24 December 2017

He has lifted up the lowly;
he has filled the hungry
with good things, and
sent the rich away empty

The Annunciation depicted on the Nativity Façade of the Basilica of La Sagrada Familia in Barcelona (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

Sunday, 24 December 2017,

The Fourth Sunday of Advent.

11 a.m.
, The Parish Eucharist, Holy Trinity Church, Rathkeale, Co Limerick.

Readings: II Samuel 7: 1-11, 16; the Canticle Magnificat; Romans 16: 25-27; Luke 1: 26-38.

Part 1: Lighting the Fourth Candle on the Advent Wreath (the Virgin Mary):

During these Sundays in Advent, instead of preaching one long sermon, I have been offering three short reflections: looking at the Advent Wreath and Candles; looking at the Gospel reading and our hopes for the Coming of Christ; and looking at the meaning of Santa Claus.

In Year B in the Lectionary readings, we are focussing on Saint Mark’s Gospel.

On the first Sunday of Advent [3 December 2017], we heard Saint Mark’s account of the Coming of the Son of Man (Mark 13: 24-37). On the second Sunday [10 December 2017], we read the beginning of his Gospel (Mark 1: 1-8). Last Sunday [17 December 2017], we skipped over to Saint John’s Gospel, and his account of the Baptism of Christ by Saint John in the River Jordan (John 1: 6-8, 19-28).

But there is no Christmas story in either Saint Mark’s Gospel or Saint John’s Gospel. Instead, this morning, we change to Saint Luke’s Gospel to hear the story of the Annunciation (Luke 1: 26-38).

The prayers at the Advent Wreath on these Sundays help us to continue our themes from the Sunday before Advent [26 November 2017], which we marked in these dioceses as Mission Sunday, supporting projects in Swaziland in co-operation with the Anglican mission agency, the United Society Partners in the Gospel (USPG).

As we light our Advent candles in anticipation of the coming of the Christ Child, USPG is inviting us to pray for mothers and children who are served by USPG in the world church in Tanzania, Ghana, Bangladesh and Palestine.

The first candle on the Advent Wreath was the Purple Candle recalling the Patriarchs and Matriarchs, our fathers and mothers in the faith, like Abraham and Sarah, and so on. The second purple candle represents the Prophets. The third, pink candle, which we lit last Sunday, represents Saint John the Baptist.

This morning’s fourth, purple candle represents the Virgin Mary, and she is the theme of our readings and some of our hymns and prayers this morning.

USPG suggests this prayer when lighting the fourth candle representing the Virgin Mary:

The Virgin Mary:

O God of promise,
whose mother Mary carried your Christ in an occupied land;
we pray for mothers in the Holy Land
who today live with restrictions and violence.
Bless the church-run hospitals that serve them and their children
regardless of race, religion or financial status.

The Annunciation depicted on a panel inset on a house in the village of Castle Bellingham, Co Louth (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Part 2: Waiting for Christ

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

This morning’s Gospel reading (Luke 1: 26-38) brings us back nine months to the story of the Annunciation, which is celebrated on 25 March. We have the same Gospel reading again, almost nine months later, because the action initiating Christ’s Incarnation is so significant as we prepare to celebrate that Incarnation.

When the Virgin Mary hears the Angel Gabriel address her as the ‘favoured one’ and tell her, ‘The Lord is with you,’ she is ‘much perplexed by his words’ and she ponders ‘what sort of greeting this might be.’

Perplexed?

We might think she was perplexed, to say the least.

She has been told she is to have a child, who would be called Son of God, and who would receive the throne of David.

‘How can this be?’ she asks.

And well she might ask.

She might well wonder how she is going to survive a full nine months until this baby is born, once her father, her family, her friends and her village hear she is pregnant.

Some years ago, in the weeks before Christmas, both the BBC and the Guardian reported, how there has been a frightening increase in ‘honour killings’ in Britain. At the time, the topic also provided a story line in EastEnders.

So-called ‘honour killings’ were frequent too at the time of the first Christmas. A woman who was violated by a man – even against her will – could be killed, usually by her father or brother, so the conceived child would bring no further shame to the family.

