras and Archbishop of the West Indies.

Betjeman saw her for the first time in December 1940 while he was working in London for the Films Division of the Ministry of Information, based in the Senate House of the University of London, where she worked in the canteen. Although married for seven years, he was struck by her beauty, he fell in love, and composed his 44-line poem fantasising about them being engaged and playing tennis together. To him, she was ‘A girl to lean against for life and die adoring.’

When Betjeman left for Dublin, he continued to think of her. She married Harold Wycliffe Jackson, a civil servant in the Ministry of Information, in January 1945, in Saint Mark’s Church, Farnborough. Betjeman was invited, but did not attend.

As Poet Laureate, Betjeman also wrote a poem, ‘For A Royal Wedding, 29 July 1981,’ to mark the wedding of Prince Charles and Lady Diana Spencer.

When Betjeman died at Trebetherick in Cornwall on 19 May 1984, Lady Elizabeth Cavendish was at his side. Joan Hunter Dunne attended his memorial service in Westminster Abbey, and died in 2008.

Later, his daughter Candida and her husband lived again in Uffington, and she donated many of her father’s papers to the museum.

Perhaps the best wedding poem he wrote was written for the wedding of Sally Weaver, who had been a childhood friend of Candida. The poem ‘Village Wedding’ blends imagery of natural beauty, a rain-purified atmosphere, church bells and a festive occasion that spans the generations.

It seems as if the entire parish of Uffington is brought together into the ancient church to witness a sacrament that binds together not just a young couple but all the living and dead with the timeless communal rituals of Christian faith.

Village Wedding by Sir John Betjeman

In summer wind the elm leaves sing,
And sharp’s the shade they’re shedding,
And loud and soft the church bells ring
For Sally Weaver’s wedding.

With chasing light the meadows fill,
The greenness growing greener,
As racing over White Horse Hill
Come bluer skies and cleaner.

The chalk-white walls, the steaming thatch
In rain-washed air are clearing,
And waves of sunshine run to catch
The bride for her appearing.

Inside the church in every pew
Sit old friends, older grown now;
Their children whom our children knew
Have children of their own now.

The babies wail, the organ plays,
Now thunderous, now lighter;
The brighter day of Sally’s days
Grows every moment brighter.

And all the souls of Uffington,
The dead among the living,
Seem witnessing the rite begun
Of taking and of giving.

The flying clouds! The flying years!
This church of centuries seven!
How new its weathered stone appears
When vows are made in Heaven!

Dromana Gate Lodge and Bridge … Betjeman’s ‘Greta Hellstrom’ was Emily Sears, who married Ion Villiers-Stuart of Dromana House, near Cappoquin (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

In search of a family mausoleum and finding John Betjeman cycling with Emily in the Burren

Ballyvaughan, the Burren and Galway Bay spread out below Corkscrew Hill in north Clare (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2022)

Patrick Comerford

During the weekend, two of us went in search of some more Comerford family stories in Kinvara, Co Galway, and some Comerford family graves and mausoleums in Ballyvaughan, Co Clare.

Ballyvaughan overlooks Galway Bay and stands as the gateway on the North Clare coast to the Burren. Corkscrew Hill is a narrow road that rises up from Ballyvaughan, on the road on to Lisdoonvarna, bending and folding several steps, and providing breath-taking views back down across Ballyvaughan and out to Galway Bay.

John Betjeman visited the Burren with ‘Emily’ in the summer of 1943, and described the landscape in his poem ‘Ireland with Emily,’ first published two years later in New Bats in Old Belfries (1945).

As I gazed on the Comerford mausoleum in Bishop’s Quarter in Ballyvaughan, I thought too of John Betjeman and his reference to a ‘fantastic mausoleum’ as he recalled cycling along Corkscrew Hill with Emily almost 80 years ago.

John Betjeman and Emily Sears cycled over Corkscrew Hill on a road built to provide work for starving labourers during the Great Famine a century earlier.

His wrote:

Stony seaboard, far and foreign,
Stony hills poured over space,
Stony outcrop of the Burren,
Stones in every fertile place,
Little fields with boulders dotted,
Grey-stone shoulders saffron-spotted,
Stone-walled cabins thatched with reeds,
Where a Stone Age people breeds
The last of Europe’s stone age race.

