Memories of my eldest brother, Stephen Comerford, who died a week before Christmas, 55 years ago

Stephen Edward Comerford, born on 22 August 1946, died 50 years ago on 18 December 1970

Patrick Comerford

Tomorrow (18 December) marks the fifty-fifth anniversary of the death of my eldest brother, Stephen Edward Comerford, who died in Durham, North Carolina, at the age of 24 on 18 December 1970.

Now that I am in my mid-70s, five or six years is hardly an age gap between people of my generation. But they mark a major chasm when you are a child, and that gap was compounded by the fact that he was the eldest child in the family and I was the fourth of six.

Steve was born in Dublin on 22 August 1946. He was named after our father, Stephen Edward Comerford (1918-2004), who in turn was named after our grandfather, also named Stephen Edward Comerford (1867-1921). The name Stephen had come into the Bunclody branch of the family because our grandfather was born on 28 December, three days after Christmas Day and two days after Saint Stephen’s Day.

As small children, we were all separated, going to different members and friends of the extended family: Steve was packed off to our grandmother Maria (Crowley) Murphy (1882-1957) and aunt Margaret (Murphy) Barrett (1920-2014) in Millstreet, Co Cork, while I went to George and Paggy Kerr in Dublin and the extended Hallinan family in Cappoquin, Co Waterford.

The accent Steve acquired in Millstreet brought him the nickname ‘Corky’ in his primary school when he returned to Dublin. By the time I was going to primary school, he was already at boarding school.

The Wexford historian Brendan Culliton, later the President of both the Wexford Historical Society and Wexford Wanderers Rugby Club, has remembered him as his friend throughout their shared years in primary school. ‘We were two of the ‘brainboxes’,’ he recalled some years ago. ‘In those days, we were two to a desk and I had the privilege of sharing a desk with Stephen for the whole of that year.’

He told me, ‘Stephen was very well read and was a pleasure to sit beside. He was one of the quieter members of the class, but I can remember the interesting chats we had on every subject under the sun. Before Christmas that year, we had shared what present we hoped to get. I am sure my interests at the time didn’t move far from Meccano and Just William. Stephen told me he had asked for books on history. That struck me as a bit odd, but if that was what he wanted, then that was him.

‘After Christmas, he brought in two bound copies of Carty’s History of Ireland to show me. I remember the covers were green, and plain. Other classmates would have been dismissive of books like these as a ‘Christmas present’. What, after all, was wrong with Dan Dare or Billy Bunter? But what struck me most was that Stephen was thrilled to show off these treasures. He was genuinely happy and, to me that was the important thing.’

Brendan Culliton was a year younger and stayed back a year. ‘So, when I went to Gormanston, Stephen was a year ahead of me. He was also in a different Clann / House, so our paths didn’t cross that often. However, when we did meet, a short greeting was never enough. I always recall there being real substance to the conversation.’

Stephen and I both went to Gormanston, but the five- or six-year gap was so wide that by the time I arrived, although there were teachers who remembered him, no-one in my year had ever come across him. We are also in different houses or clanns, and so any memories were few and rarely shared.

Yet, he was remembered for his achievements in maths and sciences, his fluency in the Irish language, and for his interests in chess, swimming and, to a lesser degree, golf. He taught himself the harmonica, and I remember his efforts to teach me to play chess – a pleasure that remains. But our academic and sporting interests seldom overlapped.

While I was at Gormanston, he was studying at University College Galway and at University College Dublin. When Brendan Culliton arrived in UCD, he recalled, they ‘encountered each other now and then around Earlsfort Terrace and, when we did, it was always cause for surprisingly lengthy conversations … There is no question that he was very intelligent and hugely talented. He was also genuine and sincere.’

By the time I left Gormanston in 1969, Stephen had completed his BSc and MSc degrees. We spent some time together that summer, sometimes going for meals together in Rathmines. I remember how we sat up together to watch the first moon landing on the night of 20 July 1969.

But by then he was moving to the US and Duke University, Durham, North Carolina, where he was a PhD candidate. I cannot recall that we ever met again. I was training to be a chartered surveyor with Jones Lang Wootton and working on a BSc in estate management with the College of Estate Management, then part of the University of Reading.

A colleague from his post-graduate days in Duke spoke of Stephen as ‘unfailingly courteous, and inclined to dress in jacket and tie … He gave the dining room a touch of class … dressed to the nines and carrying a rolled up umbrella.’ Perhaps he had retained a hint of that Cork accent he picked up in Millstreet as a child. ‘ We all had accents, but Stephen’s was a delight.’

He died on 18 December 1970, aged 24, and is buried in Maplewood Cemetery, Durham, North Carolina. The news of his death came in a chilling ’phone call in the middle of the night, seven days before Christmas, just days after my father’s birthday. Steve’s wrapped Christmas presents for his parents and each of his brothers and sisters arrived in the post a few days later, but by then the Christmas tree and the decorations had come down, and the Christmas lights had been switched off. It seems Christmas was cancelled that year.

The depths of a mother’s grief are unfathomable, I never fully understood or appreciated the ways my parents continued to suffer ever after, and at the time I never found ways to explain to friends and colleagues how I felt.

Brendan Culliton told me five years ago that when he heard of Stephen’s death it ‘was sad news then. It’s still sad news today.’

The Annals of Irish Mathematics and Mathematicians includes his name in the Gallery of Irish Mathematicians. He would have been 80 at his next birthday on 22 August 2026.

May his memory be a blessing ז״ל

A Christmas-time photograph of Steve visiting Santa as a child

A Saint Patrick’s Day ‘virtual tour’ of a dozen churches and cathedrals dedicated to Saint Patrick

A statue of Saint Patrick in Saint Patrick’s Church, Soho Square, London (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Patrick Comerford

Today is Saint Patrick’s Day [17 March], and this afternoon I am allowing my mind’s eye to travel on a ‘virtual tour’, revisiting a dozen cathedrals and churches dedicated to Saint Patrick.

To mark Saint Patrick’s Day two years ago, I offered a similar ‘virtual tour’ to a dozen cathedrals and churches in Ireland dedicated to Saint Patrick: Saint Patrick’s Cathedral, Dublin; the two Saint Patrick’s Cathedrals in Armagh; the Saint Patrick’s Cathedrals in Trim, Co Meath, and in Cavan; the two Saint Patrick’s Churches in Donabate, Co Dublin; and Saint Patrick’s Church in Dalkey, Co Dublin, Wicklow Town, Ballysteen, Co Limerick, and Waterford City; and the ruins of Saint Patrick’s Church, at the end of High Street, where I once lived in Wexford.

In today’s ‘virtual tour’ with Saint Patrick, I am returning to two cathedrals or pro-cathedrals in Ireland, the college chapel where I graduated, the two churches where my both sets of grandparents were married, two churches in Co Limerick, where I lived for five years, a church in Skerries where I did ‘Sunday duty’ during a vacancy many years ago, a church in Co Kilkenny where another Canon Comerford was once parish priest, and three churches named after Saint Patrick that I have visited within the last six months or in Belfast, London and Sarawak.

1, Saint Patrick’s Cathedral, Skibbereen, Co Cork:

Saint Patrick’s on North Street, Skibbereen, Co Cork … is it a cathedral, or is it a parish church? (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Saint Patrick’s Cathedral on North Street, Skibbereen, West Cork, is the 200-year-old Roman Catholic parish church in Skibbereen. It is often referred to as the cathedral of the Diocese of Ross, although Cork and Ross is now a united diocese.

The foundation stone was laid in 1825, and the church was designed as a plain Greek Revival T-plan church by the Revd Michael Augustine Riordan, a priest-architect from Doneraile, Co Cork.

A plaque on the west gable is inscribed: Deo Opt Max et Beato Patritio Parochus Populusque extruere AD 1825 Venite adoremus et procidamus ante Deum (‘To the great glory of Almighty God and the Blessed Patrick, the parish priest and people built this church in AD 1825. Come let us adore and fall down before God’).

