01 November 2019

‘O blest communion, fellowship divine!
We feebly struggle, they in glory shine’

Christ and the Saints depicted in a dome in Saint Mark’s Basilica, Venice (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2018)

Patrick Comerford,

All Saints’ Day, 1 November 2019,

11 a.m.: The Eucharist (Holy Communion 2)

Saint Mary’s Church, Askeaton, Co Limerick


Readings: Daniel 7: 1-3, 15-18; Psalm 149; Ephesians 1: 11-23; Luke 6: 20-31.

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

All Saints’ Day is one of the 12 ‘Principal Holy Days’ of the Church. This is one of those days, according to the Book of Common Prayer, when ‘it is fitting that the Holy Communion be celebrated in every cathedral and every parish church or in a church within a parochial union or group of parishes.’

In our first reading (Daniel 7: 1-3, 15-18), Daniel’s visions include one in which he sees beyond persecutions to a time when God shall rescue his people, and ‘the Most High shall possess the kingdom for ever – for ever and ever.’

In the Psalm (Psalm 149), the worshippers, the saints, are invited not only to sing but to dance and to make music on the tambourine and the lyre, so I am going to say something, in a few moments, about one of our hymns this morning.

In the Epistle reading (Ephesians 1: 11-23), Saint Paul is writing ‘to the saints who are … faithful in Christ Jesus,’ and reminds them that Christ has made them heirs to the kingdom of God.

In the Gospel reading (Luke 6: 20-31), Saint Luke gives us his version of the beatitudes, with a different emphasis that the way Saint Matthew lists them (see Matthew 5: 3-12).

Christ now speaks of four blessings or beatitudes and four parallel woes or warnings of the age to come. Some people are ‘blessed’ or ‘happy’ (μακάριος, makários) by being included in the Kingdom, but they are paired with those who are warned of coming woes:

● those who are poor (verse 20) and those who are rich now (verse 24)
● those who are hungry now (verse 21) and those who are full now (verse 25)
● those who weep now (verse 21) and those who laugh now (verse 25)
● those who are persecuted, or hated, excluded, reviled and defamed (verse 22) and those who are popular now (verse 26)

Who are the poor, the hungry, those who weep and those who are persecuted today? And do we see them as saints?

Our offertory hymn, ‘For all the saints, who from their labours rest’ (459), was written by Bishop William Walsham How (1823-1897) as a processional hymn for All Saints’ Day.

The saints recalled in this hymn are ordinary people in their weaknesses and their failings. In its original form, it had 11 verses, although three are omitted from most versions – the verses extolling ‘the glorious company of the Apostles,’ ‘the godly fellowship of the prophets’ and ‘the noble army of martyrs’ were inspired by the 1662 Book of Common Prayer version of the canticle Te Deum.

The tune Sine Nomine (‘Without Name,’ referring to the great multitude of unknown saints) was written for this hymn by Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872-1958) while he was editing the English Hymnal (1906) with Percy Dearmer.

When he wrote this hymn, Walsh How was Rector of Whittington, Shropshire, a canon St Asaph Cathedral. He also spent time in Rome as chaplain of the Anglican Church there, All Saints’ Church, before returning to England.

While he was Bishop of Bedford, Walsham How became known as ‘the poor man’s bishop.’ He became the first Bishop of Wakefield, and died in Leenane, Co Mayo, in 1897 while he was on an Irish fishing holiday in Dulough.

The hymn vibrates with images from the Book of Revelation. The saints recalled by ‘the poor man’s bishop’ in this hymn are ordinary people who, in spite of their weaknesses and their failings, are able to respond in faith to Christ’s call to service and love, and who have endured the battle against the powers of evil and darkness.

In its original form, this hymn had 11 verses, although three are omitted from most versions: the verses extolling ‘the glorious company of the Apostles,’ ‘the godly fellowship of the prophets’ and ‘the noble army of martyrs’ were inspired by the 1662 Book of Common Prayer version of the canticle Te Deum.

But the heart of the hymn is in the stanza in which we sing about the unity of the Church in heaven and on earth, ‘knit together in one communion and fellowship, in the mystical body of … Christ our Lord.’ Despite our ‘feeble struggles’ we are united in Christ and with one another in one ‘blest communion’ and ‘fellowship divine.’