These words are quoted in a sign at the viewing point near the top of the hill, where I had a vista of the natural amphitheatre carved out by giant ice sheets of ancient ice ages. The ice sheets left behind a fertile valley surrounded by Aillwee Mountain to the east, Cappanwalla Mountain to the west, and opening out onto Galway Bay to the north.

The typical and often contrasting characteristics of the Burren are on view there: bare limestone terraces, fertile fields, dense overgrowth of hazel scrub alongside areas of incredible biodiversity created by traditional farming practices.

There are other literary links too. JRR Tolkien often stayed in Gregans Castle, nestling in the valley below, and many have asked whether he was influenced by this view when he was writing Lord of the Rings.

John Betjeman’s lines on the Burren in ‘Ireland with Emily’ may not be the most comprehensive description of this uniquely valuable area of north-west Clare. But he conveys a sense of the overwhelming bareness of its characteristic limestone landscape.

The ‘soil-less, treeless, waterless’ hills of the Burren also made an impression on Robert Lloyd Praeger. In his classic, The Way That I Went, he wrote: ‘The strangeness of this grey limestone country must be seen to be realised; it is like nothing else in Ireland or in Britain.

According to the Belfast-born environmentalist Gordon D’Arcy, 70 per cent of Ireland’s wild plants grow here in less than 0.5 per cent of Ireland’s land area.

The archaeological heritage of the Burren is also disproportionately large, with evidence of human settlement in the upland area stretching back through 6,000 years. It includes no less than 350 ring forts, notably Cahercommaun, as well as 70 wedge tombs, the highest concentration known, and numerous fulacht fiadha or cooking sites.

John Betjeman’s relationship with Emily Sears did not last that long. He returned to England, and later became Poet Laureate; she later married Ion Villiers-Stuart. ‘They did, however, remain good friends right up to the end of his life,’ according to her ddaughter, Barbara Grubb, who now lives at Dromana House, near Cappoquin, Co Waterford.

‘Ireland With Emily’ by John Betjeman

Bells are booming down the bohreens,
White the mist along the grass,
Now the Julias, Maeves and Maureens
Move between the fields to Mass.
Twisted trees of small green apple
Guard the decent whitewashed chapel,
Gilded gates and doorway grained,
Pointed windows richly stained
With many-coloured Munich glass.

See the black-shawled congregations
On the broidered vestment gaze
Murmer past the painted stations
As Thy Sacred Heart displays
Lush Kildare of scented meadows,
Roscommon, thin in ash-tree shadows, And Westmeath the lake-reflected,
Spreading Leix the hill-protected,
Kneeling all in silver haze?

In yews and woodbine, walls and guelder,
Nettle-deep the faithful rest,
Winding leagues of flowering elder,
Sycamore with ivy dressed,
Ruins in demesnes deserted,
Bog-surrounded bramble-skirted –
Townlands rich or townlands mean as
These, oh, counties of them screen us
In the Kingdom of the West.

Stony seaboard, far and foreign,
Stony hills poured over space,
Stony outcrop of the Burren,
Stones in every fertile place,
Little fields with boulders dotted,
Grey-stone shoulders saffron-spotted,
Stone-walled cabins thatched with reeds,
Where a Stone Age people breeds
The last of Europe’s stone age race.

Has it held, the warm June weather?
Draining shallow sea-pools dry,
When we bicycled together
Down the bohreens fuchsia-high.
Till there rose, abrupt and lonely,
A ruined abbey, chancel only,
Lichen-crusted, time-befriended,
Soared the arches, splayed and splendid,
Romanesque against the sky.

There in pinnacled protection,
One extinguished family waits
A Church of Ireland resurrection
By the broken, rusty gates.
Sheepswool, straw and droppings cover,
Graves of spinster, rake and lover,
Whose fantastic mausoleum,
Sings its own seablown Te Deum,
In and out the slipping slates.