George Coppinger Ashlin gave the cathedral the splendour it retains to this day (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

The most significant improvement to Saint Patrick’s was carried out in the early 1880s, when Bishop William Fitzgerald commissioned AWN Pugin’s son-in-law, the Cork-born architect George Coppinger Ashlin (1837-1921), to design a radical modernisation of the church. Ashlin was also the architect of Saint Colman’s Cathedral, Cobh, for the Diocese of Cloyne.

Ashlin gave the cathedral the splendour it displays to this day, and reconfigured the church in the shape of a Latin cross. The east wall behind the original High Altar was opened; a semi-circular apse was added; the apse was embellished by three stained-glass windows; the High Altar, dedicated to the memory of Bishop Michael O’Hea (1858-1876), and the Marian Altar, supplied by Pearse and Sharpe of Dublin, were erected.

The arcade of three arches above the sanctuary and two dividing the transepts from the nave, the polished pillars of granite, the coffered ceiling which they support, all date from 1882-1883.

The white marble altar rail was the work of Pearse and Sharp of Dublin; James Pearse was the father of the 1916 leader Padraig Pearse. The wrought iron panels, with their floral and leaflet decoration, were the work of Eugene McCarthy of Skibbereen.

The High Altar was consecrated on the first Sunday in May 1883 and the reconstructed church was blessed and re-opened.

2, Saint Patrick’s Pro-Cathedral, Dundalk, Co Louth:

Saint Patrick’s Pro-Cathedral, Dundalk, Co Louth … Thomas Duff modelled the exterior on the Chapel of King’s College, Cambridge (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Modern Dundalk was first laid out by James Hamilton, 1st Earl of Clanbrassil, in the mid-18th century. Around the same time, Dundalk Grammar School was founded as a Charter School in 1739. The town continued to grow and prosper in the 18th and 19th centuries, thanks to the patronage of the Jocelyn family, Earls of Roden, the industrial revolution and the arrival of the railway.

The growing Roman Catholic population was becoming more prosperity, and the architecture of their new churches reflects their growing confidence. The principal Roman Catholic church is Saint Patrick’s, known locally as the Pro-Cathedral. It was designed by the Newry architect Thomas Duff (1792-1848), who modelled the interior on Exeter Cathedral, where Richard FitzRalph of Dundalk was consecrated bishop, and the exterior on King’s College Chapel in Cambridge – it is curious to note that the Vicar of Dundalk at the time, the Revd Elias Thackeray, was a former Fellow of King’s College.

Thomas Turner’s entry curtain at Saint Patrick’s in Perpendicular Gothic (1850) was inspired by the curtain at King’s College, Cambridge (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Building work on Saint Patrick’s began in 1834. The travel writer and Church of Ireland clergyman, the Revd Caesar Otway, met Duff in Cambridge the following year making drawings of King’s College Chapel for his new designs. At the same time, Duff also designed the Methodist Church in Jocelyn Street (1834) in the Greek revival or classical style, and the Presbyterian Church across the street (1839) in the Tudor Gothic style.

Duff died in 1848 following a stroke after his daughter’s death. Thomas Turner’s entry curtain in Perpendicular Gothic, inspired by the curtain at King’s College, Cambridge, was erected two years later. But the Famine disrupted work at Saint Patrick’s, and did not resume until 1860. The church was completed by JJ McCarthy, the ‘Irish Pugin,’ who designed the high altar, the reredos and the Gothic sedilia in Caen stone. Pugin’s son-in-law, George Coppinger Ashlin, designed the Italian mosaics in the chancel by Oppenheimer and the pulpit. The stained glass is by Mayer and Earley, who had worked on many of Pugin’s churches in Dublin. Ashlin’s later tower was modelled on Gloucester Cathedral, although it interrupts the grand Cambridge-like main façade.

3, Saint Patrick’s College Chapel, Maynooth, Co Kildare:

The chapel at Saint Patrick’s College, Maynooth, Co Kildare (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

I received my BD in theology from the Pontifical University in the chapel in Saint Patrick’s College, Maynooth, Co Kildare, in 1987. Later, I was a post-graduate student in history at Maynooth, and I spent a day on a retreat in the chapel before my ordination as priest in 2001. Since then, I have been a visiting lecturer in Maynooth, co-chaired conferences, contributed chapters, papers and book reviews to books and journals edited in Maynooth, and I was involved in organising a retreat for students from the Church of Ireland Theological Institute (CITI) in Maynooth in 2016.

Those books include a recent history of Maynooth, We Remember Maynooth: A College across Four Centuries, edited by Salvador Ryan and John-Paul Sheridan (Dublin: Messenger Publishing, 2020).

Inside the chapel at Saint Patrick’s College, Maynooth, Co Kildare … I received my BD in the chapel in 1987 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

The chapel, built by public subscription, was designed by the architect JJ McCarthy, the foundation stone was laid in 1875, and the chapel opened on 24 June 1891.

It is in French 14th-century Gothic style, and is more ornate than AWN Pugin’s college buildings in Maynooth. The interior was designed by the architect William Hague, the stained glass windows are by Mayer of Munich, Lavers and Westlake of London and Cox Buckley of London and Youghal, and NHC Westlake designed the Pre-Raphaelite style Stations of the Cross and the ceiling panels.

The carved oak choir-stalls that fill the whole church were produced by Connollys of Dominick Street, Dublin. Many of the mosaics are in Italian glass by the Earley Studios of Camden Street, Dublin.

4, Saint Patrick’s Church, Donabate, Co Dublin:

Saint Patrick’s Church, Donabate … George Luke O’Connor was inspired by Pugin’s cathedral in Birmingham (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

My paternal grandparents, Stephen Comerford (1867-1921) of Rathmines and Bridget Lynders (1875-1948) of Portrane, were married in Saint Patrick’s Church, Donabate, on 7 February 1905. The witnesses at their wedding were her cousin Lawrence McMahon and her younger sister Mary Anne Lynders (1879-1956), who later married John Sheehan.

Saint Patrick’s Church, Donabate, was designed by the Dublin architect George Luke O’Connor, for the Very Revd W Magill, PP, and was consecrated by Archbishop Walsh of Dublin on 9 August 1903.

O’Connor designed many churches, schools and cinemas, and it always strikes me that his church in Donabate is strongly influenced by Pugin’s designs for Birmingham Cathedral.

Inside Saint Patrick’s Church, Donabate, Co Dublin (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

This is a Gothic, gable-fronted cruciform church with an apse and tower. The family tradition is that much of the work in the church interior is my grandfather’s work. The high altar, erected in 1906, is the work of Patrick Tomlin & Sons of Grantham Place. The canted apse has a painted ceiling.

This red brick church is built in English garden wall bond. The features include decorative buttressing, limestone dressing and string courses, terracotta details in the eaves, pointed arched doors with limestone surrounds, the exposed timber truss, barrel vaulted ceiling, tongue and grooved timber doors with elaborate cast-iron hinges, cast-iron pillars, marble columns, encaustic tiles, the ornate rose west window, lancet windows and the Harry Clarke stained glass.

5, Saint Patrick’s Church, Millstreet, Co Cork:

Saint Patrick’s Church, Millstreet, was designed by the priest-architect Michael Augustine Riordan (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Saint Patrick’s Church is an imposing feature on the streets of Millstreet, and its fine façade marks out the church as the most accomplished historic building in the town. The church, built in 1833-1835, was designed by the Revd Michael Augustine Riordan (1783-1848), a priest-architect from Doneraile who founded the South Presentation Monastery (1828) in Cork, and whose best-known work is probably Saint Patrick’s Cathedral, Skibbereen.