It is a hymn that celebrates that there among the saints are the ordinary people, the people who are blessed and happy in Saint Luke’s version of the Beatitudes this morning.

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

All Saints depicted in the window in Saint Columb’s Cathedral, Derry, in memory of Canon Richard Babington (1837-1893) of All Saints’ Church, Clooney, Derry (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2019)

Luke 6: 20-31 (NRSVA):

20 Jesus looked up at his disciples and said:
‘Blessed are you who are poor,
for yours is the kingdom of God.
21 ‘Blessed are you who are hungry now,
for you will be filled.
‘Blessed are you who weep now,
for you will laugh.
22 ‘Blessed are you when people hate you, and when they exclude you, revile you, and defame you on account of the Son of Man. 23 Rejoice on that day and leap for joy, for surely your reward is great in heaven; for that is what their ancestors did to the prophets.
24 ‘But woe to you who are rich,
for you have received your consolation.
25 ‘Woe to you who are full now,
for you will be hungry.
‘Woe to you who are laughing now,
for you will mourn and weep.
26 ‘Woe to you when all speak well of you, for that is what their ancestors did to the false prophets.

27 ‘But I say to you that listen, Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, 28 bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you. 29 If anyone strikes you on the cheek, offer the other also; and from anyone who takes away your coat do not withhold even your shirt. 30 Give to everyone who begs from you; and if anyone takes away your goods, do not ask for them again. 31 Do to others as you would have them do to you.’

Saints and Martyrs … the ten martyrs of the 20th century above the West Door of Westminster Abbey (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2019)

Liturgical colour: White

Penitential Kyries:

Lord, you are gracious and compassionate.
Lord, have mercy.
Lord, have mercy.

You are loving to all,
and your mercy is over all your creation.
Christ, have mercy.
Christ, have mercy.

Your faithful servants bless your name,
and speak of the glory of your kingdom.
Lord, have mercy.
Lord, have mercy.

The Collect of the Day:

Almighty God,
you have knit together your elect
in one communion and fellowship
in the mystical body of your Son Christ our Lord:
Grant us grace so to follow your blessed saints
in all virtuous and godly living
that we may come to those inexpressible joys
that you have prepared for those who truly love you;
through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Introduction to the Peace:

We are fellow citizens with the saints
and the household of God,
through Christ our Lord,
who came and preached peace to those who were far off
and those who were near (Ephesians 2: 19, 17).

The Preface:

In the saints
you have given us an example of godly living,
that rejoicing in their fellowship,
we may run with perseverance the race that is set before us,
and with them receive the unfading crown of glory …

Post-Communion Prayer:

God, the source of all holiness
and giver of all good things:
May we who have shared at this table
as strangers and pilgrims here on earth
be welcomed with all your saints
to the heavenly feast on the day of your kingdom;
through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Blessing:

God give you grace
to share the inheritance of all his saints in glory …

The Berliner Dom in Berlin, popularly known as Berlin Cathedral … the images inside the dome illustrate the Beatitudes (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2018)

Hymns:

459: ‘For all the saints, who from their labours rest’ (CD 27)
468: ‘How shall I sing that majesty’ (CD 2, Church Hymnal discs)

All Saints’ Church, Rome … the Anglican church where the hymn writer Bishop William Walsham How was chaplain (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

Material from the Book of Common Prayer is copyright © 2004, Representative Body of the Church of Ireland.

‘The Back of the Pipe’:
a Victorian fountain on
Cashel’s Main Street

‘The Back of the Pipe’ on Main Street, Cashel, was erected by the Town Commissioners in 1842 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2019)

Patrick Comerford

One of the unique and eye-catching features on the streets of Cashel, Co Tipperary, is the 1840s fountain known as ‘The Back of the Pipe’ on Main Street.

The Victorian fountain was erected by the Town Commissioners of Cashel in 1842 to provide a supply of clean water to the town and was one of the first public works by the new Town Commissioners, set up by Act of Parliament in 1840 to replace the old corporation.

When the fountain at the Back of the Pipe was first erected near Moore Lane, it was designed to disgorge clean water through the mouths of the gargoyles or lions into a separate stone trough.

This half-octagonal-plan fountain, built of limestone, is attached to the south-west gable of a building. It has an artificial slate roof with a carved stone cornice and a pedimented date plaque (1842).

