Daily prayers during the 12 Days of Christmas: 4, 28 December 2023

‘Four colly birds on the Fourth Day of Christmas … the four evangelists depicted in the the East Window in Roscarberrry Cathedral (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

Today is the Fourth Day of Christmas and the Church Calendar today remembers the Holy Innocents (28 December 2023).

Before today begins, I am taking some time for reading, reflection and prayer.

My reflections each morning during the ‘12 Days of Christmas’ are following this pattern:

1, A reflection on a verse from the popular Christmas song ‘The Twelve Days of Christmas’;

2, the Gospel reading of the day;

3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary.

‘Four colly birds’ … symbols of the Four Evangelists in a window in Saint Mary’s Church, Badby, Northamptonshire (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2023)

The 12 Days of Christmas: 4, Four Colly Birds:

The Fourth Day of Christmas, 28 December, is the Feast of the Holy Innocents in the Book of Common Prayer, and is known in some places as ‘Childermass.’ The story of the Holy Innocents is one of the most poignant stories in the Bible: ‘Rachel weeping for her children … because they are no more.’

I had lost my innocence by late teens: by 19, I was trying to break out as a freelance journalist in England with the Lichfield Mercury, wondering whether I should give up the ‘day job’ as a trainee chartered surveyor; by the age of 20, I had my own flat in Wexford, where I was working as a staff journalist with the Wexford People. I remember one Christmas in Wexford in those days of the 1970s how the late Maurice Sinnott suggested that this day, the Feast of the Holy Innocents, would be a good day for the Churches to recall the victims of war, particularly the children who had been killed by the Hiroshima bomb.

Holy Innocents’ Day is being marked later today by the Anglican Pacifist Fellowship with an online gathering. Along with links to what is happening in 2023, the gathering will also look at some of the wider issues, including an input from Canada about the victims of residential schools and child refugees around so many conflicts. Malcolm Guite will be reading his sonnet, ‘Refugee’, and there will be a video update from Sudan following attacks on 19 December.

Oscar Schindler famously said: ‘Whoever saves the life of one saves the entire world.’ He was referring to a well-known teaching in the Talmud: ‘Whoever destroys a soul, it is considered as if he destroyed an entire world. And whoever saves a life, it is considered as if he saved an entire world’ (Jerusalem Talmud, Sanhedrin 4: 8, 37a). It is a teaching that has inspired the inscription on medals awarded to the Righteous Gentiles, those brave people who risked their own lives to save the lives of Jews during the Holocaust: ‘Whoever saves a single soul, it is as if he had saved the whole world.’

The obvious deduction from that, of course, is: Whoever destroys the innocence of one child, it is as if he has destroyed the innocence of all children, as if he has destroyed the childhood of everyone. It is for this reason that Jesus reserves his most severe and most frightening warning and rebuke for those sort of people (see Mark 9: 42; Luke 17: 2).

This is an appropriate day to remember those children whose innocence has been destroyed this year by war in Gaza, Israel and Palestine, in Ukraine and Russia, in forgotten wars, by poverty and by the cruelty of governments who think refugees, asylum seekers and their children are mere commodities to be exported to Rwanda or locked away in decrepit and inhumane accommodation.

But this is a good day too to give thanks for the children in our lives, whether in our own families or in the larger family of the Church. And it is a good day to revive the ancient custom of parents blessing their children at the end of the day as part of their nightly prayers.

The fourth verse of the traditional song ‘The Twelve Days of Christmas’ is:

On the fourth day of Christmas, my true love gave to me …
four colly birds,
three French hens,
two turtle doves
and a partridge in a pear tree.

Colly birds were blackbirds, but the Christian interpretation of this song often describes them as ‘calling birds’ so that they come to represent the Four Evangelists or the Four Gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.

‘The Killing of the Holy Innocents’ by Giotto (ca 1304-1306) in the Scrovegni Chapel, Padua … 28 December is marked in the Church Calendar as the feast day of the Holy Innocents (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Matthew 2: 13-18 (NRSVA):

13 Now after they had left, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and said, ‘Get up, take the child and his mother, and flee to Egypt, and remain there until I tell you; for Herod is about to search for the child, to destroy him.’ 14 Then Joseph got up, took the child and his mother by night, and went to Egypt, 15 and remained there until the death of Herod. This was to fulfil what had been spoken by the Lord through the prophet, ‘Out of Egypt I have called my son.’

16 When Herod saw that he had been tricked by the wise men, he was infuriated, and he sent and killed all the children in and around Bethlehem who were two years old or under, according to the time that he had learned from the wise men. 17 Then was fulfilled what had been spoken through the prophet Jeremiah:

18 ‘A voice was heard in Ramah,
wailing and loud lamentation,
Rachel weeping for her children;
she refused to be consoled, because they are no more.’

John Hutton’s ‘Screen of Saints and Angels’ at the entrance to Coventry Cathedral ... the Coventry Carol, dating from the 16th century, recalls the story of the slaughter of the Holy Innocents (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Prayers (Thursday 28 December 2023, the Holy Innocents):

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 ‘Love at Advent and Christmas.’ This theme was introduced on Sunday.

The USPG Prayer Diary today (28 December 2023, The Holy Innocents) invites us to pray in these words:

On this day, may we cherish our young people and provide them with the guidance and knowledge to navigate our complex and challenging world.

The Collect:

Heavenly Father,
whose children suffered at the hands of Herod,
though they had done no wrong:
by the suffering of your Son
and by the innocence of our lives
frustrate all evil designs
and establish your reign of justice and peace;
through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

The Post-Communion Prayer:

Lord Jesus Christ,
in your humility you have stooped to share our human life
with the most defenceless of your children:
may we who have received these gifts of your passion
rejoice in celebrating the witness of the Holy Innocents
to the purity of your sacrifice
made once for all upon the cross;
for you are alive and reign, now and for ever.

Yesterday’s Reflection

Continued Tomorrow

Images of the Four Evangelists on the carved altar in Church of the Assumption, Moyvane, Co Kerry (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

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

Wexford, Dublin and Kerry vie for celebrating Thomas Moore’s ancestry

The Thomas Moore Tavern on Cornmarket, Wexford … the home of Thomas Moore’s mother, Anastasia Codd, until weeks before the poet was born (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2022)

Patrick Comerford

Who has the greatest claim to Tom Moore: Wexford or Dublin? Or even Co Kerry?

Sometimes, the ‘Meeting of the Waters’ in Avoca seems to claim Tom Moore all to himself, although he has no family connections with Co Wicklow.

After recent visits to Moore’s ancestral home in Wexford, his birthplace on Aungier Street in Dublin, and the Moore family graves in the ruins of Saint Kevin’s Church on Camden Row, Dublin, I am still wondering whether Wexford or Dublin – or even some unknown place in Co Kerry – has the first and foremost claim on the great poet and songwriter.

Two pubs compete for recognition as his ancestral home: the Thomas Moore Tavern on Cornmarket, Wexford; and the Thomas Moore Inn at 12 Aungier Street, Dublin.

Of course, Thomas Moore was born in Dublin on 28 May 1779, but he had no Dublin ancestry. His father, John Moore (1741-1825), was from Co Kerry, but there is no record of where in Co Kerry; his mother Anastasia Codd was from Cornmarket in Wexford Town, and she only moved to Dublin weeks before her son’s birth.