The newly-betrothed Joseph would know he is not the father of the Virgin Mary’s baby. If a man and a woman who were betrothed to each other and then moved in with one other, and the village knew it, they were then considered to be married. This, and not some religious ceremony, marks the occasion, and the engagement now becomes a marriage in common law.

Should Joseph intend to stay with Mary, then he has to protect her and protect himself by acknowledging the child as his.

On the other hand, if he does not acknowledge the child, and Mary’s pregnancy becomes known and her father or brothers do not kill her, then the law of the time demanded the death penalty both for her and for the man – if he is known too – who has stolen Joseph’s betrothed and made her pregnant.

And, of course, if the child’s true identity is truly known, there are others who would like to ensure that Mary does not complete her full term of pregnancy.

Herod the Great would not be very happy with another claimant to David’s throne arriving on the scene.

If the Roman authorities realise this child is going to be honoured as the ‘Son of God,’ they too would have to take action. This is a title used for the Roman Emperors; any usurper or pretender is likely to end up on a cross rather than on a throne.

In the Canticle Magnificat, which is part of our readings this morning, both responses are anticipated and challenged in Mary’s song, in which she praises God and proclaims:

He has shown strength with his arm;
he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts.
He has brought down the powerful from their thrones,
and lifted up the lowly;
he has filled the hungry with good things,
and sent the rich away empty
. – Luke 1: 52-53.

In our world today, despite financial and economic problems and banking and trading scandals, are the proud and the powerful still on their thrones?

Looking at last week’s RTÉ programme on the housing and homelessness crisis, are the lowly still waiting to be lifted up?

Are the hungry waiting to be filled with good things?

Do the rich still walk away with all they want?

What are the promises of this Advent, of every Advent, of the coming Kingdom?

What are the promises and prospects for a child who is born among us this Christmas?

We live in a world where the survival chances of a child depend not just on attitudes to ‘honour killings,’ but even more so on the financial and economic climates where mothers live.

The statistics on homeless children in Ireland this Christmas are a frightening condemnation of our society’s true priorities. Estimates in the past week say 3,194 children are being housed in unfit accommodation in Ireland this Christmas. How is Santa going to find them?

The American blogger and theologian Sarah Dylan Breuer points out that in this world, one more child dies every three seconds from extreme poverty; 300 children die during an average Sunday sermon in an Anglican church; and 1,600 children die during each celebration of the Eucharist.

Yet, the Advent readings tell us repeatedly that God’s promise is that through Christ the hungry will be filled with good things. We might ask, like Mary: ‘How can this be?’

We too may ponder these things in our hearts. But having pondered them, what do we say about them in this Christmas?

We too are called to bring the Good News of freedom to the prisoners and those confined to refugee camps, food for the hungry, dignity for those who are the lowly.

We too are called to do that not just in words or song, but like the Virgin Mary, by giving flesh to God’s hope, God’s peace, God’s justice, and God’s love for the world.

The young, unmarried, teenage Mary found the courage to face her father, her family, her future husband, her friends, her village, her world, despite the risk of pointing and whispering, thrown out of house and home … even stoning to death. There would be a birth … and there would be another death. And I recall the words of TS Eliot:

All this was a long time ago, I remember,
And I would do it again, but set down
This set down
This: were we led all that way for
Birth or Death? There was a Birth, certainly,
We had evidence and no doubt. I had seen birth and death,
But had thought they were different; this Birth was
Hard and bitter agony for us, like Death, our death.
We returned to our places, these Kingdoms,
But no longer at ease here, in the old dispensation,
With an alien people clutching their gods.
I should be glad of another death.


– TS Eliot, Journey of the Magi (1927)

Santas lined up and waiting for Christmas Day in the Rectory in Askeaton (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2017)

Part 3: Waiting for Santa Claus:

Each Sunday during Advent, I am telling a different story about Saint Nicholas of Myra, the real Santa Claus, and why he is important, why he should be rescued from commercialism and Coca Cola, for the Church and Christmas.

So, as we are all eagerly waiting Santa’s arrival tonight, I want to share some short stories about why Saint Nicholas is traditionally associated with giving presents to children at Christmas time.

One story tells of a poor man with three daughters. In those days a young woman’s father had to offer prospective husbands something of value, a dowry. The larger the dowry, the better the chance a young woman had of finding what her family would regard as a good husband. Without a dowry, a woman might never get married.