My maternal grandparents, Thomas Michael ‘Corduroy’ Murphy (1882-1949), later of Mackay, Queensland, Australia, and Maria Crowley (1882-1953) of Millstreet, were married in Saint Patrick’s 110 years ago, on 3 March 1915.

The west front porch has a timber panelled double-leaf door, stepped-profile carved limestone surround with plinths and Celtic interlace decoration in relief. Above the door, the carved limestone pediment has a cross finial, and a render, relief panel has a crucifixion scene between an image of the Good Shepherd and a scene of Saint Patrick baptising Saint Aonghus at Cashel.

The east front porch has a moulded archivolt with scroll keystone, all set into a carved limestone doorcase with carved limestone panelled pilasters, decorative capitals and a carved limestone open-bed pediment with cross finial. Above the timber panelled double-leaf doors, the tympanum has a render scene depicting an outdoor Mass, perhaps at a penal rock.

The carving above the west porch door (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Saint Patrick’s Church has a window attributed to Harry Clarke and two windows by Clement Watson & Co of Youghal and erected by the Crowley in memory of my maternal great-grandparents Denis and Margaret Crowley, who are buried in the churchyard outside.

Saint Oliver Plunket is depicted in a window with the inscription: ‘Erected to the memory of Denis and Margaret Crowley of Millstreet by their son Cornelius. 1944.’ Facing it, a a second window depicts the Apparition at Lourdes and has the same wording.

Denis Crowley died on 8 March 1912 at Drishane Rectory, Liscahane, Millstreet, the home of his son Con Crowley, later of Finnstown House, Lucan, Co Dublin – so, you could say, I was the third generation in four in my family to live in a rectory. Margaret Crowley died at the home of her daughter, my grandmother Maria Murphy, on Main Street, Millstreet, on 9 March 1923.

6, Saint Patrick’s Church, Clare Street, Limerick:

Saint Patrick’s graveyard, Limerick … the site of a mediaeval church dedicated to Saint Patrick (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

There were five parishes in the mediaeval city of Limerick: Saint John’s, Saint Mary’s, Saint Michael’s, Saint Munchin’s and Saint Patrick’s. As one of these five original mediaeval parishes, Saint Patrick’s once included the old parishes of Ballysimon, Derrygalvin and Kilmurry (now Monaleen).

Saint Patrick’s Well in Singland was once in a small field but is now surrounded by housing estates. It is half-way along Saint Patrick’s Road, on the west side, at the bottom of the hill on which Saint Brigid’s Church stands.

Local lore claims that this well is where Saint Patrick baptised Cairtheann, the son of Blatt and the Chief of the Dál gCais, in the year 440 CE. According to the legend, when Saint Patrick was building his church, he could not find any water to help in the project. He prayed for water and the well sprang up.

It is claimed that the print of his feet can be seen on one of the rocks at the well, and there was supposed to be a rocky bed where Saint Patrick slept. It is claimed that the water cures sore eyes, although looking into the well this week the water looks more likely to cause infections than to cure anything.

Saint Patrick’s Well at Singland in Limerick … the statue was erected in 1904 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

A statue of Saint Patrick was erected at the well in 1904 by the priests and parishioners, and a plaque behind the statue lists their names. But over a century later, while the grass and the paths around the well are well maintained, the water in the well is filthy and Saint Patrick’s mitre has been broken, not standing the test of time over more than a century.

On the top of the hill, Saint Patrick’s Church may have stood on the site of Saint Patrick’s Graveyard, next to Saint Brigid’s Church, which dates from the 1970s.

Saint Patrick’s civil parish was situated on both banks of the River Shannon and was distributed over three baronies in Co Limerick and Co Clare: Bunratty Lower, Clanwilliam and the barony of the City of Limerick.

There was a church on the site in Singland from at the mediaeval period. But it was in ruins by the 17th century. The Down Survey Map of 1683 shows a round tower on the site, but this had fallen by the early 19th century.

By 1711, Saint Nicholas’s Parish in the Roman Catholic Church had been joined with Saint Patrick’s. The Harold family built a church in Pennywell in 1750 to serve the needs of Roman Catholics in this area.

Meanwhile, the old Saint Patrick’s graveyard continued in use. The oldest identified headstone was erected by John Sexton for his parents who died in 1770 and 1771. The tombs include the crumbling and part-shattered tomb of John Young (1746-1813), Bishop of Limerick (1796-1813).

7, Saint Patrick’s Church, Clare Street, Limerick:

Inside Saint Patrick’s Church on Clare Street, Limerick (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Saint Patrick’s Church on Clare Street, Limerick, was built over 200 years ago in 1816, and replaced a Penal Chapel on the Rhebogue Road. The church was built while Father Patrick McGrath was Parish Priest. Bishop Charles Tuohy of Limerick, dedicated it to Saint Patrick on 25 August 1816.

It is a simple, but well-built example of a pre-Emancipation church and it claims to be the oldest purpose-built Catholic church in Limerick City that is still in use. It is a simple nave and transept or T-plan, gable-fronted stone church with a bell-cote and a wooden ceiling. The ceiling is high and large wooden beams hold up the ceiling of the church. The church was renovated in 1835.

With its good masonry and fine roof, it is an important part of the streetscape in this area of Limerick. The central window at the front gable has stone moulding. Below is an ogee-headed front entrance with a clustered, carved limestone bull-nose moulding surmounted by pinnacles with replacement stone finials. Inside the church, there is an elaborate timber roof with a groin vault.

The statue of Saint Patrick in Saint Patrick’s Church, Limerick (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Inside the church, there is a stained-glass window of Saint Patrick over the main entrance to the church, and stained-glass windows depicting the Sacred Heart, Saint Joseph, the Immaculate Heart of Mary, Saint Brigid and Saint Ita.

There is a large crucifix on the stone wall above the high altar, and the reredos, donated by the Presentation Sisters has six statues, three male saints and three female saints: Saint Columba, Saint Munchin, Saint Patrick, Saint Bridget, Saint Ita and Saint Lelia. The front of the altar is carved with a Judgment scene and a mosaic on the floor in front of the altar depicts the Lamb of God with a flag. To the right of the altar there is a large, colourful statue of Saint Patrick.

To meet the needs of the growing population in the area, Bishop Henry Murphy created the new parish of Monaleen in 1971 from the area in the west of Saint Patrick’s parish. Saint Brigid’s Church, on the hill off the N7, was dedicated by Bishop Jeremiah Newman in 1975.

The old graveyard at Saint Patrick’s, on the hill beside Saint Brigid’s, is now closed to burials. Saint Patrick’s Church celebrated its bicentenary in 2016.

8, Holmpatrick Church, Skerries, Co Dublin:

Holmpatrick Church and the wetlands at Kybe Pond in Skerries, Co Dublin (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

When I was living in Co Dublin, Skerries was one of my favourite choices for a beach walk. I have known Skerries since my teens, and around 2010-2011, during a vacancy, I was privileged to do ‘Sunday duty’ in Holmpatrick Church, and to speak at Lenten talks. I also organised a number of Ash Wednesday retreats in Skerries for CITI staff and students.

Holmpatrick Parish Church is a Gothic Revival, pre-disestablishment church, built in 1867. It has an ornate interior, with neo-mediaeval decoration, and interesting stained glass windows, especially those on the balcony.

The Church was designed by the architect and artist James Edward Rogers (1838-1896) was consecrated on 2 September 1868. The limestone came from the Milverton quarries, near Skerries, and Walter Doolin was the contractor. Other churches by Rogers include Saint Mary’s Church, Howth; Kenure Church and the nearby Rectory in Rush, Co Dublin, built for Sir Roger Palmer (1832-1910) of Kenure Park; Kilfergus Church, Glin, Co Limerick; Saint Patrick’s Church, Kilcock, Co Kildare; Kilkeedy Church, Clarina, Co Limerick; Saint Columba's Church, Omagh, Co Tyrone; as well as the former Saint Bartholomew’s Vicarage and the parochial hall in Ballsbridge.

