The Holocaust Memorial by Georgios Karahalios (2001) remembers the 2,000 Jews of Corfu who were murdered in Auschwitz in 1944 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)
Patrick Comerford
The Holocaust Museum of Corfu is a new museum that opened as a virtual museum earlier this month. It is the first virtual museum on the Greek Ionian island and the organisers hope that in time it will also become a physical museum too.
The Holocaust Museum of Corfu was established in 2025 as a result of over a decade of travel, research and hard work. Its role is to help people remember and understand the Holocaust, as well as the atrocities and horrors associated with it.
As I watched the Holocaust Memorial Day commemorations in Auschwitz earlier this week (27 January 2025), marking the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz on 27 January 1945, and took part in the commemorations in Milton Keynes the previous day, I recalled my visit to Auschwitz at the end of 2016. But I also thought of my visits in recent years to many Holocaust museums and memorials, including those in Berlin, Paris, Porto, Thessaloniki, Venice and Vienna.
The sculpture by Georgios Karahalios shows a naked child clinging onto his naked father (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)
The launch of the Holocaust Museum of Corfu this month also reminded me of the Memorial to the Jewish Holocaust Victims from Corfu (Μνημείο Εβραϊκού Ολοκαυτώματος Κερκύρα). It commemorates the 2,000 Jewish people of the island who died in Auschwitz-Birkenau in June 1944.
The Holocaust Memorial is a bronze sculpture by Georgios Karahalios. It was erected in 2001 by the city of Corfu and the Jewish community and dedicated on 25 November 2001.
The sculpture by Georgios Karahalios of a family is set on a large rough stone base in the middle of Plateia Neou Frouriou (New Fortress Square), a small square off Solomou Street. The square, surrounded by cafés and restaurants, is in the north of the old town, near the port. It is about three minutes’ walk from the last remaining synagogue and an area that was at the heart of Jewish community life in Corfu before World War II.
The Holocaust memorial shows a family of four naked figures – a father and mother with their two small children. The mother is cradling an infant, the father has outspread arms with the young boy at his side, leaning his head and arm against his father’s hip and hiding his face from viewers.
The sculpture by Georgios Karahalios includes a naked woman cradling an infant in her arms (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)
Two stone plaques at the base of the monument have inscriptions in Greek and English:
Never again for any nation
Dedicated to the memory of the
2000 Jews of Corfu who perished
in the Nazi concentration camps of
Auschwitz and Birkenau in June 1944
by the Municipality
and the Jewish Community of Corfu
November 2001
The inscription on the sculpture by Georgios Karahalios in Corfu (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)
About 2,000 Jews were living on Corfu before World War II began. The Italian occupation of Corfu lasted for two years (1941-1943) and was a difficult period for everyone, with shortages and starvation. Following the destruction of one synagogue in bombing, the two Jewish communities in Corfu, Greek and Italian, merged and all Jews on Corfu prayed in the Greek synagogue or La Scuola Greca on Velisariou Street.
All this changed when the Germans took control of the island. Italy surrendered to the Allies in September 1943, the Italian garrison withdrew from Corfu, and German forces occupied the island from 27 September 1943.
The SS soon planned to eliminate the Jewish community. On 9 June 1944, all Jewish families in Corfu were rounded up in the Kato Plateia (lower square) and taken to the ‘Ferrario’ or Old Fortress. They were forced to surrender all their valuables and the keys to their houses, which were then plundered.
About 200 Jews, mostly women, managed to avoid the German roundup and escaped to villages in the interior of the island, where they were hidden by friends.
On 11 June, 300 Jewish women were transported on a barge to Igoumenitsa and then on trucks to Athens. On 14 June, all Jewish men, with the remaining women, were sent on barges to Patras, then to Piraeus, and then on to the Haidari concentration camp in Athens. There they were crammed onto cattle trucks, with no water and little food.
After a horrific nine-day journey, 1,800 members of the Jewish community from Corfu reached Auschwitz-Birkenau on 30 June 1944. Immediately, 1,600 were sent to the gas chambers and the crematoria; only 200 were selected for work. Very few of them, almost all of them young, survived Auschwitz and the death marches to Germany.
After the war, a small community of survivors came together, centred around the surviving but ruined 17th-century Nuova or New Synagogue. The synagogue has since been restored.
The monument in the synagogue to the families who died in the Holocaust (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)
The Nuova or New Synagogue at 4 Velissariou Street was one of three synagogues in Corfu before World War II, but the only one to survive the Holocuast.
A second Holocaust memorial in Corfu is in the Nuova Synagogue. It commemorates the 2,000 Jews from Corfu who perished in Auschwtiz and Birkenau, but lists 71 family names. To list all the victims would have been an overpowering if not impossible task.
The family names on the plaque are: Aaron, Aboaf, Akko, Alchavas, Amar, Asias, Asser, Balestra, Bakkolas Baruch, Belleli, Benakim, Ben Giat, Besso, Cavaliero, Cesana, Con, Dalmedigos, Dentes, Etan, Elia, Eliezer, Eskapas, Ferro, Forte, Gani, Gerson, Gikas, Haim, Israel, Jessula, Johanna, Kolonimos, Koulias, Konstantini, Lemous, Leoncini, Levi, Mandolin, Matathias, Mazza, Minerho, Mizan, Mizrahi, Mordo, Moustaki, Nacamouli, Nahmias, Nacson, Negrin, Nikokiris, Osmo, Ovadia, Perez, Pitson, Politi, Raphael, Razon, Romano, Sardas, Sasen, Serneine, Sinigalia, Sussis, Shoel, Varon, Ventura, Vital, Vitali, Vivante, Zaccar.
Inside the synagogue in Corfu, looking towards the Aron haKodesh or Holy Ark (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)
A third memorial in Corfu with associations with the Holocaust is outside the Church of Aghios Spyridon, the patron saint of the island. A bust outside the church commemorates Bishop Methodius Kontostanos, who was Metropolitan of Corfu and Paxos for 30 years from 1942 to 1972, including the years during the occuptaion of Corfu by Nazi Germany.
Bishop Methodios regularly attended all the High Holyday services at the Greek synagogue in Corfu and was a faithful witness against antisemitism during and after the Holocaust.
In his consistent witness, Bishop Methodios was a worthy successor to the first Bishop of Corfu, Saint Arsenios, who died in 800, or perhaps in 959, and who is one of the principal patron saints of Corfu along with Saint Spyridon. He was born in Constantinople to the Jewish parents. After becoming a Christian, he became the first Bishop of Corfu.
Shabbat Shalom, שבת שלום
A bust at the Church of Aghios Spyridon commemorates Bishop Methodios, who attended all holiday services at the synagogue in Corfu (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)
31 January 2025
Daily prayer in Christmas 2024-2025:
38, Friday 31 January 2025
‘The earth produces of itself’ (Mark 4: 28) … fields at Shutlanger Road in Stoke Bruerne, Northamptonshire (Photographs: Patrick Comerford, 2024)
Patrick Comerford
This is the last week in the 40-day season of Christmas, which continues until Candlemas or the Feast of the Presentation on Sunday (2 February 2025). This week began with the Third Sunday of Epiphany (Epiphany III, 26 January 2025).
The calendar of the Church of England in Common Worship remembers John Bosco (1888), priest and founder of the Salesian teaching order. I hope to find somewhere appropriate this evening to watch the opening match of the Six Nations between France and Wales. But, before today begins, I am taking some quiet time this morning to give thanks, to reflect, to pray and to read in these ways:
1, today’s Gospel reading;
2, a short reflection;
3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary;
4, the Collects and Post-Communion prayer of the day.
‘The seed would sprout and grow’ (Mark 4: 27) … a mulberry tree in Stoke Bruerne, Northamptonshire (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)
Mark 4: 26-34 (NRSVA):
26 He also said, ‘The kingdom of God is as if someone would scatter seed on the ground, 27 and would sleep and rise night and day, and the seed would sprout and grow, he does not know how. 28 The earth produces of itself, first the stalk, then the head, then the full grain in the head. 29 But when the grain is ripe, at once he goes in with his sickle, because the harvest has come.’
30 He also said, ‘With what can we compare the kingdom of God, or what parable will we use for it? 31 It is like a mustard seed, which, when sown upon the ground, is the smallest of all the seeds on earth; 32 yet when it is sown it grows up and becomes the greatest of all shrubs, and puts forth large branches, so that the birds of the air can make nests in its shade.’
