Today’s edition of the Church of Ireland Gazette [9 December 2011] includes the following half-page news report and photograph on the back page (p. 16):
Wexford Journal includes paper by CITI lecturer
Canon Patrick Comerford (right) with Bernard Browne of Mill Quarter, Old Ross, at the launch of the Journal of the Wexford Historical Society (Photograph: Barbara Comerford)
Canon Patrick Comerford, lecturer in Anglicanism and Liturgy at the Church of Ireland Theological Institute (CITI), Dublin, is one of the principal contributors to the latest edition of the Journal of the Wexford Historical Society.
The 2011-2012 edition (number 23), edited by Ms Celestine Rafferty, was launched recently in the Greenacres Art Gallery in Wexford by Prof. Kevin Whelan of the Keough Naughton Notre Dame Centre, Dublin.
Canon Comerford’s paper, ‘James Comerford (1817-1902): rediscovering a Wexford-born Victorian stuccodore’s art,’ is the first paper in the Journal and looks at the work and career of his great-grandfather, James Comerford, who began his career working with the architects, Richard Pierce, A.W.N. Pugin and J.J. McCarthy, on their Wexford churches.
After Pugin’s death, he moved from Wexford to Dublin, where his artistic and architectural work included the now-demolished ‘Irish House’ on the corner of Wintetavern Street and Wood Quay, below Christ Church Cathedral, and the Oarsman, a public house still standing in Ringsend.
The paper is illustrated with photographs telling the life story of this Wexford-born artist and trade unionist, who began his life as a stuccodore and ended his career as an architect and civil servant.
Other contributors to the Journal include Bernard Browne, who wrote on Lorenzo Dow (1777-1834), an American Methodist preacher in Wexford; David Ian Hamilton, who traced the story of the Sutton family of Longraigue; and Eithne Scallan, who wrote a short biography of Dr George Hadden (1882-1973), the Methodist missionary and founder of the Wexford Historical Society.
The attendance at the launch included Alderman Joe Ryan, a former Mayor of Wexford, and Jarlath Glynn, President of the Wexford Historical Society.