The bard’s father was born in Co Kerry, but where was he from?

A report in the Kerry People in 1904 recalled how Moore visited Ardfert in 1823, travelling in a party that included the Marquis and Marchioness of Lansdowne. Young and old flocked to see them when they arrived in Ardfert.

Michael Pierce, a local classical teacher in Ardfert, was the guide for the party. They visited Ardfert Cathedral and the graveyard, and also visited the ruined Franciscan Abbey.

The group travelled to Lixnaw and Listowel on the following day, when it was said Moore’s father was from the neighbourhood of Listowel, ‘where a few descendants of the family still reside.’ In Listowel, Moore was met his first cousin, Garrett Moore, a well-to-do farmer who introduced his three sons.

When the Listowel writer Bryan MacMahon (1909-1998) delivered a lecture delivered in 1952 to mark the centenary of Moore’s death, he claimed that Moore’s father came from Newtown Sandes, or Moyvane, and this detail has been narrowed down in more recent times to the townland of Cloonbrane – although it is open to debate whether Cloonbrane might be described as ‘the neighbourhood of Listowel.’

The Thomas Moore Tavern and still claims to be one of Wexford’s oldest bar (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2022)

But, while the poet knew little about his paternal ancestors, we can be more certain of his maternal links with Wexford and his family connections with the town.

His father John Moore married the considerably younger Wexford-born Anastasia Codd in 1778. She was the daughter of Thomas Codd, known as ‘Honest Tom Codd,’ of Cornmarket, Wexford. Thomas Codd lived in a three-storey house in Cornmarket in the centre of Wexford. From there he ran a grocery and spirits business. His future grandson Thomas Moore would refer to his grandfather as ‘my gouty old grandfather Tom Codd,’ and Anastasia Jane Codd was born in this house in 1764.

However, we know little about how John Moore met Anastasia, who was 23 years his junior. They married and lived above the shop in Cornmarket for some time before moving in 1779 to then fashionable Aungier Street in Dublin.

In Dublin, John Moore opened a grocery shop of his own on the ground floor in Aungier Street and he was also a barrack master in Islandbridge.

Thomas Moore, who was named after his Wexford grandfather, was born above the shop in Aungier Street in 1779, just weeks after his parents moved from Wexford to Dublin. This means Anastasia was only 15 when Thomas was born and John was 38.

Thomas>Moore’s birthplace at 12 Aungier Street, Dublin, is now the Thomas Moore Inn (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2022)

Thomas Moore studied at Trinity College Dublin, where he was a friend of Robert Emmet. He graduated in 1799 and moved to London to study law.

A prolific writer, poet, singer and balladeer, Moore set his poems to ancient Irish melodies. They later became known collectively as ‘Moore’s Melodies’. His works were hugely popular in Britain and Ireland and across Europe and America. They included ‘The Minstrel Boy,’ ‘The Last Rose of Summer,’ ‘The Harp That Once Through Tara’s Halls,’ ‘The Meeting of the Waters’ and ‘Oft in the Stilly Night.’ He became a close friend of the poets Byron and Shelley and .had many friends in inner circles of political life in England.

When he was on the stage in Kilkenny regularly in 1808-1810, Moore met the English actress Bessy Dyke, and they were married in Saint Martin in the Fields in London in 1811. They moved to Wiltshire in 1818 and went on to have five children.

Moore’s visit to his ancestral home in Wexford in 1835 seems to have been more successful than his visit to Co Kerry over a decade earlier, in 1823.

The grave of the Moore Family, the family of the poet songwriter Thomas Moore, in Saint Kevin’s churchyard, near Wexford Street, Dublin (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2022)

When Moore came to Wexford on 17 September 1835, he visited his mother's former home in Cornmarket. He also visited his friend Thomas Boyse at his recently completed Bannow House in Grange. On his visit he planted a myrtle tree in the grounds of the Presentation Convent where he played the organ and sang some of his lyrics.

Nicky Rossiter, in his book Wexford – Ireland in Old Photographs, notes how Moore avoided the bustle of the inn by staying at a private house of a Mr N Sparrow in the Bullring that his friend Boyse had sometimes used as lodgings. There he received visitors including the Mayor, a lawyer named Cooper who was an old friend of the family, a musician named PF White, and the editors of the ‘two liberal Wexford newspapers,’ Mr Greene and Mr Devereux.

John Moore was described as a former barrack master of Islandbridge, Co Dublin, when he died on 17 December 1825 aged 84; Anastasia (Codd) Moore died on 8 May 1832 aged 58 or 68; they were buried in nearby Saint Kevin’s Churchyard on Camden Row, off Wexford Street, Dublin.

The family gravestone in Saint Kevin’s churchyard records Moore’s parents and refers to six other children who died young and his sister Helen, who died 18 February 1846, ‘deeply mourned by her brother Thomas Moore, the bard of his much beloved country – Ireland.’

The e plaqueon the the house in Cornmarket, Wexford, where Anastasia Codd was born (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2022)

A cut-limestone plaque was erected in 1864 on the first floor of the house in Cornmarket where Anastasia Codd was born to mark the 100th anniversary of her birth.

The inscription reads:

‘In this house was born and lived to within a few weeks of the birth of her illustrious son Anastasia Codd, the wife of John Moore, and mother of the poet Thomas Moore, and to this house, on the 26 August 1836, came the poet in the zenith of his imperishable fame, to render homage to the memory of the mother he venerated and loved. These are his words, ‘one of the noblest-minded as well as most warm-hearted of all God’s creatures was born under that lowly roof.’

‘Erected Dec 27th 1864, John Greene, JP, Mayor of Wexford.

‘Erected by the Uí Ceinnsealaigh Historical Society May 16th 1926, to replace original tablet damaged by weathering.’

Thomas Moore and his wife Bessy (Dyke) were predeceased by all five of their children. This took its toll on Moore’s health and he eventually fell into senile dementia when he was 69 and died on 25 February 1852 aged 72. He is buried in the churchyard of Saint Nicholas’ Church, close to Sloperton Cottage, his country retreat at Bromham in Wiltshire for 35 years. Bessy died at Sloperton Cottage on 4 September 1865.

Because Moore’s children all died in his own lifetime, he had no direct descendants to clarify any recollections of his family origins in Co Kerry. On the other hand, the house where his mother was born and where his parents once lived has survived, and when I lived in Wexford it was known as Molly Mythen’s.

Thomas Moore’s birthplace in Aungier Street is now known as the Thomas Moore Inn. However, this hardly qualifies as an ancestral home. Nor has an ancestral home been identified in Co Kerry either. So, this honour must fall to the house in Wexford where his mother lived even in the months she was pregnant.

The bar on Cornmarket, in the heart of Wexford Town, has been restored in recent years as the Thomas Moore Tavern and still claims to be one of Wexford’s oldest bars.

The middle house is the birthplace of Anastasia Codd in Cornmarket and was known as Molly Mythen’s from the late 19th century (Photograph: Famous Wexford People in History)

Two colourful curates in Tarbert and Ballylongford: 2, Alexander Hanlon, The O’Hanlon

The church ruins in Ballylongford, Co Kerry … the Revd Alexander Hanlon worked in the parish throughout the Great Famine in the 1840s (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

I have been the priest-in-charge of the Rathkeale and Kilnaughtin Group of Parishes since January 2017, which includes a large part of North Kerry, from Tarbert and Ballylongford to Ballybunion, to Listowel and Moyvane or Newtownsandes.

