A Christmas carol, a Christmas song and a Christmas wish for peace

The Reconciliation monument in the ruins of Coventry Cathedral ... the ‘Coventry Carol’ recalls a mother’s lament for her doomed child (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

I suppose some of us are ‘all-caroled out’ while more of us have heard so many Christmas jingles in the background in lifts, restaurants, hotels and shopping centres that we no longer notice what song we are listening to.

My all-time favourite carol is Gaudete, as sung by Steeleye Span, which has regained popularity this year. It seems the most popular Christmas song this year is Merry Xmas Everybody, which was a hit at the same time in the 1970s for the British rock band Slade, from Walsall, Wolverhampton and the West Midlands, and it has returned to a renewed popularity this year.

What has been your favourite carol and your favourite Christmas song so far this season?

So far this year, my favourite carol has been the Coventry Carol, while my favourite Christmas song this season has been ‘Stop the Cavalry,’ written and recorded by Jona Lewie.



The ‘Coventry Carol’ is is traditionally sung a cappella. This is an English traditional carol dating from the 15th or 16th century, and traditionally it was sung in Coventry as the second of three carols in a mystery play, The Pageant of the Shearmen and Tailors, performed by the city guilds.

The play depicts the Christmas story from Chapter 2 in the Gospel according to Saint Matthew. The carol refers to the Massacre of the Innocents, in which King Herod orders all male infants under the age of two in Bethlehem to be killed, and takes the form of a lullaby sung by the mothers of the doomed children.

The music contains a well-known example of a Picardy third. The author is unknown; the oldest known text was written down by Robert Croo in 1534, and the oldest known setting of the melody dates from 1591, when an attempt was made in Saint Michael’s Parish, Coventry, to revive the play cycle, albeit without success. The surviving pageants were revived in Coventry Cathedral from 1951 onwards.

There are alternative, modern settings of the carol by Kenneth Leighton, Philip Stopford and by Martin Shaw (1875-1985) for Percy Dearmer’s English Carol Book (1913) – the version sung last night [19 December 2016] at the Service of Nine Lessons and Carols in Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin.

Lully, lulla, thou little tiny child,
By, by, lully lullay.
Thou little tiny child,
By, by, lully lullay.

O sisters too, how may we do
For to preserve this day,
This poor youngling for whom we sing,
By, by, lully, lullay?

Herod the king, in his raging,
Chargèd he hath this day
His men of might, in his own sight,
All young children to slay.

That woe is me, poor child, for thee!
And ever mourn and may,
For thy parting neither say nor sing
By, by, lully, lullay.

Coventry Cathedral has been at the heart of peace ministries ever since World War II, and the Ministry of Reconciliation is central to the outreach and mission of Coventry Cathedral. Canon Paul Oestreicher, who has been a Vice-President of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) for over 15 years, was a residentiary canon of Coventry Cathedral from 1985 to 1997 and the director of Coventry Cathedral’s Centre for International Reconciliation.

Listening to this carol last night, with its reminder of the slaughter of innocent children at the time of Christ’s birth, was a sober reminder at Christmas time of the dread-filled atmosphere in which children are living in the Middle East today, and the threat all wars pose of slaughtering innocent children en masse.



‘Stop the Cavalry’ by Jona Lewie is an old song at this stage, having reached No 3 in the British singles chart in December 1980. At one point it was only kept from the No 1 and No 2 places by two re-issued songs by John Lennon, who had been murdered on 8 December 1980.

The song’s melody is loosely based on a theme from the Swedish Rhapsody No 1 by Hugo Alfvén, and its major musical elements bear a resemblance to Mozart’s Rondo in D Major, K382.

In an interview with Channel 4, Jona Lewie said that the song was never planned as a Christmas hit, and instead it is a protest song.

The line ‘Wish I was at home for Christmas,’ as well as the brass band arrangements made it an appropriately styled song to play around Christmas time. But the song’s promotional video is set in the trenches during World War I.

The lyrics of the song mention the cavalry and Winston Churchill, who was the First Lord of the Admiralty in the first year of World War I, before serving in the trenches himself.

But the song breaks with the World War I theme with references to nuclear fallout and the lines:

I have had to fight, almost every night,
down throughout these centuries.

Lewie has described the soldier in the song as being ‘a bit like the eternal soldier at the Arc de Triomphe.’

When the song was released in December 1980, it was a time of heightened increase in tensions between the West and the Soviet Union. I was then deeply involved in the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) as secretary of Irish CND and a member of the Council of CND in Britain. US-controlled nuclear cruise missiles were being stationed in Britain, and I have clear memories of the fears of a looming nuclear war.

