Cormac Comerford makes his Olympic debut on the opening day of the Winter Olympics

Team Ireland alpine skiier Cormac Comerford from Glenageary, Co Dublin, in Piazza Walther (Photograph: David Fitzgerald/ Sportsfile/ Irish Examiner)

Patrick Comerford

Cormac Comerford from Glenageary, Co Dublin, finished 34th in the men’s downhill today on the opening day of the Alpine skiing at the Milano Cortina Winter Olympics, where Franjo von Allmen from Switzerland delivered a sensational performance to win the first gold medal of the Games.

Cormac Comerford made his Olympic debut this afternoon in skiing’s queen event at the Stelvio Ski Centre in Bormio, finishing the 3,442-metre course in a time of 2:04.40. He started out last among the field and came 34th among the 36 starters, well pleased with his effort on a highly technical, and in parts treacherous, course.

‘It’s an incredible feeling to make my Olympic debut today in this weather, on this slope,’ he told The Irish Times. ‘To bring it down Stelvio is a huge achievement, coming from the artificial slope back home. There’s a huge sense of pride. I made a few mistakes in the run, it felt smoother in training, but that’s racing and I’m really proud to have brought it down.’

‘I’m excited to be here,’ he said. ‘If I’m proud, I hope I can make Ireland proud as well.’ He was the first member of Team Ireland to compete in this year’s Winter Olympics in Milan and Cortina when he hit the slopes on the opening day of the games.

Ireland has been sending teams to the Winter Olympics for many years, but it is 24 years since Dublin-born Clifton Wrottesley (Lord Wrottesley) came up one place shy of a medal for Ireland in the skeleton at the Salt Lake City Games in 2002.

Cormac Comerford’s Olympic scholarship meant fewer pressures in a sport that costs him €40,000 a year to compete in. This is important for him, as he remembers how hard it was when first started out professionally after starting to study engineering at TU Dublin (Technological University Dublin). His summer work included ‘a lot of sailing instruction and labour on construction sites.’

He says he spent too many of his early years on the circuit sleeping in bus stations and carting a ski bag the weight of his own body to different events and different countries in order to shave pennies off his budget.

It took him six years to qualify for his engineering degree because of the time spent away from home. He could, as he joked himself, be a doctor by now. But scholarships from Trinity, FBD and from the Olympic Federation of Ireland were critical in allowing him to stay on track and in pursuit of his dream.

He competed in the World Championships in 2017 for first time. He is now at his peak, among the top five per cent in the world, 23rd in the World Championships, ‘and hopefully going a lot higher.’

Cormac Comerford found that breaking into a sport where Ireland have no tradition was hard, and his achievements were often belittled. ‘I remember watching Shane O’Connor on the TV at the 2010 Olympics in Vancouver and thinking, ‘Imagine if I could do that, how cool would that be?’ So going into Milan-Cortina would be massive for me. To achieve that childhood dream would be the cherry on the cake.’

When Cormac Comerford was eight and growing up in Glenageary, his aunt first took him up the dry ski slopes in Kilternan in south Co Dublin. Now, 21 years later, after his fourth qualification attempt, Comerford is among the four Irish athletes taking part in Milano Cortina 2026.

Cormac Comerford … ‘It’s been a childhood dream of mine’ (Photograph: RTÉ)

The 25th Winter Olympics are spread across six locations in north Italy this year. They opened last night (6 February 2026) and continue for the next two weeks until Sunday 22 February. Cormac Comerford’s journey there has been has been a difficult one and his childhood dream of reaching the Olympics has been tested repeatedly over the years.

‘It’s been a childhood dream of mine, since I first put on a pair of skis, up at the Ski Club of Ireland. I fell in love with the sport, and when I got to watch Shane O’Connor at the Olympics in 2010, that’s when the seed was really sown’, he says.

Cormac is competing in all four events in Milano Cortina: the downhill, super-G, giant slalom and slalom. He has also competed in five World Championships, when he finished inside top-30 in the European Cup. The three other Irish athletes are Anabelle Zurbay (17), who was born in Minnesota; Thomas Maloney Westgård born on the island of Leka in Norway to a Galway mother and Norwegian father, and Ben Lynch, who has lived in Vancouver since he was three.

