09 February 2018

An evening of humour and
history in Rathkeale

The coat of arms of Thomas Arthur Southwell, 4th Viscount Southwell, in the centre of the three-light window above the High Altar in Saint Mary’s Church, Rathkeale (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

The Rathkeale community notes in today’s edition of the Limerick Leader [9 February 2018] begin with the following report:

Rathkeale & District Historical Society: The society will hold its next meeting on Friday February 9 at 8.30 pm, in the Community Arts Centre, New Line, Rathkeale. Topic: The Southwell Family and their connection with the stained-glass windows at St. Mary’s Church, Rathkeale. Speaker: Dr Patrick Comerford, lecturer in Church History at Trinity College and Administrator St. Brendan’s Church of Ireland. All are welcome. Admission Free.

Having worked for years in provincial and national newspapers, it still surprises me how names, titles and job descriptions can be shuffled around like this.

But it is good to get this sort of advance notice for tonight’s lecture. I promise it is full of humour, with some light digressions and excursions through the social and church history of Rathkeale. I even have stories about Parnell’s eccentric sister-in-law who ended her days feeding anchovy sandwiches to her pet monkey, a mediaeval sculpture in Bangor Cathedral in Wales, and the family connections the British Home Secretary Amber Rudd has with Rathkeale.

Report on book launch and a letter
in the ‘Church of Ireland Gazette’


Patrick Comerford

Today’s edition of ‘The Church of Ireland Gazette’ [9 February 2018] carries the following half-page news report [p 5] on the launch of a new book to which I recently contributed:

Launch of Perspectives on Preaching – notable preachers
and thinkers contribute to ‘homegrown’ new book


A new book, Perspectives on Preaching: A Witness of the Irish Church, published by Church of Ireland Publishing (CIP) in conjunction with the Church of Ireland Theological Institute (CITI), was launched by the Rt Revd Ken Good, Bishop of Derry and Raphoe, in the Music Room of Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin, on 22nd January.

The publication, featuring contributions from a wide range of notable preachers and thinkers, has been edited by Canon Dr Maurice Elliott (Director of CITI) and the Revd Dr Patrick McGlinchey (Lecturer in Missiology and Pastoral Studies at CITI) and has been produced with, in the words of Dr Elliott, “the underlying conviction that biblically-grounded, Spirit-filled and culturally-relevant preaching is a sine qua non for the health of any local church.”

Formally launching the title, Bishop Good praised Dr Elliott and Dr McGlinchey for taking the initiative and seeing the book through to fruition. He particularly praised the volume for being “home-grown” – “drawing on experts from this island who are earthed and interested in contemporary Ireland.”

Bishop Good went on observe that the book is “both contemporary and local” and is free-range” – “not controlled, arguing from one point but offering 12 distinctive, separate contributions which show that there is not just one way to do preaching well.”

He said that “such a healthy diversity of approach opens up questions rather than closing them down. However, all the contributors advocate preaching and promote a high view of preaching.”

The new publication engages with the themes of preaching Scripture, denominational charisms and preaching to the culture, across 12 different chapters.

In addition to the editors, the contributors are: Archbishop Richard Clarke; Canon Patrick Comerford; the Revd Dr Shane Crombie; the Revd Dr Brian Fletcher; the Revd Barry Forde; Bishop Ferran Glenfield; Dr Katie Heffelfinger; Bishop Harold Miller; the Right Revd Dr Trevor Morrow and the Revd Dr Robin Stockitt.

Perspectives on Preaching: A Witness of the Irish Church (pp.242) is available from https://store.ireland.anglican.org/store/product/140/perspectives-on-preaching-a-witness-of. It is priced €11/£10.

Meanwhile, the Revd Canon Susan Green of Tullow, Co Carlow, has written this letter to the editor of the Gazette, published on p 10:

Female contributors to book on preaching

‘I was glad to hear of the publication of a new book on preaching, Perspectives on Preaching: A Witness of the Irish Church, published by Church of Ireland Publishing (CIP). Even more so when it advertised that it included “a wide range of notable preachers” and was ecumenical too.

‘I was heartened to read that, in the words of its editor, it was based on “the underlying conviction that biblically-grounded, Spirit-filled and culturally-relevant preaching is a sine qua non for the health of any local church”.