The form and function of the fountain adds variety to the streetscape of Cashel and the textures and materials provide further visual interest. It displays fine stone crafting, and the date plaque and cast-iron lion-heads add decorative interest.

The ‘Back of the Pipe’ has a dressed stone base with a cut stone plinth. A cut-stone string course separates the base from the upper snecked stone walling. The walling has roughly dressed stone pilasters and raised rectangular stone panels.

The cast-iron lion-head or gargoyle spouts at the base of the fountain were designed to feed water into the continuous trough reflecting the plan of fountain.

The fountain was restored in 1986, when it was converted into a decorative fountain.

Cashel also has an earlier well that gives its name to Ladyswell Street, and a fountain in the Hiberno-Romanesque style erected at Lower Gate Square by the people of Cashel in 1904 as a tribute to Dean Thomas Kinane (1835-1913).

One of the cast-iron lion-head or gargoyle spouts at the base of the fountain (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2019)

Cashel Town Hall,
a reminder of
a mediaeval city

The Town Hall in Cashel, Co Tipperary … designed by James Edward Rogers (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2019)

Patrick Comerford

The Town Hall in Cashel, Co Tipperary, is now the home of Cashel Heritage Centre and is also home to a local museum.

The town of Cashel owes its existence to the Rock of Cashel, which was the seat of the Kings of Munster from the fifth century until it was given to the church in 1101. A round tower, Cormac’s Chapel and the Anglo-Normans Gothic cathedral and tower house were built in the centuries that followed.

However, Cashel is not just the Rock, and the town has mediaeval walls, the ruins of 13th century Dominican abbey, a mediaeval tower house known as Kearney’s Castle that dates from the late 15th century, and many attractive Georgian buildings, including the Church of Ireland cathedral, the former Bishop’s Palace, and elegant Georgian townhouses that line John Street.

Local lore claims that Cashel first became a ‘borough by favour’ in 1216 at the favour Donnchad Ua Lonngargáin I, Archbishop of Cashel (1208-1216), who died that year either in Rome or at Cîteaux Abbey, or his successor, Archbishop Donnchad Ua Lonngargáin II (1216-1223), a Cistercian monk who resigned in 1223 and died in 1232.

Cashel received its first Charter in 1228, when King Henry III granted ‘that vill in frankalmoign to the Archbishop of Cashel and his successors’ with the right to hold an ‘annual fair at Cashel for eight days, namely, on the vigil and feast of the Holy Trinity and six following days.’

Frankalmoign is a tenure in which a religious corporation holds lands given to them and their successors forever, usually on condition of praying for the soul of the donor and his heirs. For a one-off payment of 300 marks to the Crown, the Archbishop of Cashel gained almost exclusive control of the town and its revenues.

Fourteen years later, in 1232, Archbishop Marianus or Mairin O Briain (1223-1237) transferred the borough of Cashel to the Provost (mayor) and burgesses, reserving only the shambles or meat market to his personal jurisdiction. He also granted free pastures and other privileges to the town’s residents.

The rent-paying burgesses of Cashel were entitled to rights and privileges according to their status, and many worked lands in the vicinity granted to them by the archbishops.

Cashel developed as a planned Norman town, with a grid-like street layout, off-set lanes, and a market place. Long narrow plots extend from the street front, and the continuity of many of these from probably the high medieval period is still evident in Cashel.

The new town probably reached the extent marked out by the town wall by about 1265. Despite its early elevation to borough status, Cashel did not receive a murage grant until 1303-1307. Edward Bruce halted his army and held a parliament at Cashel in 1316, making the borough, albeit ever so briefly, the capital of Ireland.

The town walls in Cashel were built in 1319-1324.

The borough privileges of Cashel were confirmed by Richard II in 1378, by Archbishop Roland Baron FitzGerald (1553-1561) in 1557, and by Queen Elizabeth I in 1584.

Cashel received city status in a charter granted by King Charles I in 1637, and a second charter from Charles I in 1639 set out the city system of government.

By the mid-17th century, the town walls were obsolete and were probably of little value after the invention of gun powder. The Rock of Cashel was burned by Murrough O’Brien, Earl of Inchiquin, at the Sack of Cashel in 1647.

At the end of the 17th century, before the Battle of the Boyne, King James II granted a new charter to Cashel, but later, while he was camped nearby at Golden, he issued an edict reverting to the charters of Charles I.