Without dowries, this poor man’s daughters were in danger of being sold into slavery, becoming the victims of human trafficking.

Mysteriously, on three separate occasions, a bag of gold appeared in their home, providing the three needed dowries. The bags of gold were thrown through an open window, and somehow managed to land in stockings or shoes left out to dry before the fire.

You can see the parallels between this legend and the backstory to our Gospel story this morning, the story of the Annunciation. What might have been turned into another horror story has been rescued through God’s generosity, and our concern for people who are trafficked and exploited is at the heart of Gospel values.

This led to the custom of children hanging stockings or putting out shoes, eagerly awaiting gifts from Saint Nicholas.

Sometimes the story is told with gold balls instead of bags of gold. This is why three gold balls, sometimes represented as oranges, are among the symbols for Saint Nicholas, the gift-giver.

Sadly, these three gold balls also signify pawnbrokers, which I imagine many poor people find they have to resort to this Christmas.

I hope Santa is generous to all, adults and children alike, tonight. Tomorrow we are going to celebrate the greatest gift of all, God’s gift of the Christ Child at Christmas.

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

(Revd Canon Professor) Patrick Comerford is Priest-in-Charge, the Rathkeale and Kilnaughtin Group of Parishes. This sermon was prepared for the Fourth Sunday of Advent, 24 December 2017.

The Annunciation depicted on a panel on the triptych in the Lady Chapel in Lichfield Cathedral (Photograph: Patrick Comerford / Lichfield Gazette)

Collect:

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:

This collect is said after the Collect of the day until Christmas Eve:

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.

Penitential Kyries:

Turn to us again, O God our Saviour,
and let your anger cease from us.

Lord, have mercy.
Lord, have mercy.

Show us your mercy, O Lord,
and grant us your salvation.

Christ, have mercy.
Christ, have mercy.

Your salvation is near for those that fear you,
that glory may dwell in our land.

Lord, have mercy.
Lord, have mercy.

Introduction to the Peace:

In the tender mercy of our God,
the dayspring from on high shall break upon us,
to give light to those who dwell in darkness
and in the shadow of death,
and to guide our feet into the way of peace. (Luke 1: 78, 79)

Preface:

Salvation is your gift
through the coming of your Son our Saviour Jesus Christ,
and by him you will make all things new
when he returns in glory to judge the world:

Post Communion Prayer:

Heavenly Father,
you have given us a pledge of eternal redemption.
Grant that we may always eagerly celebrate
the saving mystery of the incarnation of your Son.
We ask this through him whose coming is certain,
whose day draws near,
your Son Jesus Christ our Lord.

Blessing:

Christ the sun of righteousness shine upon you,
gladden your hearts
and scatter the darkness from before you:

Jacques Yverni, ‘The Annunciation,’ ca 1435, in the National Gallery of Ireland, Dublin (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Praying in Advent with USPG
and Lichfield Cathedral
(22): 24 December 2017

The large crib in the centre of Saint Peter’s Square in the Vatican earlier this year (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2017)

Patrick Comerford

Today is the Fourth Sunday of Advent, this evening is Christmas Eve. We have come to the end of Advent, and tomorrow is Christmas Day.

This morning I am presiding at and preaching at the Parish Eucharist at 11 a.m. in Holy Trinity Church, Rathkeale, Co Limerick. This is a united service for the Rathkeale and Kilnaughtin Group of Parishes. Later this evening, I am presiding at and preaching at the Christmas Eucharist at 8 p.m. in Saint Brendan’s Church, Kilnaughtin (Tarbert), Co Kerry, and at 10 p.m. in Castletown Church, Kilcornan (Pallaskenry), Co Limerick.

Tomorrow morning, on Christmas Day, I am presiding at and preaching at the Christmas Eucharist at 9.30 a.m. in Saint Mary’s Church, Askeaton, and at 11 a.m. in Holy Trinity Church, Rathkeale.

Throughout this season of Advent, I have been spending a short time of prayer and reflection each morning, using the prayer diary of the Anglican mission agency, USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel) and the Advent and Christmas Devotional Calendar from Lichfield Cathedral.

