09 August 2021

Praying in Ordinary Time 2021:
72, Clare College, Cambridge

Inside the chapel in Clare College, Cambridge, with The Annunciation (1763) by Giovanni Battista Cipriani (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

Before the day gets busy, I am taking a little time this morning for prayer, reflection and reading. During this time in the Church Calendar known as Ordinary Time, I am taking some time each morning to reflect in these ways:

1, photographs of a church or place of worship;

2, the day’s Gospel reading;

3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary.

My theme this week is seven college chapels in Cambridge, and my photographs this morning (9 August 2021) are from Clare College.

The window commemorating Richard de Badew, the original founder of the college, offering what was known then as University Hall to the Virgin Mary and Christ Child (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

I stayed in Clare College, Cambridge, five years ago in advance of the annual summer school at Sidney Sussex College in 2016 organised by the Institute for Orthodox Christian Studies.

The Chapel in Clare College was built in the 1760s to a design by the amateur architect and Master of Gonville and Caius, James Burrough. The Chapel is at the heart of the college in Old Court, with a daily Eucharist each morning during Full Term, and Choral Evensong sung by the College Choir.

According to instructions left by the college founder, Lady Elizabeth de Clare, the chapel, as with the whole college, is dedicated to the Blessed Virgin Mary. The painting above the altar is ‘The Annunciation’ by Giambattista Cipriani, and was commissioned for the chapel by the Duke of Newcastle in the 18th century.

In the early 20th century, two stained glass windows were installed at the West End of the Chapel. The window on the south commemorates Richard de Badew, sometime Chancellor of Cambridge University and the original founder of the college, which was later re-established, renamed and endowed by Lady Elizabeth de Clare. He is shown offering his foundation, then known as University Hall, to the Virgin Mary and the Christ Child.

Below them is a map of Europe, with Ireland and Britain comfortably close to the European continental landmass, long before anyone thought of ‘Brexit.’ The window opposite on the north side of the chapel commemorates two of the college’s most distinguished alumni: Bishop Hugh Latimer, a martyr in the reign of Queen Mary Tudor; and Nicholas Ferrar, founder of the community at Little Gidding just before the English Civil War in the 17th century. To the left is a small image of the church built by Nicholas Ferrar and referred to by TS Eliot in his poem ‘Little Gidding.’

The antechapel has memorials to the members of Clare College who died in the two World Wars, including Hamo Sassoon, brother of the war poet Siegfried Sassoon. Past deans of Clare College include Archbishop Rowan Williams (1984-1986); the theologian and New Testament scholar, Bishop John AT Robinson (1951-1959); the New Testament scholar, CFD (‘Charlie’) Moule (1944-1951); Maurice Frank Wiles (1959-1967); and Bishop Mark Santer (1967-1972).

As I stood in the chapel of Clare College, I was reminded of TS Eliot’s reflections on Nicholas Ferrar and his community in ‘Little Gidding’:

If you came this way,
Taking any route, starting from anywhere,
At any time or at any season,
It would always be the same: you would have to put off
Sense and notion. You are not here to verify,
Instruct yourself, or inform curiosity
Or carry report. You are here to kneel
Where prayer has been valid. And prayer is more
Than an order of words, the conscious occupation
Of the praying mind, or the sound of the voice praying.
And what the dead had no speech for, when living,
They can tell you, being dead: the communication
Of the dead is tongued with fire beyond the language of the living.
Here, the intersection of the timeless moment
Is England and nowhere. Never and always.

Nicholas Ferrar of Little Gidding and Bishop Hugh Latimer (right) in the north window of the Chapel in Clare College (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Matthew 17: 22-27 (NRSVA):

22 As they were gathering in Galilee, Jesus said to them, ‘The Son of Man is going to be betrayed into human hands, 23 and they will kill him, and on the third day he will be raised.’ And they were greatly distressed.

24 When they reached Capernaum, the collectors of the temple tax came to Peter and said, ‘Does your teacher not pay the temple tax?’ 25 He said, ‘Yes, he does.’ And when he came home, Jesus spoke of it first, asking, ‘What do you think, Simon? From whom do kings of the earth take toll or tribute? From their children or from others?’ 26 When Peter said, ‘From others’, Jesus said to him, ‘Then the children are free. 27 However, so that we do not give offence to them, go to the lake and cast a hook; take the first fish that comes up; and when you open its mouth, you will find a coin; take that and give it to them for you and me.’

Lady Elizabeth de Clare depicted in a window in the Chapel of Clare College, Cambridge (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Prayer in the USPG Prayer Diary:

The Prayer in the USPG Prayer Diary today (9 August 2021, International Day of the World’s Indigenous Peoples), invites us to pray:

Today we pray for indigenous peoples across the world, as they fight to protect their ancestral lands from deforestation and extractive mining.