Officially, the name of Tarbert parish is Kilnaughtin, recalling the older church to west of Tarbert. So, there is a deeply-embedded sense of history and continuity in ministry here in Saint Brendan’s.

The list of my predecessors in this group of parishes defy the stereotypical images of Church of Ireland clergy. We are not all like the plummy caricatures of ‘the more-tea-vicars’ found on television dramas. The variety of backgrounds of my predecessors shows what a mixture we are, not only in the Church of Ireland, but throughout all society in Ireland. Each one of us is a beautiful part of the mosaic that goes to make up Irish identity, and we need every colour and tincture, every shade and hue, to make that picture complete.

I have already been talking about one of my curious, indeed eccentric, predecessors, the Revd Sir William Augustus Wolseley (1865-1950), who was the curate here for almost 20 years, from 1888 until 1906, and later in life, quite unexpectedly, inherited a family title.

But, perhaps, the most curious title claimed by any of the clergy in this parish was the title of ‘The O’Hanlon,’ an ancient title for the head of a Gaelic Irish clan. It is even more intriguing that this title was claimed by too by one of near-contemporaries, whose time in this diocese almost overlapped. Yet, these two priests seem to have had no close ties of kinship.

The Revd Dr Alexander Patrick Hanlon (1814-1898), who called himself ‘The O’Hanlon,’ was born at Miltown Malbay, Co Clare, the son of Patrick Hanlon, a local Roman Catholic farmer.

Hanlon may have become a member of the Church of Ireland through contact with the Dingle mission, although I am not quite sure about these details. In any case, he would have been seen as a ‘mature student’ when he entered Trinity College Dublin late in 1839 at the age of 23, and graduated BA in 1844. He later studied for ordination and was ordained deacon in 1846 by the Bishop of Killaloe for the Diocese of Ardfert, and priest in 1847.

He was first a curate in 1846-1848 in Murhir, 4.5 miles south of Tarbert, close to border of Co Kerry and Co Limerick, making him one of my predecessors in this parish. The main town today in what was Murhir parish is Moyvane or Newtownsandes. Hanlon seems to have lived in Ballylongford, and today Murhir and Ballylongford are part of the Tarbert group of parishes within the Rathkeale and Kilnaughtin Group of Parishes.

During his time in this parish, he was praised for his ‘unremitting’ and ‘constant’ work with local people in their suffering during the Great Famine in the 1840s and for his ‘genuine charity.’

He freely distributed milk, bread and medicine, working with orphans and the elderly, and it was said: ‘ Not a house in which fever is to be found (and they are the greater in number), but he visits in person.’

Moyvane was at the heart of the Revd Alexander Hanlon’s parish on the Kerry/Limerick border (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

After his time in Ballylongford, Moyvane and Tarbert, Hanlon moved on to parish ministry in Co Meath (1848-1849), Co Tyrone (1849-1851), Mountshannon on the shores of Lough Derg, Co Clare (1851-1871), Co Waterford (1872-1875) and Co Longford (1872-1875).

At one time, it seems, he was considering an appointment back in Co Kerry, in Dingle, during a vacancy in the parish 1864. He was visiting the parish when his wife suffered an epileptic attack while swimming in Dingle Harbour with their young children. She died soon after, and she was buried in Saint James’s churchyard in Dingle.

Hanlon stayed on in Mounshannon in Co Clare for another few years, and he received the degrees LL.B. and LL.D. from Trinity College Dublin in 1865. In a speech in 1867, he defended his work with the Irish Society and the Irish Church Missions, but he was always at pains to deny he had any antagonism towards the Roman Catholic church or his Catholic family, friends and neighbours.

He married a second time in 1871; his second wife Rebecca Parker was from Ballhalmet House, Tallow, Co Waterford. A year later, he moved from Mountshannon to Tallow Parish in west Waterford, and he remained there until he became deputy secretary of the Irish Society in 1879. He was feted at a garden party in Dugort organised by the Achill Mission in 1889.

Hanlon died at Ballyhalmet House, Tallow, Co Waterford, at the age of 84 on 10 December 1898, and was buried inside the ruins of Kilwatermoy Church.

It is curious that his younger, near contemporary, the Revd William Hanlon (1849-1916), who also worked in Church of Ireland ministry in these dioceses, also claimed the title of The O’Hanlon. He was a doctor’s son from Portarlington, and he was ordained deacon in 1874 and priest in 1875.

He came to this diocese, the Diocese of Ardfert and Aghadoe, when he became the Rector of Dromtariffe in 1877. Although Dromtariffe is in Co Cork, halfway between Millstreet and Kanturk, at the time it was in the Church of Ireland Diocese of Ardfert, and in the Catholic church it remains in the Diocese of Kerry.

Hanlon’s father died on 6 July 1890, and a year later, in 1907, Hanlon assumed the title of ‘The O’Hanlon’ by deed registered in the Irish Court of Chancery. Along with the title of ‘The O’Hanlon,’ he also claimed to be chief of the Sept of O’Hanlon and Hereditary Standard Bearer of the King in Ulster.

In the bizarre pedigree he compiled in support of these claims, Hanlon said his lineal ancestor had given Saint Patrick the site in Armagh for his first cathedral.

Hanlon, who was also an honorary chaplain to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, died at Innishannon Rectory on 26 April 1916, two days after the Easter Rising broke out in Dublin.

That is all sounds fantastic. Except, for the minor detail that the last person before either of these two 19th century priests to have been accepted generally as the head of the family was the 17th century rapparee, Redmond O’Hanlon, also known as ‘the Count.’

After the restoration of King Charles II in 1660, Redmond O’Hanlon returned to Ireland and installed himself as clan chief over the old O’Hanlon territories, styling himself ‘the Count.’ He was declared an outlaw in 1674 and became a rapparee around Newry and Carlingford Lough, and was described as being ‘pre-eminent among all the Tories in Ulster.’

Redmond O’Hanlon was killed on the night of 25 April 1681 in the hills in Co Down. His head was severed and was put on display at Downpatrick prison.

After Redmond O’Hanlon’s death, other members of the O’Hanlon family and their circle were hunted down as ‘Tories,’ and his surviving family fled to Co Donegal. Local lore says his son, also Redmond O’Hanlon, exhumed his body, and reburied him in the Church of Ireland churchyard at Conwal Parish in Letterkenny … which is a long way from Ballylongford and Moyvane and a long way from Portarlington.

Buildings of the former Achill Mission in Dugort … Alexander Hanlon was feted by the Achill Mission at a tea party in Dugort in 1889 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

These notes were prepared to accompany the second of two stories recorded at Saint Brendan’s Church, Kilnaughtin (Tarbert), Co Kerry, as part of ‘Poetry With Paddy, Summertime on the Steeple Road’:

Two priests in one diocese, and they both claimed to be chiefs of the O’Hanlon clan

The church ruins in Ballylongford, Co Kerry … the Revd Alexander Hanlon worked in the parish throughout the Great Famine in the 1840s (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

I was writing this morning about some of the unusual titles and exotic genealogical claims of some of the priests and bishops in the Diocese of Limerick, Killaloe and Ardfert over the centuries.