Willow trees by the Monastery Lakes in Shutlanger, Northamptonshire (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)
Today’s Reflection:
Chapter 4 in Saint Mark’s Gospel is the ‘parables chapter,’ recalling parables that make this chapter the central teaching section of this Gospel. Christ is in a boat beside the sea teaching a very large crowd who are listening on the shore (see Mark 4: 1-2). In this morning’s reading (Mark 4: 26-34), Christ describe the ‘kingdom of God’ by explaining the parable of sower scattering seed on the ground, which we read earlier this week, in the hope and expectation of the harvest (verses 26-29) and of the mustard seed that grows into a great tree (verses 30-32).
We may ask why Christ decides to talk about a mustard seed, or in Saint Luke’s Gospel about a mustard seed and a mulberry tree (Luke 17: 5-6), rather than, say, an olive tree. After all, as he was talking in the incident in today’s Gospel reading, he must have been surrounded by grove after grove of olive trees.
But, I can imagine, he is also watching to see if those who are listening have switched off their humour mode, if they have withdrawn their sense of humour. He is talking here with a great sense of humour, using hyperbole to underline his point.
We all know a tiny grain of mustard is incapable of growing to a big tree. So, what is Christ talking about here? Because, he not only caught the disciples off-guard with his hyperbole and sense of humour … he even wrong-footed some of the Reformers and many Bible translators who make mistakes about what sort of trees he is talking about in the Gospels.
Why did Christ refer to a mustard seed and a mulberry or sycamine tree, and not, say, an olive tree or an oak tree?
Christ first uses the example of a tiny, miniscule kernel or seed (κόκκος, kokkos), from which the small mustard plant (σίναπι, sinapi) grows. But mustard is an herb, not a tree. Not much of a miracle, you might say: tiny seed, tiny plant.
In Saint Luke’s Gospel, he then mixes his metaphors and refers to another plant. Martin Luther, in his translation of the Bible, turned the tree into a mulberry tree. The mulberry tree – both the black mulberry and the white mulberry – is from the same family as the fig tree.
As children, some of us sang or played to the nursery rhyme or song, Here we go round the mulberry bush. Another version is Here we go gathering nuts in May. The same tune is used for the American rhyme Pop goes the weasel and for the Epiphany carol, I saw three ships.
Of course, mulberries do not grow on bushes, and they do not grow nuts that are gathered in May. Nor is the mulberry a very tall tree – it grows from tiny seeds but only reaches the height of an adult person.
It is not a very big tree at all. It is more like a bush than a tree – and it is easy to uproot too.
However, the tree Christ names in Saint Luke’s Gospel (Greek συκάμινος, sikámeenos) is the sycamine tree, which has the shape and leaves of a mulberry tree but fruit that tastes like the fig, or the sycamore fig (συκόμορος, Ficus Sycomorus).
Others think the tree being referred to there is the sycamore fig (συκόμορος, Ficus Sycomorus), the big tree that little Zacchaeus climbs in Jericho to see Jesus (Luke 19: 1-10).
The sycamine tree is not naturally pollinated. The pollination process is initiated only when a wasp sticks its stinger right into the heart of the fruit. In other words, the tree and its fruit have to be stung in order to reproduce. There is a direct connection between suffering and growth, but also a lesson that everything in creation, including the wasp, has its place in the intricate balance of nature.
Whether it is a small seed like the mustard seed, a small, seemingly useless and annoying creature like the wasp, or a small and despised figure of fun like Zacchaeus, each has value in God’s eyes, and each has a role in the great harvest of gathering in for God’s Kingdom.
Put more simply, it is quality and not quantity that matters when it comes faith and love.
The Sower and the Seed … an image in the East Window by Mayer & Co in Saint Michael’s Church, Limerick (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)
Today’s Prayers (Friday 31 January 2025):
The theme this week in ‘Pray With the World Church’, the Prayer Diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), is ‘A Reflection on 2 Timothy’. This theme was introduced on Sunday with a Programme Update by the Revd Canon Dr Nicky Chater, Chair of Gypsy, Roma and Traveller Friendly Churches and Chaplain for these communities in the Diocese of Durham.
The USPG Prayer Diary today (Friday 31 January 2025) invites us to pray:
Holy God, we pray for people who cannot make use of many good things a society can offer because of our systems. We think of people who cannot prove their identity, or understand the necessary language, or fill in forms.
The Collect:
Almighty God,
whose Son revealed in signs and miracles
the wonder of your saving presence:
renew your people with your heavenly grace,
and in all our weakness
sustain us by your mighty power;
through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.
The Post-Communion Prayer:
Almighty Father,
whose Son our Saviour Jesus Christ is the light of the world:
may your people,
illumined by your word and sacraments,
shine with the radiance of his glory,
that he may be known, worshipped, and obeyed
to the ends of the earth;
for he is alive and reigns, now and for ever.
Additional Collect:
God of all mercy,
your Son proclaimed good news to the poor,
release to the captives,
and freedom to the oppressed:
anoint us with your Holy Spirit
and set all your people free
to praise you in Christ our Lord.
Yesterday’s Reflection
Continued Tomorrow
‘World’s Smallest Seed,’ 40”x30” oil/canvas, by James B Janknegt
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
Patrick Comerford
This is the last week in the 40-day season of Christmas, which continues until Candlemas or the Feast of the Presentation on Sunday (2 February 2025). This week began with the Third Sunday of Epiphany (Epiphany III, 26 January 2025).
The calendar of the Church of England in Common Worship remembers John Bosco (1888), priest and founder of the Salesian teaching order. I hope to find somewhere appropriate this evening to watch the opening match of the Six Nations between France and Wales. But, before today begins, I am taking some quiet time this morning to give thanks, to reflect, to pray and to read in these ways:
1, today’s Gospel reading;
2, a short reflection;
3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary;
4, the Collects and Post-Communion prayer of the day.
‘The seed would sprout and grow’ (Mark 4: 27) … a mulberry tree in Stoke Bruerne, Northamptonshire (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)
Mark 4: 26-34 (NRSVA):
26 He also said, ‘The kingdom of God is as if someone would scatter seed on the ground, 27 and would sleep and rise night and day, and the seed would sprout and grow, he does not know how. 28 The earth produces of itself, first the stalk, then the head, then the full grain in the head. 29 But when the grain is ripe, at once he goes in with his sickle, because the harvest has come.’
30 He also said, ‘With what can we compare the kingdom of God, or what parable will we use for it? 31 It is like a mustard seed, which, when sown upon the ground, is the smallest of all the seeds on earth; 32 yet when it is sown it grows up and becomes the greatest of all shrubs, and puts forth large branches, so that the birds of the air can make nests in its shade.’
Willow trees by the Monastery Lakes in Shutlanger, Northamptonshire (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)
Today’s Reflection:
Chapter 4 in Saint Mark’s Gospel is the ‘parables chapter,’ recalling parables that make this chapter the central teaching section of this Gospel. Christ is in a boat beside the sea teaching a very large crowd who are listening on the shore (see Mark 4: 1-2). In this morning’s reading (Mark 4: 26-34), Christ describe the ‘kingdom of God’ by explaining the parable of sower scattering seed on the ground, which we read earlier this week, in the hope and expectation of the harvest (verses 26-29) and of the mustard seed that grows into a great tree (verses 30-32).
We may ask why Christ decides to talk about a mustard seed, or in Saint Luke’s Gospel about a mustard seed and a mulberry tree (Luke 17: 5-6), rather than, say, an olive tree. After all, as he was talking in the incident in today’s Gospel reading, he must have been surrounded by grove after grove of olive trees.
But, I can imagine, he is also watching to see if those who are listening have switched off their humour mode, if they have withdrawn their sense of humour. He is talking here with a great sense of humour, using hyperbole to underline his point.
We all know a tiny grain of mustard is incapable of growing to a big tree. So, what is Christ talking about here? Because, he not only caught the disciples off-guard with his hyperbole and sense of humour … he even wrong-footed some of the Reformers and many Bible translators who make mistakes about what sort of trees he is talking about in the Gospels.
Why did Christ refer to a mustard seed and a mulberry or sycamine tree, and not, say, an olive tree or an oak tree?
Christ first uses the example of a tiny, miniscule kernel or seed (κόκκος, kokkos), from which the small mustard plant (σίναπι, sinapi) grows. But mustard is an herb, not a tree. Not much of a miracle, you might say: tiny seed, tiny plant.