I spoke at protests, rallies and marches throughout Ireland and Britain at the time, helping to organise new branches of CND in cities, towns and villages across these islands. In October 1981, 250,000 people took part in an anti-nuclear march in London, and women’s peace camps were set up at RAF Greenham Common, Berkshire, and RAF Molesworth near Cambridge. On 22 October 1983, when I also spoke at CND’s demonstration on the eve of Cruise missile deployment, it turned out to be one of the largest ever in British history – 300,000 people marched in London as three million protested across Europe.

By 1992, all nuclear-armed Cruise missiles were removed from both Greenham Common and Molesworth, and the plans to develop a neutron bomb had been dropped.

This is the context in which this Christmas anti-war song was written, and this explains the reference to the fallout shelter.

The song, with its blend of anti-war protest and brass band arrangements, has become a perennial Christmas radio standard in these islands, and it is an appropriate reminder of the need to have peace as a priority at Christmas time. The reference to a presidential election is a chilling reminder of how relevant this song is to today’s political circumstances.

Hey, Mr Churchill comes over here
To say we’re doing splendidly
But it’s very cold out here in the snow, Marching to win from the enemy.

Oh I say it’s tough, I have had enough
Can you stop the cavalry?
I have had to fight, almost every night
Down throughout these centuries.

That is when I say, oh yes yet again Can you stop the cavalry?

Mary Bradley waits at home
In the nuclear fall-out zone
Wish I could be dancing now
In the arms of the girl I love

(Dub a dub a dumb dumb)
(Dub a dub dubadum dubadum dub a dub dubadum)

Wish I was at home for Christmas

Bang! That’s another bomb on another town
While Luzar and Jim have tea
If I get home, live to tell the tale
I’ll run for all presidencies.
If I get elected I'll stop, I will stop the cavalry.

(Dub a dub a dumb dumb)
(Dub a dub dubadum dubadum dub a dub dubadum)

Wish I was at home for Christmas

Wish I could be dancing now
In the arms of the girl I love

Mary Bradley waits at home
She has been waiting two years long
Wish I was at home for Christmas.

‘When you are offering your gift at the altar ... first be reconciled to your brother or sister, and then come and offer your gift.’ The Cross of Nails on the altar in the ruins symbolises the Ministry of Reconciliation at Coventry Cathedral (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Praying in Advent with USPG, (24): 20 December 2016

‘Give thanks for the sensitivity and goodwill of those children who hope for the best for their families and communities. Pray that their Christmas wishes might become reality’

Patrick Comerford

This is the last week of Advent, and we are just five days away from Christmas Day. Throughout this time of preparation for Christ’s coming at Christmas, I am praying each morning in Advent and using for my reflections the prayer diary of the Anglican mission agency, USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel).

This week, the prayers in the USPG Prayer Diary focus on the church’s support for children worldwide, drawing insights from the work of the Delhi Brotherhood Society with children and women.

The USPG Prayer Diary:

Tuesday 20 December 2016:

Give thanks for the sensitivity and goodwill of those children who hope for the best for their families and communities. Pray that their Christmas wishes might become reality.

Readings (Revised Common Lectionary, the Church of Ireland, Holy Communion):

Isaiah 7: 10-14; Psalm 24: 1-6; Luke 1: 26-38.

The Collect of the Day:

God our redeemer,
who prepared the Blessed Virgin Mary
to be the mother of your Son:
Grant that, as she looked for his coming as our saviour,
so we may be ready to greet him
when he comes again as our judge;
who is alive and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

The Advent Collect:

Almighty God,
Give us grace to cast away the works of darkness
and to put on the armour of light
now in the time of this mortal life
in which your Son Jesus Christ came to us in great humility;
that on the last day
when he shall come again in his glorious majesty
to judge the living and the dead,
we may rise to the life immortal;
through him who is alive and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

Continued tomorrow

Unique windows are part of the heritage of Saint Mary’s, Julianstown

Saint Mary’s Church, Julianstown, Co Meath ... stands on the site of earlier churches (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2016)

Patrick Comerford

I have preached before in Saint Mary’s Church, Julianstown, Co Meath, and during my schooldays nearby in Gormanston it was a church I loved to visit in my teens. But I had never before photographed the interior of the church until last Saturday. Two of us were on our way to Laytown and Bettystown for a walk on the beach and a late lunch in Relish when we noticed the church door was opened, and we received a warm welcome from parishioners who were decorating the church in advance of Sunday evening’s carol service.