Under Charles I’s charters, Cashel was governed by a mayor, 17 aldermen, and bailiffs, along with the citizens and commons of Cashel. The elections of the Mayor, Recorder and Town Clerk were subject to the approval of the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland and the Privy Council.

The Corporation elected two MPs to the Irish House of Commons until the Act of Union, and Cashel continued to elect one member of the House of Commons in Westminster until the borough was disenfranchised in 1870.

Meanwhile, Cashel Corporation was dissolved by Act of Parliament in 1840, and the landed estates and property of the corporation were transferred to the 21 town commissioners elected on 5 October 1840, with James Heney as the first elected chair.

The Town Hall, built by the Cashel Town Commissioners in 1866, is a three-bay, two-storey building, built on a prominent site in the centre of what was the medieval market place of Cashel.

The town hall was designed by the architect and artist James Edward Rogers (1838-1896).

Rogers was born in Dublin in 1838, a son of James Rogers, QC, of 20 Upper Mount Street. He was educated at Guildford Grammar School and Trinity College Dublin (BA 1861). While he was at TCD, he became a pupil of the architect Benjamin Woodward (1815-1861) who was then was working on the Oxford Museum.

Rogers regularly visited Oxford, where he became friends of the Pre-Raphaelites William Morris and Dante Gabriel Rossetti, who were then decorating Woodward’s debating hall at the Oxford Union with scenes from Arthurian legends. Together, they went ‘hunting in the parish churches on Sunday evenings to find a Guinevere.’

When Woodward was dying of tuberculosis, Rogers visited him in Algiers or the South of France in early 1860. He was later described by his lifelong friend, JP Mahaffy, as ‘Woodward’s favourite pupil.’

Woodward died in May 1861, Rogers graduated from TCD later that year, and probably set up his own practice in 1862, working first form his father’s address, and later from offices at Great Brunswick Street (Nos 205 and 179), now Pearse Street, Dublin.

He worked closely with both William Stirling and James Franklin Fuller, but most of his recorded work was with the Church of Ireland. He was architect to the Diocese of Meath until disestablishment in 1869 and also designed or worked on churches in the Diocese of Dublin and in the Diocese of Limerick.

His works include Saint Mary’s Church, Howth; Kenure Church and Kenure Rectory, Rush, Co Dublin; Holmpatrick Church, Skerries, Co Dublin; Saint Bartholomew’s Vicarage, Ballsbridge; Saint Paul’s Church, Kilfergus (Glin), Co Limerick; Kilkeedy Church, Clarina, Co Limerick; and Saint Patrick’s Church, Kilcock, Co Kildare; as well as No 31 Dame Street, Dublin; and the Carmichael School of Medicine, Brunswick Street, Dublin.

However, Rogers was best known for his drawings and watercolour paintings and as a book illustrator. He moved London in 1876 and does not appear to have practised as an architect in England, although he continued to exhibit his paintings at the Royal Hibernian Academy and at the Royal Academy and at the exhibitions of the Dublin Sketching Club and the Dublin Art Club. He died in London on 18 February 1896.

The Town Hall designed by Rogers in Cashel has a regular form that is enlivened by the varied openings and the gable-fronted addition. The three elevations incorporate myriad classical elements such as arcading, cornices, niches and pilasters, displaying evidence of fine stone-crafting.

Further interest and context are provided by the clock and an armorial date plaque. There is a striking contrast between the ornate limestone front and gable façades and the plain rendered rear façade is striking.

The Town Hall is now used as a tourist information office.

In front of the Town Hall, the Croke Cross was erected in 1895 to mark the jubilee of Thomas Croke (1824-1902), Archbishop of Cashel (1875-1902) and first patron of the Gaelic Athletic Association, which was founded in neighbouring Thurles.

This limestone cross, with echoes of the Celtic Revival, has figurative scenes and interlace in high relief, including a scene at the base of the east side of Saint Patrick baptising King Aengus of Munster on the Rock of Cashel.

The cross was first erected at the junction of Main Street and Friar Street. But it was demolished in a traffic accident. A replica was commissioned and was erected in its present position on Main Street in front of the Town Hall.

The Archbishop Croke Cross in front of the Town Hall in Cashel, Co Tipperary (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2019)