In Saint Luke’s Gospel, he then mixes his metaphors and refers to another plant. Martin Luther, in his translation of the Bible, turned the tree into a mulberry tree. The mulberry tree – both the black mulberry and the white mulberry – is from the same family as the fig tree.
As children, some of us sang or played to the nursery rhyme or song, Here we go round the mulberry bush. Another version is Here we go gathering nuts in May. The same tune is used for the American rhyme Pop goes the weasel and for the Epiphany carol, I saw three ships.
Of course, mulberries do not grow on bushes, and they do not grow nuts that are gathered in May. Nor is the mulberry a very tall tree – it grows from tiny seeds but only reaches the height of an adult person.
It is not a very big tree at all. It is more like a bush than a tree – and it is easy to uproot too.
However, the tree Christ names in Saint Luke’s Gospel (Greek συκάμινος, sikámeenos) is the sycamine tree, which has the shape and leaves of a mulberry tree but fruit that tastes like the fig, or the sycamore fig (συκόμορος, Ficus Sycomorus).
Others think the tree being referred to there is the sycamore fig (συκόμορος, Ficus Sycomorus), the big tree that little Zacchaeus climbs in Jericho to see Jesus (Luke 19: 1-10).
The sycamine tree is not naturally pollinated. The pollination process is initiated only when a wasp sticks its stinger right into the heart of the fruit. In other words, the tree and its fruit have to be stung in order to reproduce. There is a direct connection between suffering and growth, but also a lesson that everything in creation, including the wasp, has its place in the intricate balance of nature.
Whether it is a small seed like the mustard seed, a small, seemingly useless and annoying creature like the wasp, or a small and despised figure of fun like Zacchaeus, each has value in God’s eyes, and each has a role in the great harvest of gathering in for God’s Kingdom.
Put more simply, it is quality and not quantity that matters when it comes faith and love.
The Sower and the Seed … an image in the East Window by Mayer & Co in Saint Michael’s Church, Limerick (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)
Today’s Prayers (Friday 31 January 2025):
The theme this week in ‘Pray With the World Church’, the Prayer Diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), is ‘A Reflection on 2 Timothy’. This theme was introduced on Sunday with a Programme Update by the Revd Canon Dr Nicky Chater, Chair of Gypsy, Roma and Traveller Friendly Churches and Chaplain for these communities in the Diocese of Durham.
The USPG Prayer Diary today (Friday 31 January 2025) invites us to pray:
Holy God, we pray for people who cannot make use of many good things a society can offer because of our systems. We think of people who cannot prove their identity, or understand the necessary language, or fill in forms.
The Collect:
Almighty God,
whose Son revealed in signs and miracles
the wonder of your saving presence:
renew your people with your heavenly grace,
and in all our weakness
sustain us by your mighty power;
through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.
The Post-Communion Prayer:
Almighty Father,
whose Son our Saviour Jesus Christ is the light of the world:
may your people,
illumined by your word and sacraments,
shine with the radiance of his glory,
that he may be known, worshipped, and obeyed
to the ends of the earth;
for he is alive and reigns, now and for ever.
Additional Collect:
God of all mercy,
your Son proclaimed good news to the poor,
release to the captives,
and freedom to the oppressed:
anoint us with your Holy Spirit
and set all your people free
to praise you in Christ our Lord.
Yesterday’s Reflection
Continued Tomorrow
‘World’s Smallest Seed,’ 40”x30” oil/canvas, by James B Janknegt
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
30 January 2025
Tracing the family of
Denis Comerford of
Winslow back to
18th century Ireland
Comerford Way in Winslow, Buckinghamshire … celebrates Denis Anothny Comerford (1908-1994), the last railway signalman at Winslow Station (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)
Patrick Comerford
In recent months, I have changed the main image at the top of this blog to a photograph of me at Comerford Way and the street sign in Winslow in Buckinghamshire, 16 km (10 miles) south of Stony Stratford, and I have adapted the name of Comerford Way so that it has become the name of this blog.
Winslow is half-way between Stony Stratford and Aylesbury, and Comerford Way is a pleasant area near Station Road. Engineers are close to completing work on the section of East West Rail from Bicester to Bletchley through Winslow, and they expect to start running a rail service between Oxford and Bletchley through Winslow by the end of this year (2025).
The Chancellor, Rachel Reeves, in her speech yesterday, gave the green-light to plans for Britain’s answer to Silicon Valley, including major developments between Oxford and Cambridge designed to boost the economy by £78 billion. These include the new east-west rail link and upgraded roads linking the two university cities and Milton Keynes in what has become known as ‘the Oxford-Cambridge Arc.’
As she said in her speech yesterday, it takes 2½ hours to get from Oxford to Cambridge by train at present and ‘there is no way to commute directly from towns like Bedford and Milton Keynes to Cambridge by rail.’ The rail links between Oxford and Cambridge has three stages, with initial services from Oxford to Bletchley and Milton Keynes due to begin this year.
The works being completed include a brand new station at Winslow, new platforms at Bletchley and other infrastructure work between Bicester and Bletchley, including signalling and cabling.
The new train route promises faster and easier access to Oxford and offers me opportunities to get to Oxford early in the morning or to stay on in the evening to enjoy church, academic and cultural events. In time, I hope, there is going to be a direct link to Cambridge too.
Winslow is just half an hour from Stony Stratford, and on a visit some time ago I came visited Comerford Way, off Station Road. At one time, I thought this modern housing development took its name from an area known as Great Comerford. But I learned there that Comerford Way takes its name from Denis Anothny Comerford (1908-1994), who was the last railway signalman at Winslow Station.
Denis Comerford worked at Winslow station from 1937 until 1968, when the railway line and the station closed and he was made redundant. During those years, he lied at No 11 Station Road. Nearby No 63 was once the Station Inn, and Station Road became the second most populated street in Winslow. Comerford Way, which keeps alive the memory of Denis Comerford, is a new housing development at the east end of Station Road in Winslow, at the junction with McLernon Way.
Denis Comerford receives a watch and a handshake after many years as a signalman in Winslow station
As I began to learn a more about Denis Comerford and his life in Winslow, and to find glimpses of his life in Winslow, I wrote how I would like to learn more about his family, his family background, his early days in Derby and his life story.
Denis Comerford was born in Chesterfield and grew up in Derbyshire. In research in recent weeks, I have been able to trace back five generations to one of the branches of the Comerford family living in Ballinakill, Co Laois, at the turn of the 18th and 19th centuries.
Denis Comerford’s family later lived in the Templemore area in Co Tipperary and Fiddown, Co Kilkenny, and many members of the family emigrated to New South Wales, Australia, in the late 19th century.
Denis Comerford’s own father was:
Edward Comerford (1769- ), was born in 1769 in Rosenallis, Co Laois. He married Dymphna Delaney (born 1758) in Aghaboe, Co Laois. They lived in Ballinakill, Co Laos, and Edward and Dympna Comerford were the parents of:
1, William Comerford (ca 1805-1870), of whom next.
They may also have been the parents of:
2, Patrick Comerford (1801-1870) of Dundalk, Co Louth. He was born in 1801, baptised in 1802, and was the ancestor of the Comerford family of Dundalk, Co Louth.
The first-named son of Edward and Dympna Comerford was:
William Comerford (ca 1805-1870) was born in Ballinakill, Co Laois, ca 1805. He married Mary Talbot (1805-1887). William Comerford died in Co Offaly in 1870; Mary died in Nenagh, Co Tipperary, in 1887.
They were the parents of five children, three sons and two daughters:
1, John Comerford (1829-1905), of whom next.
2, Jane (born 1832), born in Templemore, Co Tipperary, 1832; she married John Maher (1824-1889), and lived in Chorlton, Lancashire.
3, Denis Comerford (1834-1892), leather merchant. He was born in Templemore, Co Tipperary, in October 1834, and lived in Umarra, New South Wales, Australia. The passengers on the Abyssinian, the ship Denis and his brother Thomas travelled on to Australia in 1862, included John Comerford of Bagenalstown (Muine Bheag), Co Carlow, aged 23, stonemason. He married Emma Stapleton (1843-1915) in Sydney in 1869, and died in Umarra on 2 October 1892. They were the parents of six children, five sons and a daughter:
• 1a, William Comerford (1872-1956), born in Maclean, New South Wales, on 18 July.
• 2a, Thomas B Comerford (1873-1946), born in Maclean, on 21 December 1873.
• 3a, Denis Comerford (1875-1944), born in Maclean in 1875.