Yesterday’s reflection

Continued tomorrow

The founder of Clare College, Lady Elizabeth de Clare, wanted the chapel and the college dedicated to the Blessed Virgin Mary (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

The bridge at Clare College, spanning the Backs in Cambridge and beside King’s College (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

A tale of a county surgeon,
a hesitant librarian and
the inspiring sculptor

Bellevue House on Mill Road, Ennis, Co Clare … once the home of the County Surgeon, now the headquarters of the County Library (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2021)

Patrick Comerford

Bellevue House on Mill Road, Ennis, Co Clare, is a 230-year-old, three-bay two-storey house, now serving as the headquarters of Clare County Library. The house is interesting historically and architecturally, but is also interesting because of its modern sculptures by Rachel Joynt.

Bellevue House was built in 1780, and its architectural features include the timber sliding sash windows with brick dressings at the openings, and the timber panelled door flanked by pilasters with a moulded cornice and a fanlight with wrought-iron decorative detail above.

The low castellated coursed stone wall is a later addition to the site.

Ennis was the first town to adopt the 1855 Public Library (Ireland) Act at a public meeting on 16 October 1855. The Grand Jury provided the site of the old Convict Depot on Jail Street and a new library was designed by J Petty at a cost of £860.

However, the library project was later abandoned, and the building became the Town Hall and later part of the Old Ground Hotel. It was another 75 years before a Public Library Service in Clare was proposed once again in 1930.

Dermot Foley, then a 23-year-old working in the library in Ballsbridge Dublin, was recommended for the post of Librarian in 1931. At first, the council refused to appoint Foley and tried to excuse the delay to his appointment, saying he needed six months to improve his knowledge of the Irish language. But, under the threat of legal action from the Department of Local Government and the possible dissolution of the council, a special meeting of the council was called on 9 July 1931 and Foley took up his post two months later, on 2 September 1931.

When Foley arrived by train in Ennis, he headed to the Court House, where the County Secretary, MJ Carey, called him in and pointed to a sawn-off section of the Council Chamber, saying, ‘There’s your library.’ The walls were shelved to the ceiling, 12 ft high, there was no ladder and the one table was ‘acquired on loan, I was told, from the lunatic asylum.’

A few weeks later, at his first committee meeting, Foley received a parcel with a tin box with two prime 45 bullets and a note saying, ‘Get out of the country, you have a Clareman’s job.’

The County Library Headquarters soon moved from Ennis Courthouse, first to the Clubhouse at Club Bridge and then once again early in 1933 to No 7 Bindon Street. But space was limited, and a large number of books was stored in the District Court Room in the Courthouse.

The timber panelled door and the pilasters at Bellevue House (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2021)

The headquarters made its final move on 1 July 1943 to existing Bellevue House on Mill Road. This house was built in 1780, and was the residence of the County Surgeon attached to the old County Infirmary, on the site of the present Mid-Western Health Board Clinic.

The adult lending library was housed in a portion of the ground floor and in the early 1950s the hallway was used as a children’s library. The first floor provided a residence for the County Librarian as a residence.

The first custom-built library in Co Clare was opened in Ennis in 1975 and became a landmark in branch library development in Ireland. When the De Valera Library opened, all branch activity ceased at Library Headquarters.

The refurbished Library Headquarters was officially opened in 1994. The library project involved the renovation of Bellevue House, transforming a late 18th century building into a modern library headquarters, while retaining the best of the original features. The official opening was 63 years to the day after Clare’s first County Librarian, Dermot Foley, took up duty.

The building houses acquisitions, cataloguing and departments, schools and part-time branches department, an exhibitions room, a conference and training room, an administrative office and the office of the County Arts Officer. The stock room at the rear can hold 30,000 volumes.

‘A Spine Path’ (1994) is the work of the sculptor Rachel Joynt (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2021)

An artistic feature consists of a green limestone slab incorporating a bronze design representing the spine of an old book. To the side, a bronze book is fastened to the exterior stone seat.

‘A Spine Path’ (1994) is the work of the sculptor Rachel Joynt, who has created some prominent Irish public art.

Rachel Joynt was born in Cahersiveen, Co Kerry, in 1966, and she graduated from the National College of Art and Design in Dublin in 1989 with a degree in sculpture.

Her commissions include ‘People’s Island’ (1988), in which brass footprints and bird feet criss-cross a well-traversed pedestrian island near O’Connell Bridge, Dublin. She collaborated with Remco de Fouw in making ‘Perpetual Motion’ (1995), a large sphere with road markings on the Naas dual carriageway.

Her other installations include ‘Selene’ at the Project Art Centre (1993) and ‘Feed’ at the Temple Bar Galleries (1999). Her public artworks include ‘Mothership’ at Dun Laoghaire seafront (1999), ‘Starboard’ at the River Lagan, Belfast (2001), ‘Noah’s Egg’ at the Veterinary Building, UCD (2004), and ‘Love All,’ a bronze globe in Templeogue village, outside Templeogue Tennis Club (2007).

Rachel Joynt’s bronze book on the exterior stone seat (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2021)