Looking across to the towers and spires of Holmpatrick from Skerries Mills (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Holmpatrick Church has some memorial tablets from an older church that stood nearby. One describes James Hamilton of Holmpatrick as a ‘gentleman who during a long and most active life displayed that zealous energy and ingenious integrity that forms a useful and virtuous man … He died the 20th of October 1800, in the 73rd year of his age … Of the uncommonly numerous offspring of thirty six children he was survived by eight sons and eight daughters.’

I think he gave new meaning to ‘zealous energy’! Hamilton’s descendants include Richard Branson, but with his ‘uncommonly numerous’ 36 children born 2½ centuries ago, Hamilton must be the ancestor of thousands upon thousands of people living in Ireland today.

Behind the church stand the ruins of an earlier church built in 1722 by the Hamilton family after they acquired Holmpatrick from the Earls of Thomond in 1720. When the church was demolished in the 1860s, the square tower was left standing – supposedly as a landmark for ships, although it is also a reminder of the mediaeval monastic past of this site.

Local lore says that when Saint Patrick was expelled from Wicklow he moved to Saint Patrick’s Island off Skerries in 432 CE. Legend says that one day, while Saint Patrick was on shore buying groceries, the people of Skerries rowed over to his island where he kept a goat for milk, stole the goat, took her back to the mainland and ate her. When Saint Patrick returned he was angry, and with one great step he bounded from his island to Red Island. There he questioned the local people, and when they denied their theft he took away their powers of speech. They could only bleat like goats, until they eventually admitted their crime.

It is said that on Red Island there is still a mark on the rock that is nothing less than Saint Patrick’s footprint. In all my visits to Skerries, I have failed to see the saint’s footprint on Red Island.

9, Saint Patrick’s Church, Ballyraggett, Co Kilkenny:

Saint Patrick’s Church, Ballyragget, Co Kilkenny, stands on the site of an earlier, Penal-era chapel (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Both Saint Patrick’s Church, the Roman Catholic parish church in Ballyragget, Co Kilkenny, and Ballyragget Castle are difficult to find, with the church at the end of a side street between the Square and Castle Street, and the castle at the end of a lane behind locked gates. The obscure location of the church is explained because it stands on the site of an earlier chapel that may have been built first during the Penal days in the 18th century.

Saint Patrick’s is an imposing large-scale church built in 1842 under the direction of William Kinsella, Bishop of Ossory (1793-1845), for Father John Foran, Parish Priest of Ballyragget, who died in 1843, to designs by William Deane Butler (ca 1794-1857).

Butler, who was also the architect of Saint Kieran’s College, Kilkenny, designed the church in the Gothic Revival style. It is similar in many details to other contemporary parish churches in the area, including Castlecomer and Freshford, representing a form of house style developed by Butler while he was the resident architect for the Diocese of Ossory.

The grave of Canon James Comerford, who died in 1948 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

The Gothic-style reredos in Caen stone was designed in 1869 by Pugin’s son-in-law, George Coppinger Ashlin and depicts the Sacrifice of Abraham, the Crucifixion and the Sacrifice of Melchizedek. The front of the altar depicts the worship of the Lamb on the Throne (see Revelation 4). The mosaic work in the sanctuary is by Ludwig Oppenheimer Ltd (1915).

The church was renovated in 1924 and again in 1983-1985, and some new windows were added after 2000.

Because the church saw few interior alterations after the Second Vatican Council (1963-1965), it retains its rich interior scheme, with high quality carpentry, decorative plasterwork, and stained-glass windows.

The churchyard on the north side of the church has many cut-limestone Celtic High Cross-style gravestones dating back to 1842, including the grave of Canon James Comerford, Parish Priest of Ballyragget, who died on 12 June 1948 at the age of 69.

10, Saint Patrick’s Church, Donegall Street, Belfast:

Saint Patrick’s Church on Donegall Road, Belfast, was built in the 1870s, replacing a church built in 1815 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

Saint Patrick’s Church on Donegall Street, Belfast, is a Victorian gem and an oasis of peace in the heart of the city and it is part of community life in the city centre. The church serves a large local resident community and a thriving population in the Cathedral Quarter, the city’s cultural and social heartland, and the students and staff in the neighbouring Belfast campus of Ulster University, along with a busy hospital, a large primary school, and residential and care homes.

The first church on the site was built in 1815, the year of the Battle of Waterloo, and it was the second Catholic church built in Belfast since the Reformation. The present Saint Patrick’s Church, the second on the site, was designed in the Gothic Revival style by Timothy Hevey (1846-1878) and Mortimer Thomspon. It is said the church was built ‘by the pennies of the poor’.

Two of the six windows in the south transept illustrating the life and mission of Saint Patrick (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

The original windows in the right transept were destroyed by an explosion during the ‘Troubles’, but six newly-installed windows illustrate the life and mission of Saint Patrick.

The church has a triptych by Sir John Lavery, who was baptised in the older, smaller church. He painted ‘The Madonna Of The Lakes’ (1919), with his second wife, Hazel Trudeau, as the model for the Virgin Mary and his daughter Eileen and step-daughter Helen as models for Saint Patrick and Saint Brigid.

The triptych originally stood on an altar designed by Edwin Lutyens, a friend of Lavery, and was illuminated by two candlesticks by Lutyens. Both the altar and the candlesticks were lost during reordering works out in the 1960s and 1970s, and the frame around the triptych, decorated with Celtic knotwork, remains the only Lutyens-designed artefact in Northern Ireland.

11, Saint Patrick’s Church, Soho:

Saint Patrick’s Church on Soho Square is one of the oldest post-Reformation Catholic parish churches in London (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Saint Patrick’s on Soho Square is one of the oldest post-Reformation Catholic parishes in London, and the original church on the site was the first Catholic place of worship to open in London after the Roman Catholic Relief Acts were passed in 1778 and 1791 and the first post-Reformation church in England dedicated to Saint Patrick.

The first church on the site was in a building behind Carlisle House and was consecrated in 1792. The present church, built in 1891-1893, is a Grade II* listed building designed by the Leeds architect John Kelly.

Father Arthur O’Leary (1729-1802), a celebrated Irish Capuchin preacher from Fanlobbus, Dunmanway, Co Cork, is the founding figure of this church.

Inside Saint Patrick’s Church, Soho Square, designed by the Leeds architect John Kelly and built in 1891-1893 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

The present church on Soho Square was designed by John Kelly of Leeds and was built in 1891-1893. The church was built in the Italian Renaissance style. The main entrance has a Roman-style porch with Corinthian columns. Above the entrance is the inscription: Ut Christiani ita et Romani sitis (‘Be ye Christians as those of the Roman Church’), a quotation from the writings of Saint Patrick.

Many alterations have been made to Kelly’s church since it was built, and Saint Patrick’s Church was renovated and refurbished at a cost of £4 million in 2010-2011. Today, only a handful of resident Catholics remains in the parish. Hundreds of people continue to attend Saint Patrick’s Church, but they are mostly visitors, tourists and people working in the area. The church also attracts immigrants and migrant workers from across London, and Mass is regularly celebrated in both Spanish and Portuguese.

12, Saint Patrick’s Church, Semadang, Sarawak:

Saint Patrick’s Chapel (left), in orange and white, and Saint Patrick’s School (right), in green and white, beneath the mountain in Semadang, south of Kuching (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

Saint Patrick’s Chapel, a mission chapel in Semadang, dates back to the 1930s, and neighbouring Saint Patrick’s School dates from 1953. They are among the churches, chapels and schools in the Diocese of Kuching that I visited Father Jeffry Renos Nawie during a recent visit to Sarawak.

Semadang is about a 1½-hour drive south from Kuching, half-way between Kuching and the border with Indonesia, and just a few miles north of the Equator. The Sarawak River in this area is known as the River Semadang (Sungai Semadang).