Cormac Comerford previously reached the minimal qualifying criteria in alpine skiing for Sochi 2014, Pyeongchang 2018, and Beijing 2022, but each time he missed out on the strict quota for Irish representatives. Yet he never let go of that dream. ‘Being an Irish ski racer can also be incredibly lonely, there aren’t many of us, it’s a really hard path to forge.’

‘There were a few turning points,’ he recalls, ‘like when I started in Dublin Institute of Technology (DIT), my whole career was hanging on me getting a scholarship there. Thankfully they believed in me, I got some extra support, and it was enough to help me keep the dream alive.’

None of his family are skiers. He grew up playing GAA underage with Cuala, alongside Con O’Callaghan, and was also involved in rugby, hockey, sailing, and surfing. But, ultimately, skiing came out on top.

His specialist event is the slalom, the mix of technical and physical demands, dodging between 50 or 60 gates, 8 to 11 metres apart, while flat-out downhill at 60 kph for between 40 seconds to a minute.

His first event was on Saturday, the day after the opening ceremony in the San Siro Stadium in Milan.

It is 34 years since Team Ireland first competed at the Winter Olympics, at Albertville 1992, and the four athletes selected for Milano Cortina bringing to 37 the number of Irish Winter Olympians. For Cormac, the lifelong dream is finally being realised.

Cormac Comerford works as a mechanical engineer in the off-season, and spends most of the winter travelling Europe, training and competing. He recalls how he spent too many of his early years on the circuit sleeping in bus stations and carting a ski bag the weight of his own body to different events and different countries in order to shave pennies off his budget.

Cormac Comerford grew up in Glenageary in south Dublin. He was a sporty child, lining out for Cuala in both GAA codes, and playing rugby at Newpark Comprehensive in Blackrock. His mother’s passion for sailing also meant he spent a lot of time on the water. But trips with his aunt to Ireland’s only artificial ski slope in Kilternan caught his imagination from the age of eight.

He loved the individuality of downhill skiing, its niche status in Ireland appealing because it meant Comerford could hone his craft under the radar. ‘There was no noise around the sport, especially in Ireland,’ he says. ‘It was just me in my own world with the racing. That's what really pulled me in and kept me hooked.’

He is competing in four different events at the Milano Cortina Winter Olympics and faces three more Alpine skiing events: on Wednesday (11 February) in the Super-G (Alpine Skiing) in Bormio; next Saturday (14 February), in the Giant Slalom Run 1 and 2 (Alpine Skiing) in Bormio; and on Monday 16 February in the Slalom Run 1 and 2 (Alpine Skiing), also in Bormio.

The closing ceremony is in Verona on Sunday 22 February.

Alpine skier Cormac Comerford from Glenageary … representing Ireland in skiing at the Winter Olympics in Milan (Photograph: Harry Murphy/Sportsfile)

Going to the Olympics is living ‘a childhood dream’ and ‘the cherry on the cake’ for these Comerford athletes

Sprinter Orla Comerford from Raheny, Dublin … spearheading Ireland’s five-member athletics team in the Paralympic Games in Paris later this month

Patrick Comerford

The closing ceremony of the Paris Olympics takes place today, and already many of the Irish medal winners have returned home to great acclaim.

But there is good reason to be proud of all 134 Irish competitors, including Niall Comerford, who played a key role in in Paris earlier as part of the Irish men’s Rugby Sevens.

Ireland’s Olympic heroes are to be honoured at a public homecoming event in Dublin tomorrow (Monday) afternoon, with a civic reception hosted by Dublin City Council at the GPO on O’Connell Street at 12:30. Team Ireland has won seven medals on seven consequtive days, four gold and three bronze, making the Paris games this year the most successful Olympic Games for Ireland ever.

But the Games are not over yet. The Paralympic Games take place in Paris from 28 August to 8 September, and the Winter Olympics take place in Milan in 2026. Indeed, there are many Comerford family members who have Olympic hopes.

Sprinter Orla Comerford from Raheny in Dublin is one of the athletes spearheading Ireland’s five-member athletics team in the Paralympic Games in Paris. The games open in two weeks’ time, on 28 August, and continue until 8 September.

Orla Comerford and 1500 metre runner Greta Streimikyte are both competing in their third Games. They will be joined by Mary Fitzgerald, Shauna Bocquet and Aaron Shorten.

Orla Comerford of Raheny Shamrocks qualified for the first female athletics slot for Ireland last year at the World Para-Athletics Championships in Paris in July 2023, finishing fourth, just 0.06 seconds off the bronze medal in the 100 metres T13 final.