USPG, founded in 1701, is an Anglican mission agency supporting churches around the world in their mission to bring fullness of life to the communities they serve.

Under the title Pray with the World Church, the current prayer diary (22 October 2017 to 10 February 2018), offers prayers and reflections from the Anglican Communion.

This week, the Prayer Diary visits the Holy Land, and this theme is introduced by Salwa Khoury, who is based at Saint Luke’s Hospital in Nablus on the West Bank:

St Luke’s Hospital has been serving its local community with love and care since its inception in 1900. The hospital operates in a non-commercial manner to provide medical care for all who are in need, regardless of race, religion or financial status, reaching a local population of almost 200,000, with around 9,000 patients treated each year.

Our aim is to demonstrate God’s love in action by alleviating suffering, supporting the poor, and comforting the bereaved.

Nadia, 25, from Ballata village, had a traffic accident during her eighth month of pregnancy, which led to an early delivery of her baby Ammar by caesarean. But Ammar, being so premature, was struggling to breathe, so Nadia brought her baby to St Luke’s for urgent treatment. Mother and baby stayed for two weeks until Ammar had sufficiently improved and could be discharged.

Nadia is a Palestinian whose family struggles financially because her husband earns very little as a daily-paid worker. So Nadia’s medical fees were reduced to a minimum – and she expressed her deepest thanks to the hospital for her care, for paying the costs, and for giving smiles to her family by hanging balloons in her ward.

The USPG Prayer Diary:

Sunday 24 December 2017:


Lord Jesus, mother Mary carried you in an occupied land.
We pray for mothers in the Holy Land today;
bless church-run hospitals that serve them and their children,
regardless of race, religion or financial status.

As we light our Advent candles in anticipation of the coming of the Christ Child, USPG is inviting us to pray for mothers and children who are served by the USPG in the world church in Tanzania, Ghana, Bangladesh and Palestine.

The first candle on the Advent Wreath was the Purple Candle recalling the Patriarchs and Matriarchs, our fathers and mothers in the faith, like Abraham and Sarah, and so on. The second purple candle represents the Prophets. The third, pink candle, which we lit last Sunday, represents Saint John the Baptist. This morning’s fourth purple candle represents the Virgin Mary, and she is the theme of our readings and some of our hymns and prayers this morning.

USPG suggests this prayer when lighting the fourth candle representing the Virgin Mary:

The Virgin Mary:

O God of promise,
whose mother Mary carried your Christ in an occupied land;
we pray for mothers in the Holy Land
who today live with restrictions and violence.
Bless the church-run hospitals that serve them and their children
regardless of race, religion or financial status.

Lichfield Cathedral Advent and Christmas Devotional Calendar:

The calendar suggests lighting your Advent candle each day as you read the Bible and pray.

Today, the calendar suggests reading Isaiah 11: 1-9.

The reflection for today offers this challenge:

As we begin the festivities, we remember the peace and joy God wants for us and his world. Offer yourself again so that he can reign in your life.

Readings (Revised Common Lectionary, Holy Communion, the Fourth Sunday of Advent:

II Samuel 7: 1-11, 16; the Canticle Magnificat or Psalm 89: 1-4, 19-26; Romans 16: 25-27; Luke 1: 26-38.

The Collect of the Third Sunday of Advent:

Collect (the Fourth Sunday of Advent):

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. Amen.

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.

Post-Communion Prayer:

Heavenly Father,
you have given us a pledge of eternal redemption.
Grant that we may always eagerly celebrate
the saving mystery of the incarnation of your Son.
We ask this through him whose coming is certain,
whose day draws near, your Son Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Yesterday’s reflection

Series concluded.

A chilling story behind
the closed doors of
a Castleconnell hotel

The Shannon Inn, previously the Shannon Hotel, on the Main Street in Castleconnell, Co Limerick (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2017)

Patrick Comerford

I was writing earlier this week [20 December 2017] about George Peabody and John Bright and their fishing holidays in Castleconnell, Co Limerick, a century and a half ago in the late 1860s, when they went fishing on the River Shannon for salmon and trout.