John Betjeman is quoted on a sign at the viewing point near the top of the hill (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2022)

Remembering some personal saints in a time of remembrance

A time for gathering in memories … the barn on my grandmother's former farm (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

In my sermon on All Saints’ Sunday (30 October), I referred to the paucity of saints’ commemorations in the calendar of the Church of Ireland, particularly when we compare it to the calendar of the Church of England.

Just consider the commemorations in the Church of England, which include these in the first week or so in November alone:

1 November: All Saints’ Day
2 November: All Souls’ Day
4 November: Saints and Martyrs of the Anglican Communion
8 November: Saints and Martyrs of England and Wales

The Church of Ireland calendar also misses the opportunity to mark 6 November, traditionally the commemoration of All Saints of Ireland.

November is traditionally a month of remembrance: next Thursday, 11 November, is Remembrance Day, and this year Remembrance Sunday falls on 14 November.

As we were placing candles in two bowls filled with water in Saint Mary’s Church, Askeaton, last Sunday to celebrate the saints and to remember those who are dead but who are still in our hearts and still loved, I remembered my ‘Gran Hallian’ … Mary Hallinan of Moonwee, Cappoquin, Co Waterford, who died on this day 60 years ago, 6 November 1961, and her husband Edmond Hallinan of Moonwee, who died on 8 March 1963.

As we remembered those from previous generation who had passed on the faith to us, I recalled my ‘Gran Hallian’ and recalled how, as I say on her lap as a small child, she had presented me with my first image of Christ – a print of Holman Hunt’s ‘Light of the World.’

It was an interesting image for an old woman to present to a small boy of Christ. Little did I realise then, I suppose, how this would later become a treasured memory as my adult faith developed and depended.

Mary and Ned Hallinan are buried near Cappoquin, with her sister, Bridget McCarthy who died in 1964, two of their sons, Willie Hallinan (died 1988) and Patrick Hallinan (died 2001), and one of their daughters, Bridie Hallinan (died 1995).

In a nearby grave are our neighbours in Moonwee, John and Mary Hackett, who died in 1964 and 1965, and their extended family.

On one of my recent ‘road trips,’ when the pandemic lockdowns were easing, I once again visited their grave, a few km south of Cappoquin, on the west bank of the River Blackwater opposite Richmond House, as the river flows south towards Villierstown and Dromana and on to the sea at Youghal.

I was invited to read Sunday’s first reading (Wisdom 3: 1-9) at Pat’s funeral in Cappoquin 20 years ago, in 2001.

The opening verse was the response to the psalm in the Lectionary on Sunday: ‘The souls of the righteous are in the hand of God, no torment will ever touch them.’

Childhood memories from Cappoquin remain alive in my mind’s eye (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

The Irish diplomat who was at the centre of an early anti-Semitic crisis in Athens

Sir Thomas Wyse (1791-1862) from Waterford … played a key role in the ‘Don Pacifico’ affair in the decades after Greek independence

Patrick Comerford

Next month marks the 200th anniversary of the beginning of the Greek War of Independence on 25 March 1821. To mark that bicentennial, I have been working this week on a magazine feature on some of the Irish Philhellenes who were involved in the struggle in Greece and in Greek politics and public life later in the 19th century.

One of those Irish public figures in Greek life was the diplomat Sir Thomas Wyse (1791-1862) from Waterford, who played a key role in the decades immediately after Greek independence.

Wyse was born in Waterford in 1791, the eldest son of Thomas Wyse of the Manor of St John, and was educated at Stonyhurst and Trinity College Dublin. He first visited Athens, the Greek islands and Constantinople 1818, three years before the Greek War of Independence began.

Wyse had an unhappy marriage to Napoleon’s niece, Princess Letizia Bonaparte (1804-1871). Back in Waterford, he became chairman of the Co Waterford election committee for Henry Villiers Stuart of Dromana, and 1826 general election he presided over Villiers Stuart’s successful campaign in 1826. During his time as the Whig MP for Tipperary (1830-1832) and Waterford City (1835-1841, 1842-1847), he served as a Junior Lord of the Treasury (1839-1841), and Secretary to the Board of Control (1846-1849), and he was involved in commissioning AWN Pugin to build the new Houses of Parliament in London. Wyse had erlier also commissioned Pugin to redesign Manor Saint John for the Wyse family ca 1842

Wyse returned to Athens in 1849 as the British minister or ambassador, in succession to Sir Edmund Lyons. The appointment may have been engineered by his estranged wife, Princess Letizia, who had influence with the Foreign Secretary, Lord Palmerston.