But, perhaps, the most curious title claimed by any of the clergy in this diocese was the title of ‘The O’Hanlon,’ an ancient title for the head of a Gaelic Irish clan. It is even more intriguing that this title was claimed by two near-contemporaries, whose time in the diocese almost over-lapped, yet they seem to have no close ties of kinship with each other.

The Revd Dr Alexander Patrick Hanlon (1814-1898), who called himself ‘The O’Hanlon,’ was born at Miltown Malbay, Co Clare, the son of Patrick Hanlon, a local Roman Catholic farmer.

Hanlon entered Trinity College Dublin late in 1839 at the age of 23, and graduated BA in 1844. He later studied for ordination and was ordained deacon in 1846 by the Bishop of Killaloe for the Diocese of Ardfert, and priest in 1847.

He was first a curate in 1846-1848 in Murhir, 4.5 miles south of Tarbert, close to border of Co Kerry and Co Limerick, making him one of my predecessors. The main town in the parish today is Moyvane or Newtownsandes. He seems to have lived in Ballylongford, and today Murhir and Ballylongford are part of the Kilnaughtin Parish within the Rathkeale and Kilnaughtin Group of Parishes.

During his time in this parish, he was praised for his ‘unremitting’ and ‘constant’ work with local people suffering during the Famine and for his ‘genuine charity.’ He freely distributed milk, bread and medicine, working with orphans and the elderly, and it was said: ‘ Not a house in which fever is to be found (and they are the greater in number), but he visits in person.’

Moyvane was at the heart of the Revd Alexander Hanlon’s parish on the Kerry/Limerick border (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

He later served in parish ministry at Kingscourt, Co Meath (1848-1849), Altedesert, Co Tyrone, in the Diocese of Armagh (1849-1851), Saint Caimin’s (Iniscaltra), Mountshannon, Co Clare, in the Diocese of Killaloe (1851-1871), Tallow in the Diocese of Waterford and Lismore (1872-1875) and Kilashee and Ballymackcormick, Co Longford, in the Diocese of Ardagh (1872-1875).

He seems to have been considering an appointment to Dingle parish during the vacancy in 1864 and was visiting the parish when his wife suffered an epileptic attack while bathing in Dingle Harbour with their young children. She died soon after, and she was buried in Saint James’s churchyard in Dingle.

Hanlon stayed on in Mounshannon for another few years, and he received the degrees LL.B. and LL.D. from Trinity College Dublin in 1865. In a speech in 1867, he defended his work with the Irish Society and the Irish Church Missions, but he was at pains to deny he had any antagonism towards Roman Catholicism.

He married a second time in 1871; his second wife Rebecca Parker was a daughter of James Parker of Ballhalmet House, Tallow, Co Waterford. A year later, he moved from Mountshannon to Tallow Parish in west Waterford, and remained there until he became deputy secretary of the Irish Society in 1879. He was feted at a garden party in Dugort organised by the Achill Mission in 1889.

He died at Ballyhalmet House, Tallow, Co Waterford, at the age of 84 on 10 December 1898, and was buried inside the ruins of Kilwatermoy Church.

The French Church, Portarlington … William Hanlon was born in Portarlington in 1849 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

His younger, near contemporary, the Revd William Hanlon (1849-1916), also worked in ministry in these dioceses and also claimed the title of The O’Hanlon. He was the only son of Dr Michael William Hanlon (1810-1890) of Portarlington, and a grandson of Captain William Hanlon of Mountmellick.

He was born on 20 August 1849. He studied at Trinity College Dublin (BA 1873, MA 1876), and was ordained deacon in 1874 and priest in 1875 by the Bishop of Cork. He was curate in Youghal, Co Cork (1874-1877) before becoming Rector of Dromtariffe, Co Cork (1877-1879).

Dromtariffe parish is halfway between Millstreet and Kanturk in north-west Co Cork, but at the time it was in the Diocese of Ardfert, and in the Roman Catholic church it remains in the Diocese of Kerry.

In 1877, Hanlon married Elizabeth Letitia Elrington, daughter of the Vicar of Swords, and granddaughter of the Revd PW Drew, Rector of Youghal, and he moved back from Ardfert diocese to the Diocese of Cork and Cloyne in 1879 when he became Rector of Innishannon, Co Cork (1879-1916). His father died at Hanlon’s rectory in Co Cork on 6 July 1890.

In 1907, Hanlon assumed the title of ‘The O’Hanlon’ by deed registered in the Irish Court of Chancery. Along with the title of ‘The O’Hanlon,’ he also claimed to be chief of the Sept of O’Hanlon and Hereditary Standard Bearer of the King in Ulster. In the pedigree he compiled in support of his claims, Hanlon said his lineal ancestor had given Saint Patrick the site in Armagh for his first cathedral.

Hanlon claimed this ancestry down through 1244, when Henry III invoked the help of the O’Hanlons and other Ulster clan chieftains against the Scots. From there, Hanlon claimed descent from Patrick O’Hanlon, lived in Co Louth, son of Phelim O’Hanlon, and who was named as an outlaw in 1660. Patrick O’Hanlon’s son Shane settled in Portarlington at the end of the 17th century, and became a member of the Church of Ireland. His son Michael held land in the Portarlington area, and his only son was said to be Captain William Hanlon, the father of Dr Michael Hanlon.

Hanlon, who was also an honorary chaplain to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, died at Innishannon Rectory on 26 April 1916, two days after the Easter Rising broke out in Dublin.

Redmond O’Hanlon was said to have escaped by swimming across Carlingford Lough (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

This all sounds fantastic. Except, for the minor detail that the last person before either of these two 19th century priests to have been accepted generally as the head of the family was the rapparee Redmond O’Hanlon, also known as ‘the Count.’

Redmond O’Hanlon was probably born in Poyntzpass, Co Armagh, ca 1640, but local lore says he was born at the foot of Slieve Gullion, a legend that helped to link him the mythical hero Cu Chulainn.

Redmond’s father, Loughlin O’Hanlon, was the heir to the chiefdom of the O’Hanlon clan. Eochaidh O’Hanlon had ruled all the land from Newry to Armagh in 1599, but his son sided with Sir Cahir O’Dochertaigh in a doomed rebellion. Eochaidh Og was exiled to Sweden, while most of the O’Hanlon lands were confiscated and given to Scottish and English planters. The O’Hanlons lost their castle at Tandragee in 1611 when it was given to Oliver St John.

Some of their land was returned to the O’Hanlon family and Redmond O’Hanlon was educated at ‘an English school.’ However, it is said, he fled to France after the Irish Confederation was defeated in 1652 and joined the French army.

After the Caroline Restoration, Redmond O’Hanlon returned to Ireland and installed himself as clan chief over the old O’Hanlon territories, styling himself ‘the Count.’ He was declared an outlaw in 1674 and became a rapparee around Newry and Carlingford Lough, and was described as being ‘pre-eminent among all the Tories in Ulster.’

In one incident in 1679, Henry St John and the Revd Lawrence Power of Tandragee were attacked by a group of bandits, and St John was shot dead. O’Hanlon was blamed for the attack, and a reward of £200 was offered for his apprehension.