In the 18th century, Castleconnell was a well-known spa resort, and the waters here were reputed to be ‘successful in the treatment of ulcers, bilious complaints, obstruction in the liver and jaundice.’ Because of this reputation, the spa at Castleconnell rivalled Lisdoonvarna in Co Clare as a resort in the Georgian era.

However, from the mid-19th century, fishing and boating became the mainstay of tourism in Castleconnell for generations, until the 1930s or later. Celebrated visitors, apart from Bright and Peabody, included Sir Winston Churchill’s father, Lord Randolph Churchill (1849-1895), who once described Castleconnell as a ‘pleasant oasis where time appears to stand still.’

The Shannon Hotel on Main Street, Castleconnell, now known as the Shannon Inn, became the principal hotel for anglers and people who took boats on the River Shannon.

Although the Shannon Inn is closed at the moment, it is a landmark building in a prominent location on the Main Street, facing a junction marked out by Saint Joseph’s Roman Catholic Church and Shannon Stores, a surviving Victorian shop whose name illustrates the important role the river has played in the life of Castleconnell.

The Shannon Inn is a terraced, five-bay, two-storey house, built around 1800. For many generations, the Enright family were the celebrated hosts at this ‘anglers’ rest,’ until it was bought in 1918 by Denis O’Donovan, a popular local businessman, the Limerick agent for Murphy’s Brewery, and a kinsman of O’Donovan Rossa. A year before the Easter Rising, at the invitation of Patrick Pearse, Denis O’Donovan attended O’Donovan Rossa’s funeral in Glasnevin Cemetery in 1915.

The former Shannon Hotel looks like a modest house today, and it was built originally as part of a terrace. But it is worth taking note of because of its subtle, classically inspired façade, and many of its original features still survive, including the render window surrounds, the sash windows and the ornate shopfront.

The front elevation is a rendered shopfront. There is a pitched slate roof with rendered chimneystacks, and the overhanging eaves have timber brackets and cast-iron rainwater goods.

The lined-and-ruled rendered walls have a render plinth course. The square-headed openings have painted stone sills, render surrounds with entablatures and consoles over one-over-one pane timber sliding sash windows.

The shopfront has render pilasters supporting the fascia and cornice over square-headed openings. Doric style pilasters support the fascia with a render cornice. The square-headed display windows have timber mullions and flanking pilasters. There is a square-headed opening with a glazed over-light over the double-leaf timber panelled doors.

The pair of rendered chamfered square-profile piers to the south-west have render caps and a single-leaf cast-iron gate. The rendered boundary walls have cast-iron railings that end in a cast-iron pier that has a single-leaf gate.

The Shannon Inn stands on a prominent corner in Castleconnell, Co Limerick (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2017)

Denis ‘Denny’ O’Donovan and two members of the Royal Irish Constabulary were killed here by a ‘Black and Tan’ auxiliary contingent out of uniform on 17 April 1921, at the height of the Irish War of Independence. A parliamentary inquiry heard three policemen at the bar naturally assumed that the assailants were members of the IRA who had spotted them as policemen. At once they drew their revolvers and opened fire.

O’Donovan, who was then 46, had his hands in the air. He was taken out into the yard behind the hotel and was shot dead in front of his wife, two sons and two daughters. His younger daughter, Una O’Donovan, was the mother of the Limerick politician Dessie O’Malley.

The killings took place just weeks after the Mayor of Limerick, George Clancy, a former Mayor of Limerick, Michael O’Callaghan, and a young man named John O’Donoghue, had been killed in Limerick on the night of 6 March 1921. It is said that unknown to the assailants, Stephen O’Mara, who had returned to Ireland from the US to succeed Clancy as Mayor of Limerick, was staying in the Shannon Hotel that day, although this is not supported by evidence given within the next 10 days in the House of Lords.

Dessie O’Malley later suggested in his memoirs, Conduct Unbecoming, that the incident might have had no political consequences but for the fact that one of the guests in the Shannon Hotel that day was Dr William Harrison Cripps (1850-1923), a surgeon in his 70s, who had recently retired from Saint Bartholomew’s Hospital, London.

Harrison Cripps, who was in the dining room in the hotel at the time of the attack, was a former Vice-President of the Royal College of Surgeons and a pioneer in colostomy. He was a son of Henry William Cripps (1815-1899), former Recorder of Lichfield, an elder brother of Charles Alfred Cripps (1852-1941), Lord Parmoor, a former Conservative politician, and an uncle of Sir Richard Stafford Cripps (1889-1952).