In Athens, Wyse soon found himself at the centre of the ‘Don Pacifico Affair,’ one of the most famous incidents of anti-Semitism in Britain or Greece in the 19th century.

David Pacifico, known as Don Pacifico (1784-1854), was a Portuguese merchant and diplomat. He was considered a British subject by birth and he was the central figure in 1850 in what became known in Greek history known as the ‘Don Pacifico Affair.’

Pacifico was a Sephardic Jew of Italian descent. His grandfather, also David Pacifico, was born in Italy. His family had been expelled from Spain with the rest of the Jews in 1492. His ancestors reached Italy, particularly Tuscany, first Leghorn and then Florence. David Pacfico, the grandfather, eventually settled in Gibraltar, and worked in Portugal.

The elder David Pacifico was the father of Asser Pacifico, who married Bella Rieti – the daughter of Moses Rieti and the descendant of a Venetian Jewish family – in Bevis Marks Synagogue in London in 1761.

David Pacifico was born in 1784, but gave varying accounts of his place of birth, suggesting he was born in Oran in north-west Algeria, then a Spanish possession, or in Gibraltar, by then a British possession. He claimed to be a both a Spanish subject and a British subject at different times.

Because of his family’s work in Portugal, David Pacifico grew up in Portugal, speaking fluent Portuguese. This led to the myth that the Pacifico family was of Portuguese descent, although the family was actually of Spanish descent.

David Pacifico entered business at Lagos in Portugal in 1812. However, as a liberal living in Portugal during the Civil War in 1828-1834, he was persecuted by the supporters of Don Miguelists and his property was confiscated. He was rewarded by the victorious liberals in 1835 when they appointed him the Portuguese Consul in Morocco and granted him Portuguese citizenship.

He was Portugal’s consul-general in Athens from 1837 to 1842, and became a prominent member of the local Jewish community.

However, his reputation was tarnished after allegations of abuses of power came to light and he was dismissed as consul on 4 January 1842. Despite this, when his time as consul in Athens came to an end, Pacifico stayed on in Greece.

Five years later, the German Jewish financier and banker, Amschel Mayer de Rothschild (1773-1855), visited Athens in April 1847. In deference to Rothschild, the Greek Prime Minister, Ioannis Coletti (1773-1847), banned the traditional burning of an effigy of Judas Iscariot during Greek Orthodox Easter celebrations, often seen by as an anti-Semitic element in the Greek Easter traditions.

This political manoeuvre was not popular with people in Athens. A riot ensured, and – as the police looked on – an angry mob ransacked and looted Don Pacifico’s house, beating him and his family.

Pacifico sought help from the British legation in Athens, claiming £32,000 in compensation from the Greek government for damage to property, plus 10% interest and £500 for physical violence.

Pacifico demanded compensation totalling 800,000 drachmas, then the equivalent of £26,618. The Greek government refused to consider his claims and even confiscated Pacifico’s real estate. Pacifico appealed to Britain for help from Britain, claiming British nationality because he was born in Gibraltar. Pacifico’s claims were supported by the British Foreign Secretary, Lord Palmerston, but the case dragged on until 1850.

Shortly after Wyse’s arrival in Athens, Palmerston sent the Mediterranean fleet under the command of Sir William Parker to blockade the port of Piraeus in January 1850. Wyse had tried to persuade Otho and his government to agree to amicable arbitration, but when this failed Palmerston ordered Wyse to issue an ultimatum, declaring that should an ultimatum proved unsuccessful he was to go on board the admiral’s ship and to prepare for armed conflict.

The British naval blockade to seize Greek ships and property equal to the amount of Pacifico’s claims. The blockade lasted two months and caused a rift with France and Russia, who shared a protectorate of Greece and did not support Britain’s intervention. Queen Victoria also criticised Palmerston for ending 14 British ships, 731 guns and 8,000 sailors to Greece, all for the sake of one ‘foreigner.’