• 4a, Martin Comerford (1879-1961), born in Maclean in 1879.
• 5a, Edward Comerford (1882-1955), born in Maclean in 1882.
• 6a, Mary Jane (1885-1939), born in Maclean on13 February 1885.
4, Thomas Comerford (1837-1900), born on 10 October 1837 in Templemore, Co Tipperary, and lived in Maclean, New South Wales, Australia. He married Bridget Hurley (1844-1890) in Grafton in 1875, and died in Maclean on 4 April 1900. They were the parents of eight children, four sons and four daughters, all born in Maclean:
• 1a, William Comerford (1875-1876).
• 2a, Mary (1875-1924).
• 3a, John Commerford (1877-1953), married Mary Ann Moloney (1877-1950) on 8 January 1908, and they were the parents of five sons and a daughter: Thomas Bede Commerford (1908-1984); John Joseph Commerford (1910-1967); William Clarence (Clarrie) Commerford (1914-1986); Daniel Kevin Commerford (1918-1926); and Annie Teresa Commerford (1918-2008).
• 4a, Denis Comerford (1880-1963).
• 5a, Jane (1882-1949).
• 6a, Annie (1884-1964).
• 7a, Bridget (1887-1942).
• 8a, … Comerford (1890-1890), a son, died at birth.
5, Mary (1841-1914), of Kerang, Victoria, Australia, married James Troy (1837-1885) in Geelong on 4 June 1870, and they were the parents of eight children.
The eldest son of William and Mary Comerford was:
John Comerford (1829-1905). He was born in Templemore, Co Tipperary, on 23 November 1829. He married Anastatia (Anty) Tierney (born 1835) in 1860. He died at the age of 76 in 1905. John and Anty Comerford were the parents of at six children, three sons and three daughters:
1, Michael Comerford (1860-1879), born in Co Kilkenny on 18 July 1860, died in Borrisokane, Co Tipperary, in March 1879.
2, Mary (1867-1919), of Fiddown, Co Kilkenny, who married Thomas Butler (1865-1937).
3, Denis Comerford (born 1869), born in Waterford on 21 January 1869.
4, John Comerford (1871-1946), of whom next.
5, Jane (1873-1932), born Pilltown, Co Kilkenny, on 4 March 1873; died in Birmingham in July 1932.
6, Statia (1876-post 1911).
The third son and fourth child of John and Anty Comerford was:
John Comerford (1871-1946). He was born in Piltown, Co Kilkenny, on 12 May 1871, and was baptised in Piltown. He was living in Gortrush, Fiddown, Co Kilkenny, at the time of the 1901 census, but soon moved to England. Two years later, he married Mary Clifton (1868-1932) in Aston, Birmingham, in April 1903. She was born in Cuckfield, Sussex, in April 1868, the daughter of William Henry Clifton (1836-1912) and Mary (Tourle) Clifton (born 1835).
John Comerford worked as a railway guard in the English Midlands. John and Mary Comerford lived in Birmingham, and the couple later lived in Tupton, Derbyshire, and Chesterfield, Derbyshire. Mary (Clifton) Comerford died in Chesterfield in July 1932. Some sources identify John with John Comerford, a former miner, who he died in Castlecomer, Co Kilkenny, at the age of 75 in September 1946, but so far I have been unable to verify this.
John and Mary Comerford were the parents of four sons:
1, John Henry Comerford (born 1905), born in Birmingham in 1905, living in Tupton, Derbyshire, in 1911.
2, William Patrick Comerford (born 1907), born in Birmingham in 1907, living in Tupton, Derbyshire, in 1911.
3, Denis Anthony Comerford (1908-1984), born in Hasland, Chesterfield, Derbyshire, in 1908.
4, Bruno Philip Comerford (born 1910), born in Tupton, Derbyshire, in 1910.
Denis Comerford looking down the line at Winslow Station in the 1950s
The third son of John and Mary Comerford was:
Denis Anthony Comerford (1908-1994). He was born in Hasland, Chesterfield, Derbyshire, on 1 February 1908. He was living in Tupton, Derbyshire, in 1911. He married Dorothy Clarke (1905-1996) in Saint Vincent’s Catholic Church, Vauxhall Grove, Birmingham North, on 2 August 1931. She was born in Eastwood, Nottinghamshire, on 26 April 1905, the daughter of Horace Clarke (1879-1943) and Emma (Bower) Clarke (1883-1961).
Denis Comerford came to Winslow from Derby in 1937. His father was a railway guard and advised Denis that the railways offered security in hungry times.
Denis later recalled: ‘One of my first jobs was checking Claycross tunnel, Stephenson’s masterpiece near Chesterfield. It were dark, damp and smelt of sooty old steam engines. Winslow were a step up. Mr Brudenell was in charge of the station. He was a solid looking man, always immaculate with his white collar winged and starched. It was his rule to be on the platform to meet every train. An’ he had a remarkable head for figures. He looked after neighbouring Swanbourne as well.’
In 1936, the year before Denis arrived in Winslow, the Aylesbury-Buckingham railway closed to passengers. World War II brought new demands for the railways, but improved aircraft also put Winslow directly in the firing line as bombers passed over to prime targets like Coventry. The High Street and Sheep Street in Winslow trembled under the weight of tanks as they practised manoeuvres, and troops from all corners of the Empire, and eventually the US, filled local pubs to bursting.
The Station Inn, near Denis Comerford’s home and his place of work, did a roaring trade. Heavily defended by gun emplacements, it was the pub where most servicemen stopped off as they came and went by train.
As a signalman, Denis Comerford recalled many hijinks among the young men as they waited on his station platforms. He once recalled an occasion when two Canadians were amorously pursuing a local young woman and took a short cut towards her through the couplings of a train that was slowly departing.
‘They missed death by a fraction,’ Denis later remarked, according to Robert Cook’s account.
Denis Comerford continued to work at Winslow station for more than three decades after the end of World War II. However, the station declined after World War II, and in 1963 Winslow station was listed for closure in the Beeching report, which called for the closure of all minor stations on the line.
Winslow closed to goods traffic on 22 May 1967 and to passengers on 1 January 1968; the signal box followed one month later. The closure was delayed because replacement bus services were not able to handle the projected extra traffic.
Denis Comerford received his redundancy notice from British Railways in February 1968, when passenger train services from the Oxford/Bletchley and Bedford/Cambridge Lines were withdrawn. He left the service on 10 February 1968. The letter setting out the terms of his redundancy included expressions of ‘appreciation of your many years of faithful service.’
Denis Comerford died in Winslow at the age of 86 on 20 November 1994; Dorothy died in 1996. They were the parents of two children.
Denis Comerford lived at No 11 Station Road in Winslow (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)
The line between Oxford and Bletchley was closed to passengers and local goods services, and later singled in 1985.
Winslow station continued to be used during the 1980s for ‘Chiltern Shopper’ specials and British Rail handbills survive that show services calling at the station during November and December between 1984 and 1986.
The station building, by then in a very derelict state, survived long enough to see the first visit of a Class 43 on 13 February 1993, but was demolished shortly afterwards. Now, a new station is being completed in Winslow as part of the East-West Rail route between Oxford and Cambridge.
A new station has been built at the junction of Buckingham Road with Horwood Road. When the line opens, Winslow should have direct trains to Oxford, Milton Keynes Central and Bedford. The journey time from Winslow to Oxford is estimated at 27 minutes.
Comerford Way off Station Road, Winslow, close to the site of Winslow Station, keeps alive the memory of Denis Comerford. But.
Comerford Way in Winslow, Buckinghamshire, recalls Denis Comerford, the last railway signalman at Winslow Station (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)
Additional reading:
Robert Cook, The Book of Winslow (Buckingham: Barracuda Books, 1989).
Patrick Comerford
In recent months, I have changed the main image at the top of this blog to a photograph of me at Comerford Way and the street sign in Winslow in Buckinghamshire, 16 km (10 miles) south of Stony Stratford, and I have adapted the name of Comerford Way so that it has become the name of this blog.
Winslow is half-way between Stony Stratford and Aylesbury, and Comerford Way is a pleasant area near Station Road. Engineers are close to completing work on the section of East West Rail from Bicester to Bletchley through Winslow, and they expect to start running a rail service between Oxford and Bletchley through Winslow by the end of this year (2025).