Two villages in the area, Kampung Semadang and Kampung Danu, are home to the Bidayuh community.

Saint Patrick’s Chapel, Semadang, was first built in the 1930s and was rebuilt and dedicated in 2009 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

Saint Patrick’s Church is in striking, bright orange and white colours, and the school beside it is in bright, striking green and white colours, so that the whole site looked to this Irish visitor like a bright eye-catching display of green, white and orange.

Perhaps the colour scheme is nothing more than coincidence, and I imagine few other visitors notice the vivid and colourful combination or make a mental association with the Irish flag.

Saint Patrick’s Chapel dates from the 1930s, and was probably given its name by missionaries from the Anglican mission agency SPG (now USPG, United Society Partners in the Gospel). The present church building was consecrated on 3 May 2009 by Bishop Bolly Lapok of Kuching. Bishop Bolly also became the Archbishop of the Church of the Province of South East Asia in 2012 and was installed in Saint Thomas’s Cathedral, Kuching. He retired in 2017.

The present priest-in-charge of Saint Patrick’s is the Revd Kamor Diah. Parishioners told me how Saint Patrick’s has a congregation of about 200 on Sundays, but these numbers can reach 800 at major festivals and celebrations.

Visiting Saint Patrick’s School in Semadang, beside Saint Patrick’s Chapel (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

Some memories from Harold’s Cross ten years after my mother’s death

No 201 Harold’s Cross Road, the birthplace of the Quaker abolitionist and philanthropist Richard Allen (1803–1886), has been restored (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

Like many journalists, I was always aware of ‘campaign journalism’. It was a complimentary label when it was applied to journalists with the Sunday Times ‘Insight’ Team, journalists like Paul Foot, John Pilger or Bob Fisk, or many campaign journalists with newspapers such as the Guardian, the Observer and The Irish Times.

There are differences between reporting, analysis, comment, opinion-writing, consciousness raising and campaigning journalism. But when does it spill over into or descend into propaganda and political manipulation?

I suppose I have engaged in a form of campaign journalism and blogging in my support for the return of the Parthenon Marbles from the British Museum to their proper home in Athens.

In another way, I have been campaigning, I suppose, in writing about the deterioration of the former home of the Quaker abolitionist and philanthropist Richard Allen (1803-1886) in Harold’s Cross, Dublin.

I had been familiar with this house in my childhood – my mother even sent me ‘for messages’ as a child in the 1960s to Healy’s, the grocery shop that was once attached to the house that later became Westbank Orphanage or the Protestant Girls’ Orphanage.

I had written since 2013 about the sad neglect and decay of this constituent part of the architectural heritage of Harold’s Cross and Dublin 6. So, ten years later, when I visited Harold’s Cross briefly before Christmas, it was a personal pleasure to see the house had been restored carefully.

To my surprise, the heritage contractors PMac, the Harold’s Cross-based masonry, cleaning and maintenance business involved in the restoration work on behalf of Aspect Design, asked my permission to use some of my photographs on their website, illustrating the ‘before’ and ‘after’ state of this Georgian house.

I rarely agree to commercial or business pages using my photographs online. I figure than a business should pay a photographer to do their work, and I should not deprive professional photographers of potential commissions. However, in this case I was so impressed of the work that I immediately said yes. Ten years of ‘campaign blogging’ had borne its fruit.

I suggested that, in return, PMac should make a donation to an appropriate local charity. They willingly agreed, and quickly told me they are organising a coffee morning in the coming months in aid of the Hospice in Harold’s Cross.

There was an added emotional poignancy to this, because it is ten years ago today since my mother, died in the Hospice in Harold’s Cross, on 20 May 2014.

Ellen Comerford (née Murphy) was born in Millstreet, Co Cork, on 10 February 1919 and went to boarding school in Mountrath, Co Laois

Ellen Comerford (née Murphy) was 95 when she died in the Hospice in Harold’s Cross on 20 May 2014. She was born in Millstreet, Co Cork, on 10 February 1919 and went to boarding school in Mountrath, Co Laois, 20 minutes from Roscrea, Co Tipperary, where her Crowley uncles, Cornelius D Crowley (1879-1972) of Roscrea Castle and Jeremiah D Crowley (1883-1968) of Wallstown Castle, Castltownroche, had extensive business interests.

After a short time in Paris immediately before World War II, she became a civil servant in the Department of Education in Dublin. She married my father, Stephen Edward Comerford (1918-2004) in Blackrock, Co Dublin, on 8 September 1945, in the weeks immediately after World II. By then she was living in Booterstown, and her father was living in Australia.

At first, my parents lived in Bray, Co Wicklow, but they later lived in Dublin in Harold’s Cross and then, in later years, in Rathfarnham. I was the fourth of six children, born on Rathfarnham Road.

I understand how life was difficult for her. My eldest brother died on 18 December 1970 when he was only 24, and she was only 51. No mother recovers from the death of a child, no matter what age either of them is at the time.

My father died in Rathfarnham almost 20 years ago, on 27 December 2004, less than two weeks after his 86th birthday. My widowed mother survived him for almost ten years. I had not known her very well in my childhood or for much of my adult life. But I tried to get to know her better in those last 10 years, as she moved into sheltered housing first on Leeson Park and then in Rathgar.

We visited her first marriage home in Bray, her uncle’s former home at Finnstown House, Lucan, which she knew intimately when the Crowley family lived there, we occasionally had lunch together in Rathgar, Bray or Lucan, and at some stage I returned with her to Paris with a brother and a sister.

I don’t think we every properly resolved the difficulties remaining since my childhood, and I had left her home again in my teens. But, I think, today she might be pleased to know about this piece of restoration work in a part of Harold’s Cross she knew well from the 1950s to the 1970s, and to know how this has boosted the work of the Hospice in Harold’s Cross.

Ellen Comerford (née Murphy) died in the Hospice in Harold’s Cross on 20 May 2014

Daily prayers in Ordinary Time with USPG: (44) 11 July 2023

Trinity Episcopal Church on Catherine Street, Limerick, was built in 1834 through the efforts of Edward Newenham Hoare (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

We are in Ordinary Time in the Church Calendar, and this week began with the Fifth Sunday after Trinity (9 July 2023).

The calendar of the Church of England in Common Worship today celebrates the life of Saint Benedict of Nursia, Abbot of Monte Cassino and Father of Western Monasticism (ca 550).

Before this day begins, I am taking some time this morning for prayer, reading and reflection.

Over these weeks after Trinity Sunday, I have been reflecting each morning in these ways:

1, Looking at relevant images or stained glass window in a church, chapel or cathedral I know;

2, the Gospel reading of the day in the Church of England lectionary;

3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary.

Inside Trinity Episcopal Church, Limerick, in the early 20th century … note the high pulpit in a focal position (Photograph © Archiseek)

Trinity Episcopal Church, Catherine Street, Limerick:

Today there are two Church of Ireland churches in Limerick City – Saint Mary’s Cathedral on King’s Island and Saint Michael’s Church on the corner of Barrington Street and Pery Square.

Saint Michael’s Church, which was consecrated in 1844, replaced an older church, Saint George’s on George’s Street, now O’Connell Street, which was founded in 1789.

Saint Michael’s is also known as ‘the sinking church’ as it was not built on bed rock and has sunk ever so slightly over the years.

Saint Munchin’s Church was built as a Church of Ireland parish church in 1827. The architects were the brothers George and James Pain, who built the church in the Gothic style, with four pinnacles at the top of the tower.

Saint Munchin is the patron saint of Limerick. There are many legends about Saint Munchin, who is said to have lived in Limerick in the late seventh century.

Saint Munchin’s Church is on King’s Island, between the Bishop’s Palace and the Villiers Alms Houses. It was built in 1827 and was renovated in 1980 by the Limerick Civic Trust. It was a used for a period by the Island Theatre Company and is now used as a store for Limerick Civic Trust.