The incident was important at the time because Palmerston had to defend himself for supporting the lawsuit of a Jew. Palmerston replied that it was not right that because ‘a man is of Jewish persuasion’ he should be outraged.

In a speech to Parliament that lasted almost five hours on 25 June 1850, Palmerston defended his actions, famously declaring, ‘As the Roman in days of old, held himself free from indignity, when he could say, Civis Romanus sum, so also a British subject, in whatever land he may be, shall feel confident that the watchful eye and the strong arm of England will protect him from injustice and wrong.’

The Greeks ultimately agreed to pay nominal reparations totalling 120,000 drachmas and £500. Palmerston’s ‘gunboat diplomacy’ was seen as a victory for British foreign policy. Palmerston’s popularity soared, and he became prime minister five years later.

Pacifico retired to London and died there on 12 April 1854.

David Pacifico … born in Gibraltar and died in London

As for Wyse, he was involved in engineering a joint occupation of Piraeus by Britain and France during the Crimean war. His efforts to secure Greek neutrality during the Crimean War (1854-1856) were recognised when he was knighted in 1857.

Wyse remained the British Minister in Athens, and devoted the rest of his life to helping Greek artistic, literary and educational projects. He died in office of heart failure on 15 April 1862 and was given a state funeral in Athens on the orders of the King of Greece. As the cortege passed through the city, King Otho and Queen Amalia stood in silence on the palace balcony.

Wyse left his Waterford estates to his niece Winifrede Mary Wyse. She had never married but accompanied her uncle in his travels throughout his adopted country. After his death, she edited his An Excursion in the Peloponneses in the Year 1858 (1865) and Impressions of Greece ... and Letters to Friends at Home (1871). Following a legal challenge, however, the estates reverted to his estranged son and heir-at-law, Napoleon Alfred Bonaparte-Wyse (1822-1895).

His second son, William Charles William Charles Bonaparte-Wyse (1826-1892) was the leader of the revival of the Provencal language and earned a reputation for as a Provencal poet. He bought the Manor from his brother rather than see it leave the Wyse family. He died in Cannes and is buried there.

The Manor of Saint John ... designed by AWN Pugin for the Wyse family ca 1842 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

A Comerford countess with links to the Fitzgerald family of Askeaton Castle

The ruins of Askeaton Castle … the brother of the ‘Sugán’ Earl of Desmond married a Comerford from Danganmore, Co Kilkenny (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

It is almost four years ago since I moved to Askeaton I have often pointed out that I have no immediate family connections with this part of west Limerick. There are other branches of the Comerford family that lived for short periods in Pallaskenry and near Castleconnell, and one Comerford family that lived for generations in Limerick City. But I am a complete ‘blow-in’ when it comes to this part of west Limerick.

However, as I was going back over my notes of my visit late last summer to Dromana House, outside Cappoquin, Co Waterford, I realised that there was one – albeit remote – connection between my side of the Comerford family and Askeaton and this part of Co Limerick. And this link involves the story of a Comerford woman who became a countess and fled into exile in Barcelona 400 years ago.

Richard ‘Boy’ Comerford was a younger son of Richard ‘Oge’ Comerford of Ballybur Castle, Co Kilkenny, who died ca 1579/1580, and a younger brother of Thomas Comerford of Ballybur. In the late 1560s, and certainly by the early 1570s, this Richard ‘Boy’ Comerford was living at Danganmore Castle, and probably worked as the equivalent of a legal clerk to the Butlers of Kilkenny Castle, witnessing numerous Ormond legal documents.

Richard was the father of two sons – Edmund Comerford and Richard Comerford, who eventually inherited Danganmore Castle – and one daughter, whose name has been forgotten in time, but who married John FitzThomas FitzGerald, who became the claimant to the title of Earl of Desmond at the end of the last Desmond rebellion.

John FitzThomas FitzGerald was a younger brother of James FitzThomas FitzGerald, the ‘Súgán’ Earl of Desmond, and they were the sons of Sir Thomas FitzGerald, commonly called ‘Thomas Roe,’ ‘Tomás Ruadh’ or ‘Red Thomas,’ and his wife Ellice Le Poer, daughter of Richard Le Poer, Baron Le Poer.