Art McCall O’Hanlon, Redmond’s foster brother, shot Redmond O’Hanlon in an exchange on the night of 25 April 1681 at a camp in the hills above Eight Mile Bridge in Co Down. By the time soldiers arrived to retrieve his body, Willie O’Shiels had severed Redmond’s head and fled. His head was put on display at Downpatrick prison.

After Redmond O’Hanlon’s death, other members of the O’Hanlon family and their circle were hunted down as ‘Tories,’ and his surviving family fled to Co Donegal. Redmond O’Hanlon was originally buried at Ballynabeck, near Tandragee, but local stories say his son, also Redmond O’Hanlon, exhumed his body, and reburied him in the Church of Ireland churchyard at Conwal Parish in Letterkenny … which is a long way from Portarlington and Drumtarifffe, and a long way from Miltown Malbay and Moyvane.

As for Tandragee Castle, it was rebuilt by the Montagu family, Dukes of Manchester, in 1836, and remained in their family until 1939. Today, it is a popular tourist attraction known as ‘Tayto Castle.’

Buildings of the former Achill Mission in Dugort … Alexander Hanlon was feted by the Achill Mission at a tea party in Dugort in 1889 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

‘Whoever wishes to become great among you must be your servant’

‘Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth? … Who determined its measurements – surely you know!’ (Job 38: 4-5) … a window in the parish church in Moyvane, Co Kerry (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2018)

Patrick Comerford

Sunday 21 October 2018,

The Twenty-first Sunday after Trinity (Trinity XXI), Proper 24.

11.30 a.m.: the Parish Eucharist (Holy Communion 2), Saint Brendan’s Church, Kilnaughtin, Tarbert, Co Kerry.

Readings: Job 38: 1-7; Psalm 104: 1-10, 26, 37c; Hebrews 5: 1-10; Mark 10: 35-45.

May I speak to you in the name of God, + Father, Son and Holy Spirit, Amen.

We all come to God with our own bundle of questions, our own requests, our own expectations. And the answers sometimes take us aback not only in content but also in form and experience.

Job has had deep and searching questions. But when the response comes Job’s experience is very unlike that of Elijah who finds the Lord is not in the wind, in the earthquake, or in the fire, but in the ‘still small voice’ (I Kings 19: 11-13).

Job answers God out of the whirlwind, and he puts very real questions to God. Where Job hears the voice of God has many resonances with the presence of God found in the Psalm.

In our Epistle reading, we are also reminded that the saving presence of God can be found too in suffering and sacrifice … God who responds gently to the ignorant and wayward through the suffering and sacrifice of Christ who is the great high priest.

Do we understand the place of suffering and challenge in being Christians, in being disciples? Certainly, James and John show little understanding about what lies before them as disciples as they come to Christ with their own questions and expectations. But once again, we find how God answers our questions in ways that we might never expect.

Earlier in Saint Mark’s Gospel (Mark 9: 33-34), the disciples argued about which of them is the greatest. Now two members of the inner circle ask a favour of Jesus: they seek positions of special dignity at the heavenly banquet at the end of time (verse 37).

Now in this morning’s Gospel reading (Mark 10: 35-45), unlike some other Gospel accounts, Saint Mark dismisses the idea that these ‘Sons of Thunder’ needed their mother’s help to ask for a special place for them. According to Saint Mark, these two go straight to Jesus themselves. They have a special request, a special demand, a special favour to ask for.

They want one to sit at his right hand, and the other at his left hand.

In my own way, I can identify with James and John, the sons of Zebedee. Whenever I read this Gospel story, I think back to my childhood days. I remember all those preparations for football matches, or beach cricket, as we lined up to pick sides. And how we all wanted to be among the first to be picked for a team.

Everyone wanted to be picked first, everyone wanted to line up there beside one of the two captains, no-one wanted to be picked last, even when there were enough places for everyone to get a game.

I can still see us: 9- or 10-year-old boys, jumping up and down on the grass, waving our hands or pointing at our chests, and pleading: ‘Me, me, please pick me, I’m your friend.’

‘Me, me, please pick me.’

And then, when we were picked, oh how we wanted the glory. Slow at passing the ball, in case I might not score the goal. Better to lose that ball in a tackle than to pass it to someone else and risk that someone else scoring the opening goal or, worse still, the winning goal.

And that is who James and John remind me of: wanting to be picked first, wanting to be the first to line up beside the team captain, being glory seekers rather than team players.

No wonder the other ten were upset when they heard this. But they were upset, not because they wanted to take on the servant model of priesthood and ministry. They were upset not because James and John had not yet grasped the point of it all. They were upset because they might have been counted out, because they might have missed out being on the first team, on the first XI.

And their upset actually turns to anger.

Did James and John think that opting to follow Jesus, becoming disciples, was a good career move?

And what did James and John want, really, really want?

They wanted that one would sit on Christ’s right hand and the other on his left.

Now, even that might not have been too bad an ambition. The man who stood at the right hand of the Emperor in the Byzantine court was the Emperor’s voice. What he said was the emperor’s word. And so, in the creed, when we declare our belief that Christ sits at the right hand of the Father, we mean not that there is some heavenly couch on which all three are seated, comfy and cosy, as if waiting to watch their favourite television sit-com.

When we say that Christ ‘is seated at the right hand of the Father,’ we mean that Christ is the Word of God. In some way, I suppose, this is what Andrei Rublev was trying to convey in his icon of the Visitation of Abraham, his icon of the Holy Trinity in the Old Testament.

In that icon, the Father and the Holy Spirit are seated to the right and left of the Son. Indeed, in that icon, Christ is wearing not the elaborate high-priestly stole of a bishop, but the simple stole of a deacon at the table.

For James and John to want to be seated at the right and left of Christ in his glory – not when they were sitting down to a snack, or travelling on the bus or the train, or even at the Last Supper, but in his glory (see verse 37) – they were expressing an ambition to take the place of, to replace God.

But to be like God means to take on Christ’s humility, as we are reminded in this morning’s reading from the Letter to the Hebrews (Hebrews 5: 1-10).

We are made in the image and likeness of God, and then God asks us, invites us, to return to that image and likeness when Christ comes in our image and likeness – not as a Byzantine emperor or a Roman tyrant, but just as one of us.

Wanting to be first, wanting to be noticed by those who have power and privilege, is not a model for discipleship or for ministry.

The word liturgy (λειτουργία, leitourgía) means the work for and of the people. But in its truest sense this is not the work of nice people, good people, people like us, but in its crudest use in Greek the work of the many, the service of riff-raff, even the beggars.

I was reminded in Crete a few years ago that The Beggars’ Opera translates into Greek as Η λαϊκή όπερα (laikí ópera), the work of the laity. The true laity are the needy with outstretched arms.

The liturgy of the Church only becomes a true service when we also serve the oppressed, when we become God’s ears that hear the cry of the poor, and act on that, when through the Church Christ hears that cry of the bruised and broken.

People who stretch out their hands in begging stretch out their hands just as we do when we beg to receive Christ in the Holy Communion, the Eucharist.

And the Eucharist, the Liturgy, become true sacrament when it becomes, when we make it, a taste, a sign, a token of the promise of, a thirsting for the Kingdom of God.