The Chancellor, Rachel Reeves, in her speech yesterday, gave the green-light to plans for Britain’s answer to Silicon Valley, including major developments between Oxford and Cambridge designed to boost the economy by £78 billion. These include the new east-west rail link and upgraded roads linking the two university cities and Milton Keynes in what has become known as ‘the Oxford-Cambridge Arc.’
As she said in her speech yesterday, it takes 2½ hours to get from Oxford to Cambridge by train at present and ‘there is no way to commute directly from towns like Bedford and Milton Keynes to Cambridge by rail.’ The rail links between Oxford and Cambridge has three stages, with initial services from Oxford to Bletchley and Milton Keynes due to begin this year.
The works being completed include a brand new station at Winslow, new platforms at Bletchley and other infrastructure work between Bicester and Bletchley, including signalling and cabling.
The new train route promises faster and easier access to Oxford and offers me opportunities to get to Oxford early in the morning or to stay on in the evening to enjoy church, academic and cultural events. In time, I hope, there is going to be a direct link to Cambridge too.
Winslow is just half an hour from Stony Stratford, and on a visit some time ago I came visited Comerford Way, off Station Road. At one time, I thought this modern housing development took its name from an area known as Great Comerford. But I learned there that Comerford Way takes its name from Denis Anothny Comerford (1908-1994), who was the last railway signalman at Winslow Station.
Denis Comerford worked at Winslow station from 1937 until 1968, when the railway line and the station closed and he was made redundant. During those years, he lied at No 11 Station Road. Nearby No 63 was once the Station Inn, and Station Road became the second most populated street in Winslow. Comerford Way, which keeps alive the memory of Denis Comerford, is a new housing development at the east end of Station Road in Winslow, at the junction with McLernon Way.
Denis Comerford receives a watch and a handshake after many years as a signalman in Winslow station
As I began to learn a more about Denis Comerford and his life in Winslow, and to find glimpses of his life in Winslow, I wrote how I would like to learn more about his family, his family background, his early days in Derby and his life story.
Denis Comerford was born in Chesterfield and grew up in Derbyshire. In research in recent weeks, I have been able to trace back five generations to one of the branches of the Comerford family living in Ballinakill, Co Laois, at the turn of the 18th and 19th centuries.
Denis Comerford’s family later lived in the Templemore area in Co Tipperary and Fiddown, Co Kilkenny, and many members of the family emigrated to New South Wales, Australia, in the late 19th century.
Denis Comerford’s own father was:
Edward Comerford (1769- ), was born in 1769 in Rosenallis, Co Laois. He married Dymphna Delaney (born 1758) in Aghaboe, Co Laois. They lived in Ballinakill, Co Laos, and Edward and Dympna Comerford were the parents of:
1, William Comerford (ca 1805-1870), of whom next.
They may also have been the parents of:
2, Patrick Comerford (1801-1870) of Dundalk, Co Louth. He was born in 1801, baptised in 1802, and was the ancestor of the Comerford family of Dundalk, Co Louth.
The first-named son of Edward and Dympna Comerford was:
William Comerford (ca 1805-1870) was born in Ballinakill, Co Laois, ca 1805. He married Mary Talbot (1805-1887). William Comerford died in Co Offaly in 1870; Mary died in Nenagh, Co Tipperary, in 1887.
They were the parents of five children, three sons and two daughters:
1, John Comerford (1829-1905), of whom next.
2, Jane (born 1832), born in Templemore, Co Tipperary, 1832; she married John Maher (1824-1889), and lived in Chorlton, Lancashire.
3, Denis Comerford (1834-1892), leather merchant. He was born in Templemore, Co Tipperary, in October 1834, and lived in Umarra, New South Wales, Australia. The passengers on the Abyssinian, the ship Denis and his brother Thomas travelled on to Australia in 1862, included John Comerford of Bagenalstown (Muine Bheag), Co Carlow, aged 23, stonemason. He married Emma Stapleton (1843-1915) in Sydney in 1869, and died in Umarra on 2 October 1892. They were the parents of six children, five sons and a daughter:
• 1a, William Comerford (1872-1956), born in Maclean, New South Wales, on 18 July.
• 2a, Thomas B Comerford (1873-1946), born in Maclean, on 21 December 1873.
• 3a, Denis Comerford (1875-1944), born in Maclean in 1875.
• 4a, Martin Comerford (1879-1961), born in Maclean in 1879.
• 5a, Edward Comerford (1882-1955), born in Maclean in 1882.
• 6a, Mary Jane (1885-1939), born in Maclean on13 February 1885.
4, Thomas Comerford (1837-1900), born on 10 October 1837 in Templemore, Co Tipperary, and lived in Maclean, New South Wales, Australia. He married Bridget Hurley (1844-1890) in Grafton in 1875, and died in Maclean on 4 April 1900. They were the parents of eight children, four sons and four daughters, all born in Maclean:
• 1a, William Comerford (1875-1876).
• 2a, Mary (1875-1924).
• 3a, John Commerford (1877-1953), married Mary Ann Moloney (1877-1950) on 8 January 1908, and they were the parents of five sons and a daughter: Thomas Bede Commerford (1908-1984); John Joseph Commerford (1910-1967); William Clarence (Clarrie) Commerford (1914-1986); Daniel Kevin Commerford (1918-1926); and Annie Teresa Commerford (1918-2008).
• 4a, Denis Comerford (1880-1963).
• 5a, Jane (1882-1949).
• 6a, Annie (1884-1964).
• 7a, Bridget (1887-1942).
• 8a, … Comerford (1890-1890), a son, died at birth.
5, Mary (1841-1914), of Kerang, Victoria, Australia, married James Troy (1837-1885) in Geelong on 4 June 1870, and they were the parents of eight children.
The eldest son of William and Mary Comerford was:
John Comerford (1829-1905). He was born in Templemore, Co Tipperary, on 23 November 1829. He married Anastatia (Anty) Tierney (born 1835) in 1860. He died at the age of 76 in 1905. John and Anty Comerford were the parents of at six children, three sons and three daughters:
1, Michael Comerford (1860-1879), born in Co Kilkenny on 18 July 1860, died in Borrisokane, Co Tipperary, in March 1879.
2, Mary (1867-1919), of Fiddown, Co Kilkenny, who married Thomas Butler (1865-1937).
3, Denis Comerford (born 1869), born in Waterford on 21 January 1869.
4, John Comerford (1871-1946), of whom next.
5, Jane (1873-1932), born Pilltown, Co Kilkenny, on 4 March 1873; died in Birmingham in July 1932.
6, Statia (1876-post 1911).
The third son and fourth child of John and Anty Comerford was:
John Comerford (1871-1946). He was born in Piltown, Co Kilkenny, on 12 May 1871, and was baptised in Piltown. He was living in Gortrush, Fiddown, Co Kilkenny, at the time of the 1901 census, but soon moved to England. Two years later, he married Mary Clifton (1868-1932) in Aston, Birmingham, in April 1903. She was born in Cuckfield, Sussex, in April 1868, the daughter of William Henry Clifton (1836-1912) and Mary (Tourle) Clifton (born 1835).
John Comerford worked as a railway guard in the English Midlands. John and Mary Comerford lived in Birmingham, and the couple later lived in Tupton, Derbyshire, and Chesterfield, Derbyshire. Mary (Clifton) Comerford died in Chesterfield in July 1932. Some sources identify John with John Comerford, a former miner, who he died in Castlecomer, Co Kilkenny, at the age of 75 in September 1946, but so far I have been unable to verify this.
John and Mary Comerford were the parents of four sons:
1, John Henry Comerford (born 1905), born in Birmingham in 1905, living in Tupton, Derbyshire, in 1911.
2, William Patrick Comerford (born 1907), born in Birmingham in 1907, living in Tupton, Derbyshire, in 1911.
3, Denis Anthony Comerford (1908-1984), born in Hasland, Chesterfield, Derbyshire, in 1908.
4, Bruno Philip Comerford (born 1910), born in Tupton, Derbyshire, in 1910.
Denis Comerford looking down the line at Winslow Station in the 1950s
The third son of John and Mary Comerford was:
Denis Anthony Comerford (1908-1994). He was born in Hasland, Chesterfield, Derbyshire, on 1 February 1908. He was living in Tupton, Derbyshire, in 1911. He married Dorothy Clarke (1905-1996) in Saint Vincent’s Catholic Church, Vauxhall Grove, Birmingham North, on 2 August 1931. She was born in Eastwood, Nottinghamshire, on 26 April 1905, the daughter of Horace Clarke (1879-1943) and Emma (Bower) Clarke (1883-1961).