Thomas Rue FitzGerald, in turn, was the son of James FitzGerald, 14th Earl of Desmond and Joan Roche, daughter of Maurice Roche, Lord Fermoy. As Joan Roche was his own grandniece, their relationship fell within the proscribed limits of consanguinity. Because of this, their marriage was annulled and their son, Thomas Roe FitzGerald, father of James and John FitzGerald, was declared illegitimate and disinherited.

Instead, the title of Earl of Desmond was handed to Thomas’s younger, but decidedly legitimate, half-brother, Gerald FitzJames FitzGerald, who was recognised as Earl of Desmond by the Parliament in Dublin.

However, Gerald first entered into a bloody conflict with the Ormond Butlers of Kilkenny, and was heavily defeated at the Battle of Affane, near Cappoquin, by ‘Black’ Thomas Butler, 10th Earl of Ormond, and was imprisoned in the Tower of London until 1570.

After his release, Gerald returned to Ireland and rebelled in 1579. He was killed in battle on 11 November 1583 and his severed head was displayed on London Bridge.

After the suppression of the rebellion in 1583, Thomas Roe FitzGerald and his son James FitzThomas claimed the title and estates of the Earl of Desmond. Their petitions failed, however, and Thomas Roe died in 1595 and was buried in Youghal.

His son, James FitzThomas FitzGerald, assumed the title of Earl of Desmond. He became known as the ‘Sugan’ Earl of Desmond. He soon gathered an 8,000-strong force and engaged in a three-year struggle. He took Desmond Hall and Castle in Newcastle West in 1598, but lost them the following year. In 1599, the Earl of Essex also brought to an end the 147-day siege of Askeaton Castle the ‘Sugan’ Earl of Desmond.

After escaping from Kilmallock, he was finally captured on 29 May 1601 while he was hiding in a cave underground, near Mitchelstown.

FitzGerald was placed in irons and taken to Shandon Castle, where he was found guilty of treason. He was then brought to England, and he was made a prisoner in the Tower of London. Historians suggest that he died sometime in 1608, and was buried in the chapel of the Tower.

Richard Comerford’s tomb in the ruined church in Kilree, south of Kells, Co Kilkenny … his daughter married John FitzThomas FitzGerald, ‘Earl of Desmond,’ and they fled to Barcelona (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

The next male heir in this line of the Desmond FitzGeralds was his younger brother, John FitzThomas FitzGerald, who had taken part in the Desmond rebellion. John fled Ireland in 1603 with his wife, the daughter of Richard Comerford of Danganmore, Co Kilkenny, to Spain. There he was known as the Conde de Desmond. John died a few years later in Barcelona, probably after 1615.

Meanwhile, his father-in-law, Richard Comerford, continued to live at Danganmore Castle, Co Kilkenny. He died at an advanced age on 5 October 1624, and was buried against the wall in the north-west chancel of Kilree Church, Co Kilkenny, with his wife Joanna St Leger, who had died on 4 October 1622.

Their grandson, Gerald FitzJohn FitzGerald, claimed the title as 17th Earl of Desmond, according to the family tree in Dromana House, and was also known as the ‘Conde de Desmond.’ He served in the Habsburg armies of the Emperor Ferdinand in Spain and Germany, and died in Germany in 1632. As he had no male children as heirs to his claims, with him ended the male heirs of the four eldest sons of Thomas FitzGerald, 7th Earl of Desmond.

As for Richard Comerford, brother of the exiled ‘Countess of Desmond,’ he inherited Danganmore Castle in 1624, and was the ancestor of the Ryan and Langton families who later lived there.

Richard Comerford of Ballybur Castle, first cousin of this exiled Comerford countess, died in 1637, five years after the death of her son Gerald in Germany. The descendants of this Richard and his wife Mary (Purcell) include the Bunclody branch of the family, and so they are my immediate ancestors.

The connections with Askeaton – and with Dromana – are distant and may even seem obscure. But, almost 400 years later, they are still there.

The FitzGerald connection with the Comerford family … a corner of one of the family trees in Dromana House (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2020)