To do this great task, as the ambitious pair in this Gospel reading, James and John, are reminded, we must first be deacons, servants, waiters at the table to meet the needs of the needy outside the doors of the church, in the streets and the laneways.

To be a great Church, we must be a Servant Church, ‘For the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for [the] many’ (Mark 10: 45).

All of us in the Church as disciples are called first and foremost to serve. And when we serve the people, when in obedience we meet them in their suffering, then we can hear their cries and their prayers and truly serve them in the services of the Church and in the Divine Liturgy (see Hebrews 5: 1-10).

Christ asks us that in this Gospel reading. Are we willing to drink the cup that he drinks, or to be baptised with his baptism (see verses 38 and 40)?

Of course, James and John were willing to drink that cup. See how this hot-headed pair, the sons of Zebedee, went on to serve the community of the baptised and the community that shared in the one bread and the one cup, the community that is the Church, the community that in baptism and in the shared meal is the Body of Christ.

Saint James – not Saint James the Brother of the Lord, whom we remember on Tuesday (23 October 2018), but Saint James the Great – was executed by the sword and became one of the first Christian martyrs (see Acts 12: 1-12).

Saint John too lived a life of service to the Church: he was exiled on Patmos, and although he died in old age in Ephesus, there were numerous attempts to make him a martyr. And, of course, he gave his name to in the Johannine writings in the New Testament: the Fourth Gospel, three epistles and the Book of Revelation.

Martyrdom comes in many forms. In essence, the word martyr means witness. But the first step in martyrdom is dying to self, to self-ambition, to self-seeking, to self-serving. Our lives must be lives that are testimony or witness to your most cherished beliefs, testimony to Christ himself.

‘For the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many’ (Mark 10: 45).

And so, may all we think, say and do be to the praise, honour and glory of God, + Father, Son and Holy Spirit, Amen.

I was reminded in Rethymnon in Crete recently that ‘The Beggars’ Opera’ translates into Greek as Η λαϊκή όπερα, the work of the laity (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Mark 10: 35-45 (NRSV):

35 James and John, the sons of Zebedee, came forward to him and said to him, ‘Teacher, we want you to do for us whatever we ask of you.’ 36 And he said to them, ‘What is it you want me to do for you?’ 37 And they said to him, ‘Grant us to sit, one at your right hand and one at your left, in your glory.’ 38 But Jesus said to them, ‘You do not know what you are asking. Are you able to drink the cup that I drink, or be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with?’ 39 They replied, ‘We are able.’ Then Jesus said to them, ‘The cup that I drink you will drink; and with the baptism with which I am baptized, you will be baptized; 40 but to sit at my right hand or at my left is not mine to grant, but it is for those for whom it has been prepared.’

41 When the ten heard this, they began to be angry with James and John. 42 So Jesus called them and said to them, ‘You know that among the Gentiles those whom they recognize as their rulers lord it over them, and their great ones are tyrants over them. 43 But it is not so among you; but whoever wishes to become great among you must be your servant, 44 and whoever wishes to be first among you must be slave of all. 45 For the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many.’

In Andrei Rublev’s icon of the Holy Trinity, the Christ-figure is wearing a simple deacon’s stole, and is seated with the Father and the Holy Spirit to his left and to his right

Liturgical Colour: Green

The Collect:

Merciful Lord,
Grant to your faithful people pardon and peace,
that we may be cleansed from all our sins
and serve you with a quiet mind;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Post Communion Prayer:

Father of light,
in whom is no change or shadow of turning,
you give us every good and perfect gift
and have brought us to birth by your word of truth.
May we be a living sign of that kingdom,
where your whole creation will be made perfect
in Jesus Christ our Lord.

Hymns:

34, O worship the King (CD 2)
226, It is a thing most wonderful (CD 14)
366, Praise my soul, the king of heaven (CD 22)

Jesus said to them, ‘You do not know what you are asking. Are you able to drink the cup that I drink, or be baptized with the baptism that I am baptised with?’ (Mark 10: 38) … an icon of Christ in an antique shop in Thessaloniki (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

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

‘For the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve’

Jesus said to them, ‘You do not know what you are asking. Are you able to drink the cup that I drink, or be baptized with the baptism that I am baptised with?’ (Mark 10: 38) … an icon of Christ in an antique shop in Thessaloniki (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

Sunday 21 October 2018,

The Twenty-first Sunday after Trinity (Trinity XXI), Proper 24.

9.30 a.m.: Morning Prayer, Saint Mary’s Church, Askeaton, Co Limerick.

Readings: Job 38: 1-7; Psalm 104: 1-10, 26, 37c; Hebrews 5: 1-10; Mark 10: 35-45.

May I speak to you in the name of God, + Father, Son and Holy Spirit, Amen.

We all come to God with our own bundle of questions, our own requests, our own expectations. And the answers sometimes take us aback not only in content but also in form and experience.

Job has had deep and searching questions. But when the response comes Job’s experience is very unlike that of Elijah who finds the Lord is not in the wind, in the earthquake, or in the fire, but in the ‘still small voice’ (I Kings 19: 11-13).

Job answers God out of the whirlwind, and he puts very real questions to God. Where Job hears the voice of God has many resonances with the presence of God found in the Psalm.

In our Epistle reading, we are also reminded that the saving presence of God can be found too in suffering and sacrifice … God who responds gently to the ignorant and wayward through the suffering and sacrifice of Christ who is the great high priest.

Do we understand the place of suffering and challenge in being Christians, in being disciples? Certainly, James and John show little understanding about what lies before them as disciples as they come to Christ with their own questions and expectations. But once again, we find how God answers our questions in ways that we might never expect.

Earlier in Saint Mark’s Gospel (Mark 9: 33-34), the disciples argued about which of them is the greatest. Now two members of the inner circle ask a favour of Jesus: they seek positions of special dignity at the heavenly banquet at the end of time (verse 37).

Now in this morning’s Gospel reading (Mark 10: 35-45), unlike some other Gospel accounts, Saint Mark dismisses the idea that these ‘Sons of Thunder’ needed their mother’s help to ask for a special place for them. According to Saint Mark, these two go straight to Jesus themselves. They have a special request, a special demand, a special favour to ask for.

They want one to sit at his right hand, and the other at his left hand.

In my own way, I can identify with James and John, the sons of Zebedee. Whenever I read this Gospel story, I think back to my childhood days. I remember all those preparations for football matches, or beach cricket, as we lined up to pick sides. And how we all wanted to be among the first to be picked for a team.

Everyone wanted to be picked first, everyone wanted to line up there beside one of the two captains, no-one wanted to be picked last, even when there were enough places for everyone to get a game.

I can still see us: 9- or 10-year-old boys, jumping up and down on the grass, waving our hands or pointing at our chests, and pleading: ‘Me, me, please pick me, I’m your friend.’

‘Me, me, please pick me.’

And then, when we were picked, oh how we wanted the glory. Slow at passing the ball, in case I might not score the goal. Better to lose that ball in a tackle than to pass it to someone else and risk that someone else scoring the opening goal or, worse still, the winning goal.

And that is who James and John remind me of: wanting to be picked first, wanting to be the first to line up beside the team captain, being glory seekers rather than team players.