Denis Comerford came to Winslow from Derby in 1937. His father was a railway guard and advised Denis that the railways offered security in hungry times.
Denis later recalled: ‘One of my first jobs was checking Claycross tunnel, Stephenson’s masterpiece near Chesterfield. It were dark, damp and smelt of sooty old steam engines. Winslow were a step up. Mr Brudenell was in charge of the station. He was a solid looking man, always immaculate with his white collar winged and starched. It was his rule to be on the platform to meet every train. An’ he had a remarkable head for figures. He looked after neighbouring Swanbourne as well.’
In 1936, the year before Denis arrived in Winslow, the Aylesbury-Buckingham railway closed to passengers. World War II brought new demands for the railways, but improved aircraft also put Winslow directly in the firing line as bombers passed over to prime targets like Coventry. The High Street and Sheep Street in Winslow trembled under the weight of tanks as they practised manoeuvres, and troops from all corners of the Empire, and eventually the US, filled local pubs to bursting.
The Station Inn, near Denis Comerford’s home and his place of work, did a roaring trade. Heavily defended by gun emplacements, it was the pub where most servicemen stopped off as they came and went by train.
As a signalman, Denis Comerford recalled many hijinks among the young men as they waited on his station platforms. He once recalled an occasion when two Canadians were amorously pursuing a local young woman and took a short cut towards her through the couplings of a train that was slowly departing.
‘They missed death by a fraction,’ Denis later remarked, according to Robert Cook’s account.
Denis Comerford continued to work at Winslow station for more than three decades after the end of World War II. However, the station declined after World War II, and in 1963 Winslow station was listed for closure in the Beeching report, which called for the closure of all minor stations on the line.
Winslow closed to goods traffic on 22 May 1967 and to passengers on 1 January 1968; the signal box followed one month later. The closure was delayed because replacement bus services were not able to handle the projected extra traffic.
Denis Comerford received his redundancy notice from British Railways in February 1968, when passenger train services from the Oxford/Bletchley and Bedford/Cambridge Lines were withdrawn. He left the service on 10 February 1968. The letter setting out the terms of his redundancy included expressions of ‘appreciation of your many years of faithful service.’
Denis Comerford died in Winslow at the age of 86 on 20 November 1994; Dorothy died in 1996. They were the parents of two children.
Denis Comerford lived at No 11 Station Road in Winslow (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)
The line between Oxford and Bletchley was closed to passengers and local goods services, and later singled in 1985.
Winslow station continued to be used during the 1980s for ‘Chiltern Shopper’ specials and British Rail handbills survive that show services calling at the station during November and December between 1984 and 1986.
The station building, by then in a very derelict state, survived long enough to see the first visit of a Class 43 on 13 February 1993, but was demolished shortly afterwards. Now, a new station is being completed in Winslow as part of the East-West Rail route between Oxford and Cambridge.
A new station has been built at the junction of Buckingham Road with Horwood Road. When the line opens, Winslow should have direct trains to Oxford, Milton Keynes Central and Bedford. The journey time from Winslow to Oxford is estimated at 27 minutes.
Comerford Way off Station Road, Winslow, close to the site of Winslow Station, keeps alive the memory of Denis Comerford. But.
Comerford Way in Winslow, Buckinghamshire, recalls Denis Comerford, the last railway signalman at Winslow Station (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)
Additional reading:
Robert Cook, The Book of Winslow (Buckingham: Barracuda Books, 1989).
Daily prayer in Christmas 2024-2025:
37, Thursday 30 January 2025
‘Is a lamp brought in to be put under the bushel basket, or under the bed, and not on the lampstand?’ (Mark 8: 21) … lamplight at night in the Market Square, Stony Stratford (Photographs: Patrick Comerford)
Patrick Comerford
This is the last week in the 40-day season of Christmas, which continues until Candlemas or the Feast of the Presentation on Sunday (2 February 2025). This week began with the Third Sunday of Epiphany (Epiphany III, 26 January 2025).
The calendar of the Church of England in Common Worship today remembers Charles, King and Martyr (1649). But, before today begins, I am taking some quiet time this morning to give thanks, to reflect, to pray and to read in these ways:
1, today’s Gospel reading;
2, a short reflection;
3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary;
4, the Collects and Post-Communion prayer of the day.
‘Is a lamp brought in to be put under the bushel basket, or under the bed, and not on the lampstand?’ (Mark 4: 21) … a lighting lamp in the Boot and Flogger in Southwark (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)
Mark 4: 21-25 (NRSVA):
21 He said to them, ‘Is a lamp brought in to be put under the bushel basket, or under the bed, and not on the lampstand? 22 For there is nothing hidden, except to be disclosed; nor is anything secret, except to come to light. 23 Let anyone with ears to hear listen!’ 24 And he said to them, ‘Pay attention to what you hear; the measure you give will be the measure you get, and still more will be given you. 25 For to those who have, more will be given; and from those who have nothing, even what they have will be taken away.’
Lichnos in Piskopianó stood out as a light on a hill in Crete, visible for miles below and out to sea (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)
Today’s Reflection:
Chapter 4 in Saint Mark’s Gospel is the ‘parables chapter,’ recalling parables that make this chapter the central teaching section of this Gospel. Christ is in a boat beside the sea teaching a very large crowd who are listening on the shore (see Mark 4: 1-2). In this morning’s reading (Mark 4: 21-25), he compares speaking out with ensuring a light is used to its best purpose (verses 21-22) .
When I was back in Piskopianó in Crete last Spring, I was disappointed to see that one of my favourite tavernas, Lichnos, has been closed for some time now.
The name Lichnos comes from the Greek word λύχνος (lychnos), meaning a lamp or a light. The restaurant stood on a precipice on the north side of the village, close to Mika Villas, where I stayed regularly in the 1990s. Lichnos was perched on the edge of the hill, and from its balcony and roof garden there were panoramic views across Hersonissos below and out to the Mediterranean. At night, Lichnos stood out as a light on a hill, visible for miles below and out to sea.
The parable of the lamp under a bushel is told all three Synoptic Gospels (see Matthew 5: 14-15, Mark 4: 21-25; Luke 8: 16-18). In Saint Matthew’s Gospel, this parable continues the discourse on salt and light in the Sermon on the Mount. But Saint Mark and Saint Luke connect it with Jesus’s explanation of the Parable of the Sower.
The word λύχνος (lychnos) means a light, lamp or candle. But it is also used figuratively for a distinguished teacher, as when Jesus describes Saint John the Baptist as ‘a burning and shining lamp, and you were willing to rejoice for a while in his light’ (John 5: 35).
This parable is also the source of the aphorism about hiding one’s light under a bushel.
The original Greek in Matthew (5: 15) and Mark (4: 21) is μόδιος (modios), usually translated as ‘basket.’ A modius was a Roman measure for dry things such as grain and equivalent to about a peck 8.75 litres.
However, Saint Luke uses the word σκεῦος (skeuos), meaning a vessel or utensil for containing anything. Saint Paul uses the same word when he refers to σκεύη ὀργῆς and σκεύη ἐλέους, vessels of wrath or vessels of mercy, when referring to individuals visited by punishment or visited by divine favour (see Romans 9: 22-23). This word is also used to describe the vessel or frame of the human individual (I Thessalonians 4: 4; I Peter 3: 7). Saint Luke also uses the word κλίνη (klinē) for a couch or bed.
The word bushel , meaning a bowl, was used in William Tyndale’s translation: ‘Neither do men light a candle, and put it under a bushel, but on a candlestick, and it lighteth all them which are in the house.’
The key idea in this morning’s parable is that light or truth is not to be hidden or concealed. This light has been understood as Jesus, as his message, and as the believer's response to him and to his message.
In their writings, Hilary, Ambrose, and Bede understood that the light of the Gospel was not to be confined to Judaea, but to illuminate all nations.
But to hide one’s light under a bushel has come to mean saying little about one’s own skills and abilities, one’s own core values and beliefs, instead of being confident and telling others about them.
When do we hide our lights under bushels, or under a bowl?
When are we reluctant to be beacons in the darkness, shining out for true values when light is needed?
Do I speak up often enough about injustice, oppression and violence and racism, war and prejudice?
Or do I keep my views to myself at those crucial moments, hiding my light under a bushel?