Julianstown was for long the seat of the Moore family who lived in Julianstown House and who farmed the land that now contains the townland of Julianstown West.

There has been a church on this for centuries. In the Middle Ages, the church lands here were part of the Irish possessions of the Welsh abbey of Llanthony. The parish later came into the hands of the Earls of Drogheda, who retained the right of appointing the clergy until the disestablishment of the Church of Ireland.

The original ecclesiastical designation was Nanny, derived from the River Nanny which flows nearby and into the Irish Sea at Laytown. The church survived the Battle of Julianstown in 1641, and Cromwell's destruction of Drogheda in 1649. The church in Julianstown is described in Dopping’s Visitation Book, compiled between 1682 and 1685.

Saint Mary’s Church was built ca1770 on the site of an earlier church, and Taylor and Skinner’s 1783 Road Map of Ireland refers to the Moore family home and shows the parish church on the site of the present church.

Over the centuries, this church has been restored, rebuilt and enlarged, but the present building is largely a creation of the 1860s. The church was extended and remodelled from 1861-1863, to the designs of Welland and Gillespie, who incorporated parts of the 1770 church in the nave.

Inside Saint Mary’s Church, Julianstown, designed by William John Welland and William Gillespie (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2016)

William John Welland and William Gillespie were appointed joint architects to the Ecclesiastical Commissioners in May 1860, after the death of Joseph Welland. Both men were already working for the Church Commissioners, and continued to hold their post until the disestablishment of the Church of Ireland at the end of 1870. During those ten years, they developed an increasingly personal and idiosyncratic version of Gothic in the churches which they designed.

William John Welland (ca 1832-1895) was a younger son of Joseph Welland, successively architect to the Board of First Fruits and to the Ecclesiastical Commissioners, and his wife Sophia Margaret (Mills). He was educated at Trinity College Dublin (BA, 1855, MA, 1879), and may have entered the architects’ department of the Ecclesiastical Commissioners directly from TCD. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Institute of Architects of Ireland (FRIAI) in 1863, and died in 1895.

William Gillespie (1818-1899) was a son of William Stawell Gillespie of Cork and his wife Catherine Terry Williams. By 1847, he was working as a district inspector for the Ecclesiastical Commissioners.

He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland (FRSAI) in 1855. But he had no formal qualifications as a professional architect, and it is said he had only served a few years to a country builder and measurer before his appointment by the Ecclesiastical Commissioners in 1860. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Institute of Architects of Ireland (FRIAI) in 1863 and later served as a council member (1868-1870).

Gillespie spent his last days in Plympton House, near Plymouth, Devon, a private lunatic asylum belonging to a Dr Charles Aldridge, where he died of ‘senile decay’ on 20 December 1899.

The church designed by Welland and Gillespie in Julianstown is a detached church, with a four-bay side elevation to the nave, a single-bay chancel and vestry to the east, and a gable porch to the south elevation, and incorporating parts of the fabric of the earlier church dating from ca 1770.

The church retains many interesting features and materials, such as the dressed limestone, pointed-arched windows, and stone finials.

The chancel and altar in Saint Mary’s Church, Julianstown, were designed by James Franklin Fuller (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2016)

The chancel and altar were added to the church in 1914 through the generosity of Colonel Charles Pepper family of Ballygarth Castle, to designs by James Franklin Fuller (1835-1924). The builders were McLaughlin and Harvey.

Fuller’s architectural legacy includes Kylemore Abbey, Co Galway, Ashford Castle in Cong, Co Mayo, the Great Southern Hotel, Parknasilla, Co Kerry, Saint Anne’s House, Raheny, Farmleigh House at the Phoenix Park in Dublin, the Superintendent’s Lodge in Saint Stephen’s Green, Dublin, the Gallaher Building on the corner of D’Olier Street and Hawkins Street, Dublin, the former National Bank building on Arran Quay, Dublin, and the Rectory at Saint Brigid’s Church, Stillorgan.

The AΩ symbol in the centre of the altar designed by James Franklin Fuller (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2016)

Fuller’s work at Saint Mary’s in Julianstown includes the elaborate altar decorated with figures of the four evangelists on the front and the AΩ symbol in the centre.

The pointed arch windows are set in openings with ashlar limestone dressings. These windows together form a unique collection of stained glass windows by Clayton and Bell and Heaton, Butler and Bayne – two English-based partnerships that were among the leading firms of Gothic Revival stained glass manufacturers, and whose work was commissioned by the principal Victorian architects.