No wonder the other ten were upset when they heard this. But they were upset, not because they wanted to take on the servant model of priesthood and ministry. They were upset not because James and John had not yet grasped the point of it all. They were upset because they might have been counted out, because they might have missed out being on the first team, on the first XI.

And their upset actually turns to anger.

Did James and John think that opting to follow Jesus, becoming disciples, was a good career move?

And what did James and John want, really, really want?

They wanted that one would sit on Christ’s right hand and the other on his left.

Now, even that might not have been too bad an ambition. The man who stood at the right hand of the Emperor in the Byzantine court was the Emperor’s voice. What he said was the emperor’s word. And so, in the creed, when we declare our belief that Christ sits at the right hand of the Father, we mean not that there is some heavenly couch on which all three are seated, comfy and cosy, as if waiting to watch their favourite television sit-com.

When we say that Christ ‘is seated at the right hand of the Father,’ we mean that Christ is the Word of God. In some way, I suppose, this is what Andrei Rublev was trying to convey in his icon of the Visitation of Abraham, his icon of the Holy Trinity in the Old Testament.

In that icon, the Father and the Holy Spirit are seated to the right and left of the Son. Indeed, in that icon, Christ is wearing not the elaborate high-priestly stole of a bishop, but the simple stole of a deacon at the table.

For James and John to want to be seated at the right and left of Christ in his glory – not when they were sitting down to a snack, or travelling on the bus or the train, or even at the Last Supper, but in his glory (see verse 37) – they were expressing an ambition to take the place of, to replace God.

But to be like God means to take on Christ’s humility, as we are reminded in this morning’s reading from the Letter to the Hebrews (Hebrews 5: 1-10).

We are made in the image and likeness of God, and then God asks us, invites us, to return to that image and likeness when Christ comes in our image and likeness – not as a Byzantine emperor or a Roman tyrant, but just as one of us.

Wanting to be first, wanting to be noticed by those who have power and privilege, is not a model for discipleship or for ministry.

The word liturgy (λειτουργία, leitourgía) means the work for and of the people. But in its truest sense this is not the work of nice people, good people, people like us, but in its crudest use in Greek the work of the many, the service of riff-raff, even the beggars.

I was reminded in Crete a few years ago that The Beggars’ Opera translates into Greek as Η λαϊκή όπερα (laikí ópera), the work of the laity. The true laity are the needy with outstretched arms.

The liturgy of the Church only becomes a true service when we also serve the oppressed, when we become God’s ears that hear the cry of the poor, and act on that, when through the Church Christ hears that cry of the bruised and broken.

People who stretch out their hands in begging stretch out their hands just as we do when we beg to receive Christ in the Holy Communion, the Eucharist.

And the Eucharist, the Liturgy, become true sacrament when it becomes, when we make it, a taste, a sign, a token of the promise of, a thirsting for the Kingdom of God.

To do this great task, as the ambitious pair in this Gospel reading, James and John, are reminded, we must first be deacons, servants, waiters at the table to meet the needs of the needy outside the doors of the church, in the streets and the laneways.

To be a great Church, we must be a Servant Church, ‘For the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for [the] many’ (Mark 10: 45).

All of us in the Church as disciples are called first and foremost to serve. And when we serve the people, when in obedience we meet them in their suffering, then we can hear their cries and their prayers and truly serve them in the services of the Church and in the Divine Liturgy (see Hebrews 5: 1-10).

Christ asks us that in this Gospel reading. Are we willing to drink the cup that he drinks, or to be baptised with his baptism (see verses 38 and 40)?

Of course, James and John were willing to drink that cup. See how this hot-headed pair, the sons of Zebedee, went on to serve the community of the baptised and the community that shared in the one bread and the one cup, the community that is the Church, the community that in baptism and in the shared meal is the Body of Christ.

Saint James – not Saint James the Brother of the Lord, whom we remember on Tuesday (23 October 2018), but Saint James the Great – was executed by the sword and became one of the first Christian martyrs (see Acts 12: 1-12).

Saint John too lived a life of service to the Church: he was exiled on Patmos, and although he died in old age in Ephesus, there were numerous attempts to make him a martyr. And, of course, he gave his name to in the Johannine writings in the New Testament: the Fourth Gospel, three epistles and the Book of Revelation.

Martyrdom comes in many forms. In essence, the word martyr means witness. But the first step in martyrdom is dying to self, to self-ambition, to self-seeking, to self-serving. Our lives must be lives that are testimony or witness to your most cherished beliefs, testimony to Christ himself.

‘For the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many’ (Mark 10: 45).

And so, may all we think, say and do be to the praise, honour and glory of God, + Father, Son and Holy Spirit, Amen.

I was reminded in Rethymnon in Crete recently that ‘The Beggars’ Opera’ translates into Greek as Η λαϊκή όπερα, the work of the laity (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Mark 10: 35-45 (NRSV):

35 James and John, the sons of Zebedee, came forward to him and said to him, ‘Teacher, we want you to do for us whatever we ask of you.’ 36 And he said to them, ‘What is it you want me to do for you?’ 37 And they said to him, ‘Grant us to sit, one at your right hand and one at your left, in your glory.’ 38 But Jesus said to them, ‘You do not know what you are asking. Are you able to drink the cup that I drink, or be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with?’ 39 They replied, ‘We are able.’ Then Jesus said to them, ‘The cup that I drink you will drink; and with the baptism with which I am baptized, you will be baptized; 40 but to sit at my right hand or at my left is not mine to grant, but it is for those for whom it has been prepared.’

41 When the ten heard this, they began to be angry with James and John. 42 So Jesus called them and said to them, ‘You know that among the Gentiles those whom they recognize as their rulers lord it over them, and their great ones are tyrants over them. 43 But it is not so among you; but whoever wishes to become great among you must be your servant, 44 and whoever wishes to be first among you must be slave of all. 45 For the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many.’

In Andrei Rublev’s icon of the Holy Trinity, the Christ-figure is wearing a simple deacon’s stole, and is seated with the Father and the Holy Spirit to his left and to his right

Liturgical Colour: Green

The Collect:

Merciful Lord,
Grant to your faithful people pardon and peace,
that we may be cleansed from all our sins
and serve you with a quiet mind;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Hymns:

34, O worship the King (CD 2)
226, It is a thing most wonderful (CD 14)
366, Praise my soul, the king of heaven (CD 22)

‘Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth? … Who determined its measurements – surely you know!’ (Job 38: 4-5) … a window in the parish church in Moyvane, Co Kerry (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2018)

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

Newtownsandes or Moyvane? What happened to the name and to the planned town?

The wide streets of Moyvane, Co Kerry, show that this was once the planned town of Newtownsandes (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2018)

Patrick Comerford

On the road between Tarbert and Ballybunion and back again from Ballybunion to Glin and Askeaton, two of us stopped at the weekend to visit Moyvane (Maigh Mheáin, ‘main or middle plain’), a village in Co Kerry off the N69 between Listowel and Tarbert.

The parish was originally called Murhur, but there are few historical references to its past, and its name today is still a matter of discussion and debate.

With its broad streets, and its sense of plan and hope, Moyvane looks as though it once was a planned town with a visionary landlord. The name Moyvane was adopted by the village as recently as 1939 when a plebiscite was held by the Parish Priest, Father Dan O’Sullivan.