The two bothers, Harrison Cripps and Lord Parmoor, had married sisters, and both were brothers-in-law of the radical social reformer Beatrice Webb (1858-1942). When Parmoor was made a member of the House of Lords in 1914, he left the Tories and aligned with the Liberal Party, opposed conscription and sympathised with conscientious objectors. An active High Church Anglican, he became the first chair of the House of Laity in the National Church Assembly of the Church of England in 1920.

Lord Parmoor rose in the House of Lords on 26 April 1921 to call attention to the attack on the hotel at Castleconnell. He explained that his brother, who was there with his wife, had gone to Castleconnell for the fishing for 30 or 40 years. His brother and sister-in-law, were the only two visitors at the hotel and Parmoor added that his brother did not agree with him generally on Irish matters, and had always been strongly in favour of the Government’s policy. Parmoor produced an illegal dum-dum bullet his brother had picked up from the floor, and in his speech in the Lords he described the attack as ‘the most wicked attack you can imagine.’

The events that evening had a significant impact on the peace negotiations. They helped secured the truce that was agreed in July 1921, and led ultimately to the Anglo-Irish Treaty signed in December 1921.

In 1923, Lord Parmoor accepted an invitation from the first Labour Prime Minister, Ramsay McDonald, to join the Labour Party, and he was appointed Lord President of the Council and Joint Leader of the House of Lords.

A plaque inside the Shannon Inn reads: ‘This is the house where Mr Denis O’Donovan, proprietor of the Shannon Hotel, along with two others was fatally shot by crown forces on 17th April 1921. This incident so outraged public opinion in Ireland and England that it was a turning point in the peace negotiations, eventually leading to the Treaty of 1921. This plaque was unveiled by his grandson Desmond O’Malley, TD, on 16/4/1997.’

The two policeman also killed that day, Sergeant William John Hughes (45) and Cadet Donald Pringle (31), are not named on the plaque.

But there is a curious genealogical tangle that has also been pointed to by Dessie O’Malley. Denis O’Donovan’s son, Dr Donogh (DK) O’Donovan, married Dr Phyllis Gill, a descendant of an English Quaker family named Priestman. She was a third cousin of Mariann Emily Ennis (1878-1952), who married Lord Parmoor as his second wife.

Her stepson, Sir Stafford Cripps, was a Labour cabinet minister in the 1930s and 1940s, an ambassador, a radical socialist, and Clement Atlee’s Chancellor of the Exchequer. During his career, he negotiated with Stalin and Gandhi, and when he resigned from Parliament in 1950 his seat in Bristol South-East was taken at the by-election by Tony Benn.

In recent years, it has been alleged by some that the leader of the Black and Tan gang who attacked the Shannon Hotel was George Nathan (1895-1937), and that he also led the gang that killed Clancy, O’Callaghan and O’Donoghue. Nathan was Jewish and gay, and the first Jewish officer in the Brigade of Guards. He cut a lonely figure, and his defenders say the allegations besmirch the reputation of a man who later became a well-known socialist.

Nathan died in the Spanish Civil War in 1937 fighting as a major on the Republican side in British contingent in the XV International Brigade. In his diary, Peter O’Connor from Waterford described him as ‘one of the greatest soldiers taking part in the first fight against Fascism.’

The name of the Shannon Hotel was changed to the Shannon Inn. In more recent years, it was run by Paddy Hickey, but it closed in 2014. However, in September 2017, the Limerick Leader reported, the Shannon Inn had been bought by the Ahane Castleconnell Montpelier (ACM) Community Centre. The plans for the Shannon Inn include a heritage centre, an art hub, a youth space, a café and a men’s shed.

Across the street, on the corner facing Saint Joseph’s Church, Shannon Stores is a detached four-bay two-storey house, built about 1870, with shopfront on both sides.

This prominently located building at a central junction in Castleconnell still has several interesting original Victorian features, including the render details, the shopfront and the simple classically inspired façade.

The Shannon Stores and the Shannon Inn on a prominent street corner in Castleconnel (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2017)