Saint John’s Church stands on the site of an earlier church in the Irish town area of the city, which dated from the 1200s. It is located at one end of Saint John’s Square, the first development of Newtown Pery.

The walls around the graveyard were built in 1693 and the present church was built in 1852. The graveyard is the burial place for many Limerick merchant families, including the Russells, who ran the largest mills in Limerick in the mid-19th century.

The church fell into disuse in the early 1970s as the Anglican population of Limerick city declined in numbers. It was transferred to Limerick Corporation in 1975. The interior was completely redesigned and for a period the church was used as a base for the Dagdha Dance Company. It is now the hub for Dance Limerick.

One Anglican church in Limerick that stood outside the diocesan and parochial systems for many years is the former Trinity Episcopal Church on Catherine Street. I often passed this former church on my way between buses in Limerick during the five years I was living in Askeaton, Precentor of Limerick, and the priest-in-charge of the Rathkeale Group of Parishes. But for many people, it must be easy to pass by this former church without noticing the building because of the way it has been integrated into the streetscape of Catherine Street.

Trinity Church was designed by the architect Joseph Fogerty and was built in 1834 as a chapel for a nearby Asylum for Blind Women through subscriptions raised in Ireland and England by the Revd Edward Newenham Hoare (1802-1877).

Edward Newenham Hoare was a Church of Ireland priest and the author of religious tracts and fiction. His father, Canon John Hoare from Drishane, near Millstreet, Co Cork, was the Canon Chancellor of Saint Mary’s Cathedral, Limerick and Vicar-General of the Diocese of Limerick, and as Rector of Rathkeale (1803-1813) he was one of my predecessors. Edward’s mother, Rachel (died 1850), was a daughter of Sir Edward Newenham MP.

Edward Hoare was born in Limerick on 11 April 1802 and was educated at Trinity College Dublin (MA 1839). He was a curate of Saint John’s Church, Limerick, in 1830-1831 and later was Archdeacon of Ardfert (1836-1839).

In the 1830s, Hoare was also the editor of the Christian Herald, and he published a number of sermons too. Around 1831, he first proposed opening a chapel for the blind in Limerick, but his plans were opposed by the then Bishop of Limerick.

But Hoare appealed for subscriptions throughout Ireland and the England, and the new church was built as a place of worship for the adjoining asylum for blind girls and women.

The new classical church was designed by the architect Joseph Fogerty and was consecrated and opened on 4 May 1834. Perhaps it was named after Holy Trinity Church, Rathkeale, where Hoare’s father had been rector earlier in the 19th century.

This was an attached three-bay, two-storey over basement limestone, pedimented church. It was flanked on both sides by a pair of attached two-bay, three-storey over basement red brick townhouses.

The central building is built entirely of smooth limestone ashlar. It has a recessed central double-height entrance bay with a pair of giant order Ionic columns, flanked by a pair of giant order Doric corner piers, flanked by similar giant order Doric pilasters. These support a plain architrave and frieze. The central recess is surmounted by a pediment forming a shallow breakfront, and continuing as a heavy cornice to either side.

A stringcourse is located at the first-floor level with channel rusticated walls to the ground floor level.

A large round-arched window opening with a panelled apron dominates the first-floor level of the recessed portico, with an arched 10-over-15 timber sash window.

Flanking the portico are single round-arched window openings with panelled aprons containing six-over-nine timber sash windows incorporating a spoked fanlight with margin lights. There are square-headed ground floor window openings, each with a limestone sill and an apron underneath, with six-over-six timber sash windows with margin lights.

Three square-headed door openings with double-leaf timber-panelled doors are located at the ground floor level of the portico, opening onto a limestone platform and a stylobate of five steps.

The flanking buildings have red brick walls laid in Flemish bond with cement repointing with concrete coping to the rebuilt parapet walls. There is a limestone plinth course at the ground-floor level over painted rendered basement walls.

The gauged brick flat-arched window openings have patent reveals and limestone sills. There are replacement six-over-six timber sash windows.

There are gauged brick round-arched door openings to each building with patent reveals, modern replacement carved timber door surrounds and overlight and panelled doors, dating from about 2000.

There is an in-filled basement to the south-flanking former house with a modern wheelchair ramp and replica spearhead railings, all dating from about 2000. The north-flanking former house has a concrete platform and four limestone steps that are flanked by replica spear-headed railings on a limestone plinth enclosing the basement.

A round green plaque placed outside by the Limerick Civic Trust reads: ‘Trinity Church An Episcopal church built in 1834 through subscriptions raised by the personal efforts of the Venerable Edward Newenham Hoare.’

Edward Newenham Hoare gave his name to Newenham Street in Limerick. He was Archdeacon of Ardfert (1836-1839), and was later Dean of Achonry Cathedral from 1839 to 1850, and Dean of Waterford from 1850 until his death.

His first wife was Louisa Maria O’Donoghue from Portarlington, and their children included the Revd John Newenham Hoare of Muckross and the Revd Edward Newenham Hoare, Rector of Acrise, Folkestone, Kent. In 1859, he married his second wife, the twice-widowed Harriet, daughter of Colonel George Browne.

Hoare died in Upper Norwood, London, on 1 February 1877 and he is commemorated by a plaque in Christ Church Cathedral, Waterford.

Hoare’s church was designed by the Limerick-born architect and builder Joseph Fogerty (1806-1887), who had a lucrative practice in the city. He was born into a family of builders working from Saint John’s Square in 1824 and from Newtown Pery by 1840, and was baptised in Saint Mary’s Cathedral on 9 March 1806.

His other works included the Theatre Royal in Henry Street (1841), Leamy’s Free School (1841-1845), a Tudor Revival building on Harstronge Street, and several houses in Limerick, and he worked in partnership with his son Robert Fogerty (1843-1917) from offices in Henry Street until his death in 1887.

The apse in the church was added by Joseph Fogerty’s nephew, William Fogerty (1833-1878), in 1858-1859 at a cost of £500.

A stained-glass window of ‘Christ healing the Blind’ was placed in the church in 1877 in memory of late William Franklin, manager of the Provincial Bank, ‘who took deep interest in the Blind Asylum connected with the church.’

Joseph Fogerty’s son, Robert Fogerty, removed the old gas fittings in 1895 and designed extensive alterations and improvements to the church, including new art metalwork, brass light fittings and a new lectern. The church reopened on 7 November 1895.

The building has been in government use since the 1960s, when the church was converted to office use on behalf of the local health board. The building is now used by the Health Service Executive (HSE).

The interior of the building was gutted around 2000, when the galleries were removed and an attic-storey added to all three structures. There is a flat roof with an artificial slate mansard front and sides with lead covered dormers containing uPVC windows.

The cut limestone centrepiece and the two flanking former houses appear to have been radically altered in recent years. But this set of three buildings on Catherine Street remain a fine architectural composition and they form a pleasant aspect in this intact streetscape in the heart of Limerick.

The Limerick Civic Trust plaque at Trinity Episcopal Church on Catherine Street (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Matthew 9: 32-38 (NRSVA):

32 After they had gone away, a demoniac who was mute was brought to him. 33 And when the demon had been cast out, the one who had been mute spoke; and the crowds were amazed and said, ‘Never has anything like this been seen in Israel.’ 34 But the Pharisees said, ‘By the ruler of the demons he casts out the demons.’

35 Then Jesus went about all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues, and proclaiming the good news of the kingdom, and curing every disease and every sickness. 36 When he saw the crowds, he had compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. 37 Then he said to his disciples, ‘The harvest is plentiful, but the labourers are few; 38 therefore ask the Lord of the harvest to send out labourers into his harvest.’