‘Unfortunately, as I read on I was deeply disappointed to see that 11 of the 12m undoubtedly all very fine contributors, were men.

‘To be truly culturally relevant one must seriously engage with, listen to and reflect the voices of the people who have experienced exclusion, who have not been at the top of society and who have been treated with suspicion by those who hold the reins of power.
‘For so many generations in Ireland the voices of women have been silenced. Our history records the actions of men whilst many of the women’s voices are lost altogether.

‘Unfortunately, even our relatively recent history contains a litany of injustices perpetrated against women – the Mother and Baby Homes, and the Magdalene Laundries.

‘As I write, the events of the Kerry Babies Tribunal are being revisited and, of course, the Eighth Amendment debate is revving up.

‘Into this maelstrom arrives a book on preaching, speaking from an overwhelmingly male perspective, and although the sole female voice offers the welcome and much-needed insight of someone who originates from beyond Ireland, there is no female Irish contributor ordained or lay.

‘It seems bizarre to me that this should even be an issue, after almost 30 years of women’s ordination. But it is, and if the counter argument is made that there are not enough suitable women, then I would suggest that this poses an even bigger question.’

Indeed, Dr McGlinchey, in his conclusions, seems uncomfortable with my ‘style of churchmanship’ and my paper, saying my ‘perspective does marks a seeming dissonance within the volume.’

Perhaps there might have been less dissonance and more balance if I was not the only person from position within Anglicanism who was invited to contribute to this volume. Indeed, I seem to be the only writer who discusses Patristic sources for the place of preaching within the Liturgy, there is only one Roman Catholic writer, and there is no Orthodox voice among the contributors.

The door is locked and
the people who lived
there have gone away

A glimpse of Askeaton’s industrial past at Abbey View (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2018)

Patrick Comerford

The architecture of Askeaton is a mixture of the mediaeval and the modern, from the Tower of the Knights Templar in the churchyard at Saint Mary’s, the castle and banqueting hall built by the Desmond FitzGeralds, and the late mediaeval friary of the Franciscans on the banks of the River Deel, to the Georgian and Victorian shopfronts on the two squares, Main Street and Church Street, to modern housing estates like Deel Manor, modern factories and the Leisure Centre with its state-of-art facilities.

But in my walks around Askeaton, I only have to turn a corner and find myself walking along a country lane, by the banks of the river, by old quay-front grain stories, abandoned mills and creameries, or finding sites of architectural and archaeological interest that tell the story of this once prosperous town that once bustled with trade and traffic on the Shannon Estuary.

Twice this week, I walked along Abbey View, on the raised escarpment above the Leisure Centre and the west bank of the River Deel, and I found myself wondering about the lost legacy of an industrial past.

A legacy of Askeaton’s Victorian industry (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2018)

An abandoned detached three-bay, three-storey, building on the east side of Abbey View is almost 200 years old. It was built around 1820 and has a two-bay single-storey extension on the north side.

The walls are of rubble limestone and the extension has roughcast rendered walls. The square-headed window openings having brick voussoirs, and the remains of a timber battened door are set within a square-headed opening with brick voussoirs. The extension has square-headed openings with corrugated-iron doors.

The main part of the building has a pitched slate roof with a brick eaves course, and the extension has a hipped corrugated-iron roof to extension.

This building is interesting for its brick dressings and early slate roof. The outbuilding presents a strong façade to the streetscape and makes a positive contribution to the architectural heritage of Askeaton.

But the building is no longer in use. It is crumbling, the roof is collapsing, the windows are open to the elements, and the doors are bolted and locked.

A forgotten and abandoned cottage on Abbey View (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2018)

Beside it, a row of four or five single-storey cottages show signs of their colourful past in the peeling paintwork. The roofs are collapsing, the doors are locked, and it must be a long time since any families lived in them.

But here or there, where the wooden battening had fallen away, I could catch a glimpse of broken glass panes in a window, and a torn lace curtain fluttering in the breeze that was invading the house.

Perhaps, in the past, someone stood at this window, looking at workers making their way to the now-abandoned factory, or waiting for a father, a brother, a son, to return home at the end of the working day.

But the windows are shut up, the doors are locked, the keys have been thrown away, the families have moved away, and there is nobody in Abbey View to tell the stories of an industrial past or to share those memories.

The curtains are fluttering in the breeze, but no one is standing at the window (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2018)