She has gone from strength to strength recently, dipping under 12 seconds for the first time at the National Senior Track and Field Championships when she lowered her personal best to 11.90 in her T13 1500m event.

Orla Comerford was born in Dublin in 1997. She was involved in sports from a young age but always enjoyed athletics more than any other sport. She joined her local athletics club, Raheny Shamrocks, at the age of 7 and has been competing for them ever since. She went to school at Loreto on the Green and has studied Fine Art, Media and education at the National College of Art and Design, despite losing some of her eyesight when she was in the 5th class at school.

Her childhood hero was Usain Bolt, and at the age of 16 she decided to focus solely on athletics. She went on to achieve her dream of running for Ireland, representing her country for the first time in 2016. She competed at the 2016 Paralympic Games in Rio de Janeiro and the 2020 Games in Tokyo in 2021.

Over the last few years, she effectively had to start all over again. Persistent foot and ankle issues meant she had to break down her stride and relearn everything. At one stage, she took eight months off the track to build up her hamstrings.

With no competition, she lost funding, and missed out on the season in 2022. But it was a long-term plan with Paris 2024 in mind, and her goal is now set on competing and being more successful at the games in Paris later this month. She heads to Paris as one of Ireland’s leading track medal hopes.

Mallory Comerford is a professional swimmer who was hoping to compete for the US in the Paris Olympics this year. She was born in 1997 and is a competitive swimmer specialising in freestyle events.

Mallory Comerford from Kalamazoo, Michigan, was the winner of five gold medals at the 2017 World Aquatics Championships (Photograph: Jack Spitser/Spitser Photography)

Mallory Comerford was the winner of five gold medals at the 2017 World Aquatics Championships. She won USA Swimming’s Golden Goggle Award for Breakout Performer of the Year for 2017. The following year, she won eight medals in individual and relay events at the 2018 World Swimming Championships.

She is a member of the Cali Condors swim team, which is part of the International Swimming League.

Mallory Comerford is originally from Kalamazoo, Michigan. She studied at the University of Louisville in Kentucky, where she was a four times NCAA Champion, multiple-time ACC Swimmer of the Year, and Adidas High-Performance Athlete of the Year.

Canadian fencer Shannon Comerford … her parents and grandparents were born in Dublin

Another hopeful Olympic athlete has been the Canadian fencer Shannon Comerford. Her father, Archdeacon Henry Montgomery Comerford of Saskatoon, was born in Dublin in 1954. He retired in 2016, and with his wife Sara continued to run a family business producing honey, Sun River Honey.

Her grandfather, the Revd Philip Henry Comerford (1909-2006), was born in Dublin and worked as a joiner and draftsman with Irish Railways before leaving Ireland to work as a missionary in Paraguay from 1938 to 1948. Philip returned to Ireland in 1948, and in r 1952, he married Maude Montgomery of Shamrock Street, off Blessington Street, in Saint Mary’s Church, Dublin. Their wedding was conducted by the Revd Norman David Emerson, later Dean of Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin (1962-1966).

Philip and Maude Comerford emigrated to Canada in 1961 with their children. After studying at Emmanuel College, Saskatoon, he was ordained in the Anglican Church of Canada. He died in Saskatoon in 2006 and his funeral took Saint John’s Anglican Cathedral, Saskatoon.

Shannon Comerford was raised on her father’s honey farm outside Saskatoon. She is both an athlete and farmer, both demanding maximum efforts. She was also an Olympic hopeful for the Tokyo 2020 Games in 2021. Shannon began fencing when she was 8-years-old following in the footsteps of her brother Aaron. She was part of the Canadian women’s foil team placed sixth at the 2018 World Championships as well as achieving a best world ranking of sixth overall.

At the time, she said, ‘My sport aspirations of competing at the Olympics has always been the number one goal. Since I started fencing, I have always dreamed of competing with the world’s best on the biggest stage. I was part of the qualification process for London 2012 and Rio 2016 and … Tokyo 2020 …’ But life as an athlete and her road to the Olympics has not always been easy. Her journey was disrupted in 2011 when she tore her left knee ACL right before the Olympic qualification.

Shannon came out as gay when she was 19. Her family had always taught love and inclusion. They have always gone to bat for her and have consistently, without fail, been her solid foundation, she says. Although her coming out was no exception to her family’s inclusivity, she still had a world of homophobia and gender-based discrimination in front of her.