Trinity Episcopal Church remains an integral part of a fine architectural composition (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Prayer:

The theme this week in ‘Pray With the World Church,’ the Prayer Diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), is ‘Fighting Climate Change Appeal – Hermani’s story’. This theme was introduced on Sunday.

Find out more HERE.

The Prayer in the USPG Prayer Diary today (11 July 2023) invites us to pray:

We pray that we walk with love and care on God’s earth, with vital awareness of God’s comprehensive vision and purpose for his creation.

Collect:

Eternal God,
who made Benedict a wise master
in the school of your service
and a guide to many called into community
to follow the rule of Christ:
grant that we may put your love before all else
and seek with joy the way of your commandments;
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.

Post Communion:

Merciful God,
who gave such grace to your servant Benedict
that he served you with singleness of heart
and loved you above all things:
help us, whose communion with you
has been renewed in this sacrament,
to forsake all that holds us back from following Christ
and to grow into his likeness from glory to glory;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

The Saint Benedict Chapel in Glenstal Abbey … the Church Calendar today celebrates the life of Saint Benedict (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Yesterday’s reflection

Continued tomorrow

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

Penelope Smyth, the woman from West Waterford who became an Italian princess

The memorial to Princess Penelope in Saint Mary’s Collegiate Church, Youghal … she was born Penelope Caroline Smyth in Co Waterford (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2021)

Patrick Comerford

‘If only those walls could talk.’

As I was being guided around Saint Mary’s Collegiate Church, Youghal, Co Cork, early last week, I noticed a large number of plaques on the walls, including one that tells the story of Penelope Smyth who became Princess Penelope of Capua. She was born in Co Waterford, between Youghal and Lismore, and – had history taken a different twist or turn – she might have ended her days as Queen of Greece, or Queen of Belgium.

The memorial commemorating her in Saint Mary’s Collegiate Church reads:

‘In memoriam Her Royal Highness Penelope Caroline, Princess of Capua, daughter of Grice Smyth Esqr of Ballynatray, Co Waterford, born 19th July 1805, died 13th December 1882. The beloved wife & faithful widow of His Royal Highness Carlo Ferdinando Di Borbonne, Prince of Capua, who died 2nd April 1862.

‘This memorial devoted to a devoted and lamented mother is erected by her loving and beloved son & daughter, His Royal Highness Prince Francesco Carlo di Borbonne and Her Royal Highness Victoria Augusta Ludovica Isabella Amelia Philomina Helena Penelope di Borbonne Capua.

‘“Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord” Rev. XIV 13.’

Princess Penelope was born in Co Waterford on 19 July 1805, while her husband, a member of the long-tailed Bourbon dynasty, was six years her junior. They met in the mid-1830s, romance was in the air, and on 5 April 1836 they eloped to Scotland and married at Gretna Green.

But their hasty marriage was not met with approval from the prince’s family. He had defied a royal decree that all royals required the king’s permission marry. In this case, the king was Carlo’s brother, King Ferdinand II of the Two Sicilies, a kingdom based in Naples that included Sicily and much of southern Italy.

The couple began their honeymoon in exile. Then, in an unusual turn of events, the couple remarried a month later. But this second marriage did not meet the king’s approval either.

The couple remained in exile until his brother’s death. They had two children, Francesco and Vittoria, and remained devoted to each other until Carlo died on 2 April 1862. Their son Francesco died soon after.

Princess Penelope lived for another 20 years in a villa in Lucca, Italy, and died on 13 December 1882.

The family feud between the Smyths of Ballynatray and their royal relatives were said in Victorian society in Ireland to be ‘matters of much Neapolitan, not to say European, notoriety.’

Penelope Caroline Smyth was the second daughter of Grice and Mary Smyth of Ballynatray. She was born in 1815 and grew up on the banks of the Blackwater in Ballynatray.

The king refused to recognise the marriage because Penelope was not of royal blood. When the king refused to change his heart, the Italian prince and the Irish princess abandoned Naples and settled in Malta where they raised two children.

The title ‘Prince of Capua’ was traditionally given to the second sons of the Kings of the Two Sicilies.

Prince Francesco Carlo di Borbonne was born in Palermo on 10 November 1811. His father, Francesco I (1777-1830), was King of Naples; his mother was the Infanta of Spain. When their father died in 1830, Carlo’s elder brother, Ferdinand II (1810-1859), became King of the Two Sicilies (1810-1859). Between March and June 1829, the Neapolitan government put Carlo forward as a candidate for the Greek throne in 1829, and he was a candidate to become King of Belgium in 1831.

There were rumours that Penelope and Carlo had an earlier, private marriage at the Villa Reale di Marlia, near Lucca.

On 8 March 1836, her brother Richard Smyth received an irate letter from the manager of the Pantechnicon Carriage Makers in Belgrave Square, London, claiming Penelope had borrowed £45 in cash from them shortly before disappearing to Naples.

Later that month, Penelope wrote to Richard at Ballynatray, telling how she had been received in a ‘most cordial manner’ by Carlo’s sister Marie Christina, the Regent of Spain. ‘She embraced me several times and repeated that I should call her “Sister” and not “Majesty”!!’

Carlo and Penelope arrived at Gretna Green in Scotland and were married on 5 April 1836, perhaps not just once but twice. And, they were married on at least three further occasions – in Madrid, in Rome, by Cardinal Thomas Weld, a nephew-in-law from her first marriage of Mrs Fitzherbert, and, finally, in the fashionable Saint George’s Church in Hanover Square, London, on 8 May 1836.

The stories of multiple marriages echo the stories of the four marriages of her contemporary, Caroline Shirley (1818-1897), illegitimate daughter of Lord Tamworth, and Don Lorenzo Montani Sforza Cesarini (1807-1866), Duke of Segni, a year later, in 1837.

Penelope and her Prince abandoned Naples and went into exile in Malta. There they built a new palace, Selma Hall, and lived as exiles for the next 14 years. They were the parents of two children: Prince Francesco Ferdinando Carlo di Capua (1837-1918), Count di Mascali (1837-1918), and Princess Vittoria di Borbonne (1838-1895).

Negotiations in 1838 tried to secure the right of the Prince of Capua to return to Naples, with a promise from his brother that he could keep his titles, his wife would receive a title and the rights of the children would be respected. But the negotiations collapsed, and the Prince of Capua was described as a ‘pretender.’

Further negotiations took place in 1839, and again in 1841. It all these talks, it was suggested that Penelope would have the title of ‘Duchess of Villalta’ or Princess of Mascali’ But, once again, the talks collapsed.

The problem seemed to lie, in part, in the titles given to the Archduchess of Austria, wife of the king’s uncle, the Prince of Salerno, the King’s uncle, and the Princess of Sardinia, wife of the Count of Syracuse, the Prince of Capua’s younger brother. The Bourbon family fretted about being seen to insult the Courts of Vienna and Turin, but Penelope was unwilling to be a mere countess when she could be a princess.

Meanwhile, the Smyths of Ballynatray were worried that Penelope’s claims to any inheritance from Ballynatray that would sustain her lifestyle could be a drain on the family’s finances.

Prince Carlo of Bourbon-Naples, Prince of Capua, his wife Princess Penelope Smyth, Duchess of Mascali, and their daughter Vittoria, Countess of Mascali

Carlo and Penelope left Malta on 22 August 1850 and returned to Italy with their children Francesco and Vittoria. Prince Carlo died in Turin at the age of 50 on 22 April 1862, four months after the death of Penelope’s brother-in-law, Henry Wallis (1790-1862) of Drishane Castle, Millstreet, Co Cork, who had married Ellen Smyth in Saint Mary’s, Youghal, in 1825.

Ferdinand II died in 1859, his son succeeded as King Frances II, but the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies collapsed in 1860 during the Italian war of unification. Shortly after Carlo died in Turin in 1862, Victor Emmanuel II, king of the newly united Italy, formally recognised their marriage and granted Penelope the royal residence of Villa Reale de Marlia near Lucca in Tuscany.