The view from Lichnos in Piskopianó across Hersonissos and out to the north coast of Crete and the Mediterranean (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)
Today’s Prayers (Thursday 30 January 2025):
The theme this week in ‘Pray With the World Church’, the Prayer Diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), is ‘A Reflection on 2 Timothy’. This theme was introduced on Sunday with a Programme Update by the Revd Canon Dr Nicky Chater, Chair of Gypsy, Roma and Traveller Friendly Churches and Chaplain for these communities in the Diocese of Durham.
The USPG Prayer Diary today (Thursday 30 January 2025) invites us to pray:
Lord, grant us compassion for people who have no secure place to live, including Gypsies, Roma, and Travellers. Help us to understand how much our wellbeing rests on knowing somewhere as home, and how participating in healthcare, employment and education relies on where we live.
The Collect:
King of kings and Lord of lords,
whose faithful servant Charles
prayed for those who persecuted him
and died in the living hope of your eternal kingdom:
grant us by your grace so to follow his example
that we may love and bless our enemies,
through the intercession of your Son, our Lord Jesus Christ,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.
The Post-Communion Prayer:
God our redeemer,
whose Church was strengthened by the blood of your martyr Charles:
so bind us, in life and death, to Christ’s sacrifice
that our lives, broken and offered with his,
may carry his death and proclaim his resurrection in the world;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Yesterday’s Reflection
Continued Tomorrow
‘Is a lamp brought in to be put under the bushel basket, or under the bed, and not on the lampstand?’ (Mark 4: 21) … lit candles in the Church of the Four Martyrs in Rethymnon, Crete (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
‘Is a lamp brought in to be put under the bushel basket, or under the bed, and not on the lampstand?’ (Mark 4: 21) … evening in a restaurant in York (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)
Patrick Comerford
This is the last week in the 40-day season of Christmas, which continues until Candlemas or the Feast of the Presentation on Sunday (2 February 2025). This week began with the Third Sunday of Epiphany (Epiphany III, 26 January 2025).
The calendar of the Church of England in Common Worship today remembers Charles, King and Martyr (1649). But, before today begins, I am taking some quiet time this morning to give thanks, to reflect, to pray and to read in these ways:
1, today’s Gospel reading;
2, a short reflection;
3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary;
4, the Collects and Post-Communion prayer of the day.
‘Is a lamp brought in to be put under the bushel basket, or under the bed, and not on the lampstand?’ (Mark 4: 21) … a lighting lamp in the Boot and Flogger in Southwark (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)
Mark 4: 21-25 (NRSVA):
21 He said to them, ‘Is a lamp brought in to be put under the bushel basket, or under the bed, and not on the lampstand? 22 For there is nothing hidden, except to be disclosed; nor is anything secret, except to come to light. 23 Let anyone with ears to hear listen!’ 24 And he said to them, ‘Pay attention to what you hear; the measure you give will be the measure you get, and still more will be given you. 25 For to those who have, more will be given; and from those who have nothing, even what they have will be taken away.’
Lichnos in Piskopianó stood out as a light on a hill in Crete, visible for miles below and out to sea (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)
Today’s Reflection:
Chapter 4 in Saint Mark’s Gospel is the ‘parables chapter,’ recalling parables that make this chapter the central teaching section of this Gospel. Christ is in a boat beside the sea teaching a very large crowd who are listening on the shore (see Mark 4: 1-2). In this morning’s reading (Mark 4: 21-25), he compares speaking out with ensuring a light is used to its best purpose (verses 21-22) .
When I was back in Piskopianó in Crete last Spring, I was disappointed to see that one of my favourite tavernas, Lichnos, has been closed for some time now.
The name Lichnos comes from the Greek word λύχνος (lychnos), meaning a lamp or a light. The restaurant stood on a precipice on the north side of the village, close to Mika Villas, where I stayed regularly in the 1990s. Lichnos was perched on the edge of the hill, and from its balcony and roof garden there were panoramic views across Hersonissos below and out to the Mediterranean. At night, Lichnos stood out as a light on a hill, visible for miles below and out to sea.
The parable of the lamp under a bushel is told all three Synoptic Gospels (see Matthew 5: 14-15, Mark 4: 21-25; Luke 8: 16-18). In Saint Matthew’s Gospel, this parable continues the discourse on salt and light in the Sermon on the Mount. But Saint Mark and Saint Luke connect it with Jesus’s explanation of the Parable of the Sower.
The word λύχνος (lychnos) means a light, lamp or candle. But it is also used figuratively for a distinguished teacher, as when Jesus describes Saint John the Baptist as ‘a burning and shining lamp, and you were willing to rejoice for a while in his light’ (John 5: 35).
This parable is also the source of the aphorism about hiding one’s light under a bushel.
The original Greek in Matthew (5: 15) and Mark (4: 21) is μόδιος (modios), usually translated as ‘basket.’ A modius was a Roman measure for dry things such as grain and equivalent to about a peck 8.75 litres.
However, Saint Luke uses the word σκεῦος (skeuos), meaning a vessel or utensil for containing anything. Saint Paul uses the same word when he refers to σκεύη ὀργῆς and σκεύη ἐλέους, vessels of wrath or vessels of mercy, when referring to individuals visited by punishment or visited by divine favour (see Romans 9: 22-23). This word is also used to describe the vessel or frame of the human individual (I Thessalonians 4: 4; I Peter 3: 7). Saint Luke also uses the word κλίνη (klinē) for a couch or bed.
The word bushel , meaning a bowl, was used in William Tyndale’s translation: ‘Neither do men light a candle, and put it under a bushel, but on a candlestick, and it lighteth all them which are in the house.’
The key idea in this morning’s parable is that light or truth is not to be hidden or concealed. This light has been understood as Jesus, as his message, and as the believer's response to him and to his message.
In their writings, Hilary, Ambrose, and Bede understood that the light of the Gospel was not to be confined to Judaea, but to illuminate all nations.
But to hide one’s light under a bushel has come to mean saying little about one’s own skills and abilities, one’s own core values and beliefs, instead of being confident and telling others about them.
When do we hide our lights under bushels, or under a bowl?
When are we reluctant to be beacons in the darkness, shining out for true values when light is needed?
Do I speak up often enough about injustice, oppression and violence and racism, war and prejudice?
Or do I keep my views to myself at those crucial moments, hiding my light under a bushel?
The view from Lichnos in Piskopianó across Hersonissos and out to the north coast of Crete and the Mediterranean (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)
Today’s Prayers (Thursday 30 January 2025):
The theme this week in ‘Pray With the World Church’, the Prayer Diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), is ‘A Reflection on 2 Timothy’. This theme was introduced on Sunday with a Programme Update by the Revd Canon Dr Nicky Chater, Chair of Gypsy, Roma and Traveller Friendly Churches and Chaplain for these communities in the Diocese of Durham.
The USPG Prayer Diary today (Thursday 30 January 2025) invites us to pray:
Lord, grant us compassion for people who have no secure place to live, including Gypsies, Roma, and Travellers. Help us to understand how much our wellbeing rests on knowing somewhere as home, and how participating in healthcare, employment and education relies on where we live.
The Collect:
King of kings and Lord of lords,
whose faithful servant Charles
prayed for those who persecuted him
and died in the living hope of your eternal kingdom:
grant us by your grace so to follow his example
that we may love and bless our enemies,
through the intercession of your Son, our Lord Jesus Christ,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.
The Post-Communion Prayer:
God our redeemer,
whose Church was strengthened by the blood of your martyr Charles:
so bind us, in life and death, to Christ’s sacrifice
that our lives, broken and offered with his,
may carry his death and proclaim his resurrection in the world;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Yesterday’s Reflection
Continued Tomorrow
‘Is a lamp brought in to be put under the bushel basket, or under the bed, and not on the lampstand?’ (Mark 4: 21) … lit candles in the Church of the Four Martyrs in Rethymnon, Crete (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
‘Is a lamp brought in to be put under the bushel basket, or under the bed, and not on the lampstand?’ (Mark 4: 21) … evening in a restaurant in York (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)
29 January 2025
The Greeks have a word for it:
49, Ἠλεκτρον (Elektron), electric
Anne Carson’s interpretation of ‘Elektra’ by Sophocles continues at the Duke of York’s theatre in the West End until 12 April
Patrick Comerford
A new West End production of Elektra, one of the great plays by Sophocles, opened at the Duke of York’s theatre, near Covent Garden, last Friday (24 January) and continues until 12 April. This is a new translation by the Canadian poet and classicist Anne Carson and had an earlier launch at the Theatre Royal, Brighton.