‘Homophobia and heteronormativity are everywhere and they (her parents) couldn’t protect me from the world,’ she said. ‘I still struggled with being different. It took me a long time to feel comfortable identifying as gay but it’s the best thing I ever did for myself!’

She says her wife Meghan is ‘incredibly supportive’ and they have an ‘amazing daughter whose love of life astounds me every day. I’d say, yea, the coming out part is hard, but trust me, the family part is all worth it.’

Alpine skier Cormac Comerford from Glenageary … hoping to represent Ireland in skiing at the Winter Olympics in Milan in 2026 (Photograph: Harry Murphy/Sportsfile)

Meanwhile, Cormac Comerford from Glenageary in south Dublin is hoping to represent Ireland in skiing at the Winter Olympics in Milan in 2026. He is one of eight recipients of the Olympic Federation of Ireland’s Milano Cortina 2026 Olympic Scholarships.

The 27-year-old has his eyes firmly set on securing a place at the 2026 Games in Milan-Cortina in the slalom or giant slalom. Cormac Comerford says skiing has been his obsession ever since he first shot down the dry slope in Kilternan as an eight-year-old.

He said: ‘When I first put skis on and felt the rush of going down a hill, there is nothing like it, the adrenaline you get from going down the slopes. Gliding down that hill and catching it edge to edge … There is no feeling like it. It’s like flying. I’ve never experienced it any other way and that’s what drove me to want more.’

Ireland has been sending teams to the Winter Olympics for many years, but it is 22 years since Dublin-born Clifton Wrottesley (Lord Wrottesley) came up one place shy of a medal for Ireland in the skeleton at the Salt Lake City Games in 2002.

Cormac Comerford’s Olympic scholarship means fewer pressures in a sport that costs him €40,000 a year to compete in. This is important for him, as he remembers how hard it was when first started out professionally after starting to study engineering at TU Dublin. His summer work included ‘a lot of sailing instruction and labour on construction sites.’

He says he spent too many of his early years on the circuit sleeping in bus stations and carting a ski bag the weight of his own body to different events and different countries in order to shave pennies off his budget.

It took him six years to qualify for his engineering degree because of the time spent away from home. He could, as he joked himself, be a doctor by now. But scholarships from Trinity, FBD and this latest contribution from the Olympic Federation of Ireland have been critical in allowing him to stay on track and in pursuit of his dream.

He competed in the World Championships in 2017 for first time. He says he is now at his peak, among the top five per cent in the world, 23rd in the World Championships, ‘and hopefully going a lot higher.’

Cormac Comerford found that breaking into a sport where Ireland have no tradition was hard, and his achievements were often belittled. ‘I remember watching Shane O’Connor on the TV at the 2010 Olympics in Vancouver and thinking, ‘Imagine if I could do that, how cool would that be?’ So going into Milan-Cortina would be massive for me. To achieve that childhood dream would be the cherry on the cake.’

Niall Comerford … scored a clinching try for Ireland against Japan in Paris (Photograph: RTÉ)

Finding memories interleaved with old books on bookshelves

With Stephen Hilliard in a photograph from ‘The Irish Times’ in 1986

Patrick Comerford

With new bookshelves now in place in the seminar room in the Rectory in Askeaton, I have spent some time each day clearing books out of boxes stacked away under the stairs, where they have been stored for weeks.

There is still some work to do, as the books have come out of the boxes randomly and now need to be moved around so that they are in some themed ordering and so that I can now find what I am looking for.

I am sure others can identify with the feelings I have when I cannot find a book today, but can still remember where it was in the flat where I lived in in Wexford in the 1970s, or the first house I bought in Dublin in the late 1970s.

It was a difficult moment in Dublin a few weeks ago as I closed the door of my former study in the Church of Ireland Theological Institute in Dublin, handed back my keys and left behind shelves lined with hundreds of books I knew I was unlikely to use here but that would be useful to my successor or former colleagues.

So many of my books carry emotions and memories across time and place. Quite often I have not only write my name on a book when I buy it but also the date and place where I bought it.

I constantly mark travel books with notes of where I have eaten, the room numbers of hotels I am staying in, or the dates I have visited towns, museums or archaeological sites. I use tickets and receipts to mark my place in books I am reading as I travel, and so when I open a book some years later, out may fall a train ticket, a bus ticket or a ticket to a gallery or the opera, or the business card from a café, and the holiday or working visit comes back to life again.

