01 July 2020

Some new books, with
new chapters, fresh
papers and book reviews

With Professor Salvador Ryan of Saint Patrick’s College, Maynooth, and Dom Colmán Ó Clabaigh of Glenstal Abbey at the launch of ‘Marriage and the Irish’ in the Royal Irish Academcy last year

Patrick Comerford

It is that time of the year when the Church of Ireland Directory is asking me to update my entry, with any changes to my personal details, including lists of any new publications since the 2020 edition of the Directory was published.

I had three papers to list in this year’s Directory: a feature in the Redemptorist publication Reality on Cecil Frances Alexander and her hymn ‘Once in Royal David’s City’ and two chapters on weddings and marriages in a book edited by my friend and colleague Professor Salvador Ryan of Maynooth, Marriage and the Irish (Dublin: Wordwell, 2019), one on the 17-year-old wife of Bishop John Leslie, the ‘oldest bishop in Christendom’ and the other on ‘Four Victorian weddings and a funeral.’

The chapters in Salvador Ryan’s book follow two chapters in an earlier book on a similar theme, Death and the Irish (Dublin: Wordwell, 2016).

Like any writer, I have any number of projects on the go at any one time, and sometimes I lose track of papers submitted for publication in between the submission date and actual publication.

Since the 2020 edition of the Directory was prepared for publication, I have seen the publication of these papers or chapters:

Wellington: the Irish hero at Waterloo who introduced Catholic Emancipation’, in Hugh Baker and John McCullen (eds), Drogheda Grammar School, 1669-2019 (Drogheda: Drogheda Grammar School, 2019, xii + 236 pp), pp 31-37.

Are ‘conservative evangelicals’ really conservative and evangelicalSearch, a Church of Ireland journal, Vol 43 No 1 (Spring 2020), pp 5-13.

But there are other papers in the pipeline, or going to press, and I wondered in recent days whether they had been accepted or were being published. When I was in academic life, publication in books and peer-reviewed journals was important for one’s academic reputation and standing. So, it was good to hear this week that five more papers are going to see the light of day this year or early next year.

Two submissions are to appear in a new book edited by Salvador Ryan and John-Paul Sheridan marking the 225th anniversary of Maynooth. One looks at the history of Saint Mary’s Church of Ireland parish church, which abuts the grounds of Maynooth College, and the other recalls the day I graduated STB, BD, at Maynooth in 1987:

Salvador Ryan and John-Paul Sheridan (eds), We Remember Maynooth: A College Across Four Centuries (Dublin: Messenger Publications, in press, to be published October 2020).

Two further submissions are to appear in Salvador Ryan’s planned follow-up to Death and the Irish and Marriage and the Irish. One looks at the birth in poverty in Dublin of Albert Grant, who became a Conservative MP and a financial fraudster, and the other tells the story of sons in the French family in Co Roscommon who were born to parents who married each other, not once but twice, and why some of them were unable to inherit the family title:

Salvador Ryan (ed), Birth and the Irish: a Miscellany (Dublin: Wordwell Press, forthcoming, 2021).

In addition, Professor Ryan is one of the co-editors of the Irish Theological Quarterly, and one of my book reviews is being published in the August 2020 edition (85: 3).

It is always pleasant for a writer to work with an appreciative and encouraging editor. There might even be a few Christmas presents in the making here.

We Remember Maynooth: A College Across Four Centuries

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