The Duchess di Mascali, as she became, died at the Villa Reale de Marlia in 1882. The tablet erected to her memory is in north aisle of Saint Mary’s Collegiate Church, Youghal.

A plaque in Saint Mary’s recalls a descendant of Ellen Smyth of Ballynatray and Henry Wallis of Drishane Castle, Millstreet (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2021)

The Smyth family has lived in Co Waterford from Elizabethan times, and Ballynatray House, near Youghal, stands on the banks of the River Blackwater, Co Waterford, north of Youghal and south of Lismore.

Sir Richard Smyth of Ballynatray, Co Waterford, a High Sheriff of Co Waterford and became a brother-in-law of Richard Boyle, the 1st Earl of Cork, when he married Mary Boyle in the early 17th century. Smyth was a witness to Sir Walter Raleigh’s sale of lands in Co Cork and Co Waterford to Richard Boyle in 1602, and became a trustee of the new Boyle estates, along with Edmund Colthurst and Edmund Coppinger.

Sir Richard Smyth’s younger son, also Sir Richard Smyth, was a captain at the Battle of Kinsale, while his elder son, Sir Percy Smyth, was knighted in 1629, fought during the rebellion of 1641, and was military governor of Youghal in 1645. His second wife, Isabella Ussher, was a granddaughter of Archbishop Adam Loftus of Dublin.

Percy Smyth’s ‘castellated residence’ was largely destroyed in 1641, and his family later built a larger, Dutch-gabled house in the 1690s.

Percy Smyth’s sons included Boyle Smyth, MP for Tallow, Co Waterford; William Smyth, his heir; and Richard Smyth of Ballynatray.

Richard Smyth of Ballynatray married Alice, daughter and co-heir of Richard Grice of Ballycullane, Co Limerick, and their son, Grice Smyth was the ancestor of the Smyth family of Ballynatray.

Richard Smyth of Ballynatray and Alice Grice were the parents of Grice Smyth of Ballynatray, who married Gertrude Taylor of Burton, Co Cork. Grice Smyth died in 1724, and was succeeded at Ballynatray in turn by his son, Richard Smyth (1706-1768), and his son, also Richard Smyth.

When this Richard died, Ballynatray passed to his brother, Grice Smyth (1762-1816), who built Ballynatray in 1795. The large Palladian house designed by Alexander Dean of Cork incorporated the earlier house.

The house stands on a double bend of the River Blackwater that gives the impression of a large lake. Steep, oak-covered hills slope down on all sides of the house. Ballynatray is 11 bays long and five bays wide, with two storeys over a basement and a ballustraded parapet, originally decorated with elaborate urns. The façade facing the mouth of the River Blackwater has a pedimented breakfront, while the three central bays of the entrance front are deeply recessed and filled with a long, single-storey porch.

The interior was built for entertaining on the grandest scale, with a suite of interconnecting rooms, and some fine early 19th century plasterwork. The hall has a frieze of bull’s heads, the heraldic symbol of the Smyths, and the billiards room has an imaginative cornice of billiards balls and cues. The bedroom floor originally had a curious curvilinear corridor, but this has since been altered.

Grice Smith married Mary Broderick, daughter and co-heir of Henry Mitchell, of Mitchell’s Fort, Co Cork. Their children included Princess Penelope, and Ellen, who married Henry Wallis of Drishane Castle. He died in George’s Street, Limerick, on 18 January 1816, and he is commemorated by yet another memorial in Saint Mary’s Collegiate Church:

‘Sacred to the Memory of Grice Smyth Esquire of Ballinatre (sic) in the county of Waterford who having endured a most painful illness for ten years with perfect resignation to the will of God: departed this life in the City of Limerick; on the 18th Day of January Anno Domini 1816, and in the 51st year of his age.

‘His remains are deposited near this place in the same tomb with those of his ancestors, the Earls of Cork and Burlington.

‘As a brother, husband, parent and friend he was most affectionate, generous and sincere.

‘This monument is erected to his memory by his widow Mary Broderick Smyth, daughter of the late Henry Mitchell, Esquire, of Mitchells Fort, is testimony of her esteem and love.

‘As many as I love I rebuke and chasten, be zealous therefore and repent. Revelations, Chapter III verse xix.’

Penelope was a few months old when her father Grice died in Limerick in 1816. Ballynatray was then inherited by his eldest son, her eldest brother, Richard Smyth (1796-1858). Samuel Lewis describes the house in 1837 as ‘finely situated in a much improved demesne.’

Richard Smyth married the Hon Harriet St Leger, daughter of Hayes St Leger, 2nd Viscount Doneraile. They had no sons, and when Richard died in 1858, Ballynatray was inherited by their only surviving child, Charlotte Mary Smyth.

A memorial to a daughter of Charlotte Smyth and Charles Moore in Saint Mary’s Collegiate Church, Youghal (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2021)

Ten years earlier, in 1848, Charlotte Mary Smyth of Ballynatray had married the Hon Charles William Moore (1826-1898), who became 5th Earl Mount Cashell in 1889. The 1st Earl Mount Cashell, Stephen Moore (1730-1790), had been MP for Lismore, Co Waterford.

When Charlotte inherited Ballynatray, she and Charles assumed the additional name and arms of Smyth. Their first act on inheriting the Ballinatray estate was ‘to forgive every penny of arrears due by the tenants, amounting to several thousand pounds.’ They then had several farms revalued, and reduced many rents.

The former Grice estate of 1,673 acres near Kilmallock, Co Limerick, was advertised for sale in 1861. But Charles William Moore Smyth of Ballinatray owned over 7,000 acres in Co Waterford and 272 acres in Co Limerick in 1870s. He succeeded to the earldom in 1889, on the death of his elder brother, who had spent the previous 15 years in a lunatic asylum in Bristol.

Lord and Lady Mount Cashell were the parents of a son of a son and five daughters. Their only son, Richard Charles More Smyth (1859-1888), was killed at the age of 28 while playing polo in India. His infant son, Claude Stephen William Richard More Smyth (1887-1890), born just weeks earlier, became known as Lord Kilworth when his father succeeded to the earldom, but died just six weeks before his third birthday. Father and son are both remembered in plaques on the west wall, beside the plaque commemorating Princess Penelope on the north wall.

Lady Mount Cashell died in 1892, and her husband, who had changed his name legally to Charles William More in 18889, became engaged to Lady Cowan, the widow of Sir Edward Cowan (1840-1890), a whisky distiller, chairman of the Ulster Bank and former Mayor of Belfast. However, Lord Mount Cashell jilted her on their planned wedding day. It is said she was standing at the door of Saint Anne’s Church, Dawson Street, Dublin, when she received his letter telling her he could not marry her.

Then, a year later, in 1893, Lord Mount Cashell married Florence Cornelius, described dismissively as ‘a peasant girl’ from Queen’s County: he was 67 and she was 26.

When Charlotte died in 1892, once again there was no surviving son to inherit the estate, and Ballynatray and the Moore Park estate near Kilworth, Co Cork, passed to her eldest surviving daughter, Lady Harriette Gertrude Isabella Moore (1849-1904). She had married Colonel John Henry Graham Holroyd in 1872, and they changed their family name to Holroyd-Smyth.

Horace Holroyd-Smyth bequeathed Ballynatray in 1969 to his cousins, the Ponsonby family of Kilcooley Abbey, Co Tipperary, who sold the house to Serge and Henriette Boissevain in the late 1990s. They carried out a major restoration programme and Ballynatray later became the home of Henry Gwyn-Jones. The house and estate are now a wedding venue.

But the one wedding that never took place there was one of the many weddings of Princess Penelope, the woman from Waterford who might have been Queen of Greece or Queen of Belgium had history taken a different twist or turn.

Two memorials tell of two more tragic deaths in the Smyth and Smyth-Moore family (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2021)