As I was moving some books around the new bookshelves in the Rectory in Askeaton late one evening this week, out fell a group photograph taken in editorial offices of The Irish Times over 30 years ago.

It seems to have taken on the day a presentation was made to Stephen Hilliard shortly before he left The Irish Times and was ordained deacon, so it was probably taken in 1986.

In the printing world, a presentation marking a departure like this was known as a ‘knockdown.’ This photographs shows colleagues from the Foreign Desk and the Chief Sub-Editors Desk that afternoon. I can identify (from left): Paul Gillespie (on the phone), myself, Liam McAuley, Gerard Smyth, Johnny Hughes, Ray Crowley, Malachy Logan, Sean O’Toole, Stephen Hilliard, Arminta Wallace, Noel Costello, Mary Morrissy and Patrick (Paddy) Smith.

I was 34 at the time. Stephen and I were studying theology at that time: he had completed a BD at London and was finishing his Diploma in Theology at the Church of Ireland Theological College and Trinity College Dublin; I had a year to go before finishing my BD at Maynooth.

Stephen was ordained deacon in 1986 and priest in 1987. He was a curate in the Christ Church Cathedral group of parishes (1986-1987) with Canon Pat Carmody, and then with Archdeacon Gordon Linney in Glenageary (1987-1988), before being appointed Rector of Rathdrum, Co Wicklow, in 1988. He died on 9 January 1990 following an attack by intruders in the rectory in Rathdrum.

Stephen had been a faithful member of the congregation in Saint Bartholomew’s Church, Ballsbridge, and so as I was writing about the celebrations at Saint Bartholomew’s yesterday, coming across this photograph at the same time was even more poignant.

Some of us in this photograph contributed five years later to True to Type, a collection of short stories published in 1991 as a tribute to Stephen, edited by Fergus Brogan and launched by Gordon Linney. The other 17 contributors to that book were: Maeve Binchy, Deaglan de Breaduin, Fergus Brogan, Declan Burke-Kennedy, Joe Culley, Mary Cummins, Kieran Fagan, Brendan Glacken, Tom Glennon, Mary Maher, Seamus Martin, Mary Morrissy, Eugene McEldowney, Noel McFarlane, Padraig O Morain, Arthur Reynolds and Paddy Woodworth.

Stephen Hilliard was proud of his family connection with another former journalist, the Revd Robert Martin (Bob) Hilliard (1904-1937), who fought in the International Brigade in the Spanish Civil War and was killed in the Battle of Jarama on 14 February 1937. Bob’s bravery was remembered by Christy Moore and Luke Kelly in the song Vive La Quinte Brigada.

Stephen was also a grandson of the Revd George Frederick Hamilton, Rector of Ballingarry, Co Limerick (1923-1931), now part of the Rathkeale and Kilnaughtin Group of Parishes, while his great-grandfather, Archdeacon Frederic Charles Hamilton (1828-1904) had at one time been Precentor of Saint Mary’s Cathedral, Limerick (1878-1883).

It is interesting how we can follow in each others’ steps.

A day in Dun Laoghaire at the General Synod

In Saint Paul’s Church, Glenageary, at the Eucharist marking the opening of the General Synod of the Church of Ireland (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2016)

Patrick Comerford

I spent all day yesterday [12 May 2016] at the first day of the General Synod of the Church of Ireland in the Royal Marine Hotel in Dun Laoghaire.

As a member of the chapter and the board of Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin, I had a special interest in a Bill that enables the cathedral board to be identified as the trustee body of the cathedral, in line with requirements of the Charities Act 2009.

The Dean and Chapter of the Cathedral have approved an amendment – of the Statute of General Synod, Chapter I of 1902 – which brings its regulation into line with other cathedrals of the Church of Ireland.

Proposing the Bill, Archdeacon Ricky Rountree explained that it seeks to deal with an anomaly in the governance statute of the General Synod regarding Christ Church Cathedral.

“The wording of the 1902 Statute would seem to suggest that the governing body of the Cathedral is the Dean and Chapter – while the day-to-day running of the cathedral by the board is a delegated task from the chapter. This has not caused any great difficulty up until now and the relationship between the Dean and Chapter and the Board of the Cathedral has not caused any practical difficulties. However, in the light of the new charity legislation of 2009 there is a need for clarity in the legal definition regarding these two bodies and their role in the governance of the Cathedral,” the Archdeacon of Glendalough explained.