The three lancet windows in the chancel are by Clayton and Bell and are dated 1884. They were commissioned by Thomas St George Pepper of Ballygarth Castle, Juilanstown, and depict: Christ healing the daughter of the Syro-Phoenician woman and Christ healing the Centurion’s servant (left); the Raising of Lazarus, the Good Shepherd and Christ blessing the Children (centre); and Christ healing the woman with an issue of blood and Christ healing the Blind Man (right).

The Risen Christ appearing to Mary Magdalene (1899), one of the four windows by Heaton, Butler and Bayne in Saint Mary’s Church, Julianstown (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2016)

The four windows by Heaton, Butler and Bayne in Julianstown depict the Risen Christ appearing to Mary Magdalene (1899), in memory of Henry St George Osborne of Dardistown Castle; the Agony in the Garden and Christ carrying the Cross (1907), in memory of Henry Moore, his wife and their children; Angels with Scrolls (1907); and the Ascension (1907). The Ascension is depicted in four parts in three lancet windows at the West End, and this collection was donated in memory of three members of the Tunstall Moore family.

The Faithful Warrior window by Michael Healy in Saint Mary’s Church, Julianstown (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2016)

The other attractive stained glass windows in the church include one designed by Michael Healy (1873-1941) of An Túr Gloine Studios, depicting the Faithful Warrior, in memory of Lieutenant-Colonel John McDonnell of Kilsharvan House, between Duleek and Bellewstown.

Colonel McDonnell was part of the 5th Battalion of the Leinsters, attached to the Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers, when he was killed in 1918. He was buried in the Resevoir Cemetery in Ypres, Belgium, In 1924, when the official headstone was placed on his grave, the initial grave marker from 1918 was brought to Kilsharvan graveyard and inset into the wall as a memorial to him. His son, Lieutenant Robert Edward McDonnell, was killed in Libya in 1941 during World War II and was buried in Benghazi War Cemetery.

Saint Mary’s Church, Julianstown, has an interesting collection of Clayton and Bell windows (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2016)

Other windows in the church by Clayton and Bell commemorate seven officers of the Royal Meath regiment who were killed in World War I.

The tower and spire proposed by Welland and Gillespie in 1863 were never erected, and the present three-stage tower and steeple were built through the generosity once again of Colonel Charles Pepper of Ballygarth Castle in 1906-1907, and again to designs by James Franklin Fuller. The builders were McLaughlin and Harvey.

The church has a pitched slate roof with ridge cresting and stone finials. There are squared limestone walls with tooled limestone quoins.

There is a pair of timber doors with wrought-iron detailing. In the church porch, a fragment of a High Cross came from Saint Columba’s Church, Colpe, Drogheda, and dates from the 10th century.

There is a single-storey modern building to the west.

The graveyard to the north and east of the church is enclosed by a rubble stone wall. Here the setting of the church is enhanced by the carved limestone grave markers. The ashlar limestone gate piers are set in rock-faced limestone walls with cast-iron railings and a pair of gates.

Outside the church is an interesting stone known locally as the Apostles’ Stone. This sculpture was originally located in the chapel of Ballylehane Castle, Co Laois, owned by the Hovenden family from 1549 to 1820. It was moved to Dardistown Castle and finally to this church in Julianstown.

The sculpture consists of three stones. Because of its depiction of 12 figures it became known as the Apostles’ Stone. The figures appear to be priests each wearing a hood and girdle; some have beards and some are clean shaven.

The cemetery is also believed to hold the grave of Anne Tandy, wife of Napper Tandy (1737-1803). He was a merchant, volunteer and radical politician who was born in Dublin, and a key figure in the 1798 Rising.

The figures of Saint Matthew and Saint Mark on the front of the altar designed by James Franklin Fuller (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2016)

Today, the Church of Ireland Parish of Julianstown and South Drogheda covers the area between the River Boyne and the River Delvin in South Louth and East Meath, including all of south Drogheda, Mornington, Bettystown, Laytown, Julianstown, Mosney and Gormanston on the coast, and inland incorporating Bellewstown, Stamullen and Duleek.

There are about 130 Church of Ireland households in the parish. In addition to business and farming families who have lived in the area for many years, there are families that recently moved there. Saint Mary’s Julianstown, is the only church in the parish, and this is the only single-church incumbency in the Diocese of Meath and Kildare. The churches at Saint Mary’s, Drogheda, and Saint Columba’s, Colpe, closed in recent years, although the churchyards are also still in use.

A new rector is expected in the parish next March.