The Post Office says this is Moyvane (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2018)

But, in fact, Moyvane is the name of a townland about two miles south-west of the village, and the official name of the place is still Newtownsandes. Although the road signs and the post office kept telling me that this is Moyvane, many of the local people still call this Newtown, and the name above the local co-operative still proclaims in bold lettering that this is Newtownsandes.

Pride of place is the parish goes to the poet and song writer Thomas Moore (1779-1852), whose father John Moore was born here, and to Philip Cunningham, a leader in the 1798 Rising, later executed in 1804.

The Roman Catholic Parish was formed in 1829, in the immediate aftermath of the Catholic Emancipation. The first parish church was built in 1837, and a date stone built into a wall in the village near the original entrance to the church and the school marks this date.

The name Newtownsandes was chosen by the local landlord, George Sandes, in the early 1880s. Sandes is said to have been a cruel landlord at the time of the Land War. But, while some local narratives describe him as a Cromwellian, he lived two and a half centuries after the Cromwellian wars, and the Sandes family were in this part of Ireland a century or more before the arrival of Cromwell in Ireland.

The Sandes family originally spelled its name Sandys in England, and they may have been descended from a family that lived in Sands in the parish of Tulliallen in Fife, Scotland. They arrived in Ireland long before any Cromwellian officer, and this has been their home ever since.

The Co-op says this is Newtownsandes (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2018)

In 1565, Neville Sands of Dublin was appointed surveyor-general in Ireland. A letter from Dublin that year said a farm of Ballyknockane, Co Laois, was ‘possessed by the late Mr Hugh Lippiat, whose wife Susan, Sands had married.’ In 1588, William Sandes was a court official, and in 1625 another William Sandes was attorney of the Exchequer Court.

The deeds of Christ Church Cathedral record that Watkin Sands was one of three signatories to a document involving lands in Lynkardstown, Co Carlow. William Sands of Dublin rented property near Oxmantown Green in Dublin, and was followed by his son John Sands.

The Petty Census of Ireland in 1659 lists the name of 11 Sands landowners in Co Kildare, Co Longford, Dublin, and Co Kerry, and Lancelot Sands was a landowner in Kilbonane, Co Kerry, and held public office in Dingle, Co Kerry, in 1660-1661.

Lancelot Sandes was granted an estate in Co Kerry in 1667 under the Acts of Settlement. The Ordnance Dublin Name Books noted in the 1830s that he held lands from the estates of Trinity College Dublin. William Sandes held several townlands in the parishes of Kilnaughtin at Tarbert, and Knockanure and Murher in the area of present-day Moyvane.

Kerry football tradition celebrated in street art in Moyvane (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2018)

Moyvane may have been part of the estates of Trinity College Dublin from Elizabethan times, but by the early 19th century, Moyvane House was the residence of John Sandes, and the Sandes family had lived there for many generations.

At the time of Griffith’s Valuation, William Sandes was leasing Moyvane Farm to Stephen Sandes at Moyvane North.

Interesting member of the family include the Revd Robert Leslie Wren Sandes (1820-1895), who was he Curate of Listowel in 1848, and the Curate of Aghavallen (Ballylongford) in 1850-1858. He baptised Horatio Kitchener, one of the great generals in World War I, at Aghavallen in 1850, and he was living Ballylongford in 1852, when he married his first cousin Alicia Ponsonby.

Charles Lancelot Sandes was one of the principal land holders in the parish of Aghavallen or Ballylongford in Co Kerry at the time of Griffith’s Valuation in the 19th century. He also owned Carrigafoyle Castle, was leasing his property to Stephen Sandes, and held some lands in the parish of Morgans, Co Limerick.

In 1863,1864 and 1865, over 2,000 acres of the estate of William Sandes was offered for sale in the Landed Estates Court. In the 1870s, Charles Sandes of Carrigafoyle Castle and Bayview, Clontarf, Co Dublin, owned 1,208 acres in Co Limerick and 227 acres in Co Kerry, while the estate of Thomas Sandes of Sallowglen, Tarbert, amounted to over 7,000 acres in the 1870s.

Other Sandes holdings in this part of Co Kerry in the 19th century included Killelton House, which Charles L Sandes leased to William Hickie, Pyrmont House in Kilnaughtin (Tarbert), also known as Fyrmont, which William Sandes let to Thomas Sandes. The Sandes family and their descendants lived there until the 1920s, when the estate was sold and the house was later demolished.

William G Sandes was leasing Greenville near Listowel from the Earl of Listowel at the time of Griffith’s Valuation and it was a home of this branch of the Sandes family until World War I. It was repaired and rebuilt in the 1920s.

There is a local story that George Sandes was involved in the forceful eviction of some of his tenants in 1886. That year, some local residents changed the name of the village to Newtown Dillon, to honour John Dillon, a Home Rule politician.

But the new name was a temporary whim or fashion, and the original name remained unchanged until 1916, when another attempt was made to change the name – this time to Newtown Clarke, after Thomas Clarke, one of the leaders of the Easter Rising in 1916.

The Church of the Assumption was dedicated on 25 August 1956, when Father Dan O’Sullivan was still the parish priest (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2018)

A new parish church, the Church of the Assumption, was built when Father O’Sullivan was still the parish priest. It replaced an older parish church built around 1833, and the new church was dedicated on 25 August 1956.

The architect of the church was the Cork-based architect, James Rupert Boyd Barrett (1904-1976). He was born in Loughborough, and was educated at Clongowes Wood College, the CBS School, North Richmond Street, Dublin, Dublin School of Art, and University College London.

At the age of 24, he set up in practice in Cork in 1928, and designed many major buildings throughout Ireland, including the Department of Industry and Commerce in Kildare Street, Dublin, and churches in Cork and Kerry, as well as schools, hospitals, town halls and houses.

The carved altar, with images of the Four Evangelists, in Church of the Assumption, Moyvane (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2018)

The church in Moyvane, which cost about €60,000 to build, in 1956, could seat up to 800 people, and at the time it was believed to be the biggest church in recent years. The main contractor was MrJohn McSweeney, Castleisland. The church was designed in contemporary fashion in which every part of the construction plays a vital role and so that the whole blends into one harmonious composition.

When Father Sean Jones was ordained priest in ill be ordained to the priesthood on Sunday, July 1st in the Church of the Assumption, Moyvane, recently [1 July 2018], he was the first priest ordained in the diocese of Kerry in 12 years.

Inside the Church of the Assumption in Moyvane (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2018)

The most recent attempt to change the name of the village to Moyvane failed again a few years ago. In a vote on a name-change held by Kerry County Council, the proposal to change the name failed to gain the required 51 per cent majority of eligible voters.

In all, 473 ballot papers were returned, with 407 voting for and 66 against the name change, but a minimum of 435 yes voters of the 868 eligible voters was needed, a spokesman at the registrar of electors in Kerry County Council told The Irish Times.

But the name of Newtownsandes still exists on a map and the register of electors but nowhere else. Indeed, while the signposts have said Moyvane since 1975 and the post office is Moyvane, the electorate remains confused by other suggested names and a dispute about the proper title of the local creamery.

To this day, Moyvane Creamery still bears the name Newtownsandes Co-op – and it is also one of the remaining independent co-operative creameries in Co Kerry.

A window in the parish church in Moyvane (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2018)