The Bill passed its first and second stages yesterday and will come before Synod again tomorrow [14 May 2016] for its final stage. If it is passed then, the Bill means members of the board can become trustees of the cathedral in the same way as members of a Select Vestry are the trustees of a parish.

I was also asked to report for the Church of Ireland Gazette on the report of Standing Committee, which was presented to General Synod in the afternoon.

Presenting the report, Archdeacon Adrian Wilkinson of Cork spoke of the varied and many commemorations of the Easter 1916 Rising that have taken place throughout Ireland this year. He also spoke of the support the Bishops’ Appeal Fund has given to projects that help Syrian refugees in the Middle East and Europe and also responses to emergencies in Nepal and the Central African Republic.

Archdeacon Wilkinson also paid tribute to Mrs Ethne Harkness who stood down as one of the Honorary Secretaries of the General Synod last year.

During the debate on the report, Bishop Patrick Rooke, who chairs the Bishops’ Appeal, thanked parishes and dioceses across the Church for their contribution to Bishops’ Appeal. In the past year he said Bishops’ Appeal had been drawn into relief and support of issues closer to home with flooding and the refugee situation, he said.

Referring to the refugee situation in the Republic of Ireland, he said the Bishops’ Appeal education officer, Lydia Monds, has written two articles on how people can give practical help.

He gave information on what happens to refugees when they arrive in Ireland. He said the taskforce envisages that church groups and other community groups will be asked to get involved in welcoming refugees in coming months. We need to press the new government into doubling its efforts on behalf of migrants, refugees and those who have gained refugee status, he concluded.

Dean Catherine Poulton of Kilkenny, a member of the refugee working group, said that we often wondered what parishes could do. She said they found that people were coming from the camps to stay in an hotel in Co Waterford for about 12 weeks. She said over Lent they had sought donations to help the people who arrived in Waterford with nothing. The money goes to buy vouchers, to fund art therapy projects. They also sought donations of shoes and wellingtons. She urged people who find refugees are arriving in their areas to think small and locally and ask people on the ground what they can do to help.

Bishop Ken Good (Derry and Raphoe), who chairs the Northern Ireland sub-group, said the numbers arriving in Northern Ireland are small. He outlined the UK refugee process. He said that when they arrive their identity is protected and therefore it has been difficult for the church to find a way in to assist. He said that 2,000 refugees would come to Northern Ireland and he hoped it would then become apparent how churches can become involved.

My former rector, Canon Horace McKinley, said that the UNHCR website revealed that each day 42,500 new people in the world become refugees, asylum seekers or displaced persons. He said that good social researchers were saying that the refugee crisis and movement of people is a crisis that is here to stay.

One of my tasks at General Synod once again is to be one of the hosts to the Ecumenical Guests. This year they include the Very Revd Dr Norman Hamilton, a former Moderator of the Presbyterian Church and the Revd Brian Anderson, President of the Methodist Church.

I am a member of the Commission for Christian Unity and Dialogue, so was happy to be present in the afternoon when the synod passed a motion endorsing the Church of Ireland’s response to the World Council of Churches Document The Church: Towards a Common Vision.

The motion in the name of the Honorary Secretaries asked General Synod to adopt the Church of Ireland’s response, as endorsed by the Commission for Christian Unity and Dialogue and received by Standing Committee. The document was produced by the World Council of Churches’ Faith and Order Commission (Faith and Order Paper No 214).

The Report of the Select Committee on Human Sexuality in the Context of Christian Belief was presented to General Synod by the Dean of Belfast, the Very Revd John Mann, who chairs the committee.

He outlined the work of the Select Committee over the past 2½ years and its plans for the next year and a half.

Earlier, the Revd Stephen Neill (Killaloe) spoke about the Select Committee’s report and the topics under its remit. He said he is concerned at the way equates further issues, including domestic abuse, human trafficking and violence, with same-sex issues. He urged the church not to recriminalise people who are same-sex attracted by associating them with sexual abuse and human trafficking and other criminal matters.

I am going to miss the General Synod debates today because of another appointment. The synod concludes tomorrow (Saturday).

With my former ‘Irish Times’ colleague, Patsy McGarry, at the General Synod in Dun Laoghaire (Photograph: David Wynne, 2016)