The new interpretation of Elektra is getting much attention because Elektra is played by Brie Larson, known for her roles in Captain Marvel, Room and Lessons in Chemistry, and because it is directed by Daniel Fish, whose production of Oklahoma! won a 2019 Tony for Best Revival of a Musical and went on to hit runs at the Young Vic and in the West End.
This is the first major revival in over a decade of Sophocles’ electrifying and timeless tragedy. Elektra (Electra, Ἠλέκτρα), is haunted by the murder of her father Agamemnon by her mother Clytemnestra and her new lover Aegisthus, Elektra is consumed by grief, a need for survival and a thirst for vengeance. She thinks her long-lost brother Orestes is dead. But when he returns, she urges him to kill them both her mother and her stepfather in a savage and terrifying conclusion.
This is only the fifth major London revival of Elektra in the past 75 years. Yet John Burgess has described Electra as being, along with The Cherry Orchard, ‘perhaps the most formally perfect play ever written’. Other describe Electra as ‘a female Hamlet’.
For both Shakespeare and Sophocles, royal fathers have been murdered to make way for intolerable marriages and both the Prince of Denmark and the Princess of Mycenae voice their lonely protest. Sophocles’ supreme irony comes when Clytemnestra and Electra’s compromising sister, Chrysothemis point out that the blood-cycle started with the slaughter of another daughter Iphigenia by Agamemnon in a sacrifice before the Trojan War.
Electra is one of the most enduring figures in classical tragedy. She is the leading character in both Electra by Sophocles and Electra by Euripides, and a vengeful figure in The Libation Bearers, the second play of the Oresteia trilogy by Aeschylus. She is also the central figure in plays by Alfieri, Voltaire, Hofmannsthal and Eugene O’Neill.
In psychology, she gives her name to the Electra complex, analogous to a boy’s experience in the Oedipus complex, although the idea of the Electra complex is not widely used by mental health professionals today.
The Electra Palace Hotel (left) is an integral part of Ernest Hébrard’s design of Aristotelous Square in the heart of Thessaloniki (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)
Electra remains a powerful figure in Greek culture today. Aristotelous Square is the main square in the heart of Thessaloniki, and like the White Tower it is virtually synonymous with the city itself. It is a venue for many cultural and political events, and is lined with hotels, cafés and bars.
The two quarter-circle sides of the square are occupied by two culturally important and imposing buildings: the Electra Palace Hotel, where I stayed once while I was travelling to and from Mount Athos, and the Olympion Theatre cinema, the venue of the annual Thessaloniki International Film Festival. There are also Electra Hotels in Athens, Rhodes and Kefalonia.
Walking around the harbour of Rethymnon, I have sometimes noticed a boat named Elektra. It brings to mind both the ought to mind both the plays by Sophocles and Euripides and the score Mikis Theodorakis wrote for the film Electra (1962). The film, starring Irene Papas, is based on the play by Euripides, was the first in a Greek tragedy trilogy by Michael Cacoyannis, followed by The Trojan Women (1971) and Iphigenia (1977).
In his music, Theodorakis expressed his political values and fused his idealism and his commitment to freedom. His scores for Zorba and Electra show how he caught Greek cultural imaginations, combining Greek traditional music and classical composition, high art and popular culture.
Elektra in Rethymnon … bringing together, Sophocles, Euripides and Theodorakis (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)
Electra is an electrifying figure. Her name comes from the Ancient Greek ἤλεκτρον (ḗlektron, amber), related to ἠλέκτωρ (ēléktōr, shining sun). The origin of the Greek word is unknown, but some think it might have come from a Phoenician word elēkrŏn, meaning ‘shining light’.
The word electricity, from Neo-Latin and ultimately Greek, first appears in English in Francis Bacon’s writings. But the first scientific usage of the English words electricity and electric is generally ascribed to Sir Thomas Browne in his Pseudodoxia Epidemica (1646).
The words electricity and electric in English are derived from the New Latin ēlectricus (‘electrical’; ‘of amber’), and in turn from ēlectrum (‘amber’) and the adjectival -icus. The Latin term was apparently used first with the sense ‘electrical’ in 1600 by the English physician and scientist William Gilbert in his work De Magnete.
The word electron in English – a blend of electric + ion – was first coined in 1891 by the Irish physicist George Johnstone Stoney (1826-1911). He changed the word multiple times from an earlier electrolion and original electrine, which he used as early as 1874, as the name for the electric charge associated with a univalent ion.
But the connection between electricity and Greek tragedy, and the alignment of the words we use with vengeful retribution and the savage and terrifying consequences for absolute despots, their families and those they rule are impossible for me tnot to make in these days.
I now associate electricity and electric cars with Elon Musk and his attitude to political violence as he props up Trump in America, whips up the far-right in Germany, seeks to intervene in the democratic process in Britain, France and many other countries and whips up crowds with fascist salutes. Musk chose two days before the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz to address a rally of the far-right AfD in Germany, and to call for Germany to ‘move beyond’ Nazi guilt, saying ‘children should not be guilty of the sins of their parents.’
The electrifying and violent consequence of Musk’s actions are threatening to create dramatic tragedies throughout the democratic world, with savage and terrifying conclusions.
Last word: 48, ‘Απόκρυφα, Apocrypha
Next word: 50, Metamorphosis, Μεταμόρφωσις
Electra and Orestes in ‘Stories from the Greek Tragedians’ by Alfred Church (1897)
Previous words in this series:
1, Neologism, Νεολογισμός.
2, Welcoming the stranger, Φιλοξενία.
3, Bread, Ψωμί.
4, Wine, Οίνος and Κρασί.
5, Yogurt, Γιαούρτι.
6, Orthodoxy, Ορθοδοξία.
7, Sea, Θᾰ́λᾰσσᾰ.
8,Theology, Θεολογία.
9, Icon, Εἰκών.
10, Philosophy, Φιλοσοφία.
11, Chaos, Χάος.
12, Liturgy, Λειτουργία.
13, Greeks, Ἕλληνες or Ρωμαίοι.
14, Mañana, Αύριο.
15, Europe, Εὐρώπη.
16, Architecture, Αρχιτεκτονική.
17, The missing words.
18, Theatre, θέατρον, and Drama, Δρᾶμα.
19, Pharmacy, Φᾰρμᾰκείᾱ.
20, Rhapsody, Ραψῳδός.
21, Holocaust, Ολοκαύτωμα.
22, Hygiene, Υγιεινή.
23, Laconic, Λακωνικός.
24, Telephone, Τηλέφωνο.
25, Asthma, Ασθμα.
26, Synagogue, Συναγωγή.
27, Diaspora, Διασπορά.
28, School, Σχολείο.
29, Muse, Μούσα.
30, Monastery, Μοναστήρι.
31, Olympian, Ολύμπιος.
32, Hypocrite, Υποκριτής.
33, Genocide, Γενοκτονία.
34, Cinema, Κινημα.
35, autopsy and biopsy
36, Exodus, ἔξοδος
37, Bishop, ἐπίσκοπος
38, Socratic, Σωκρατικὸς
39, Odyssey, Ὀδύσσεια
40, Practice, πρᾶξις
41, Idiotic, Ιδιωτικός
42, Pentecost, Πεντηκοστή
43, Apostrophe, ἀποστροφή
44, catastrophe, καταστροφή
45, democracy, δημοκρατία
46, ‘Αρχή, beginning, Τέλος, end
47, ‘Αποκάλυψις, Apocalypse
48, ‘Απόκρυφα, Apocrypha
49, Ἠλεκτρον (Elektron), electric
50, Metamorphosis, Μεταμόρφωσις
Patrick Comerford
A new West End production of Elektra, one of the great plays by Sophocles, opened at the Duke of York’s theatre, near Covent Garden, last Friday (24 January) and continues until 12 April. This is a new translation by the Canadian poet and classicist Anne Carson and had an earlier launch at the Theatre Royal, Brighton.
The new interpretation of Elektra is getting much attention because Elektra is played by Brie Larson, known for her roles in Captain Marvel, Room and Lessons in Chemistry, and because it is directed by Daniel Fish, whose production of Oklahoma! won a 2019 Tony for Best Revival of a Musical and went on to hit runs at the Young Vic and in the West End.
This is the first major revival in over a decade of Sophocles’ electrifying and timeless tragedy. Elektra (Electra, Ἠλέκτρα), is haunted by the murder of her father Agamemnon by her mother Clytemnestra and her new lover Aegisthus, Elektra is consumed by grief, a need for survival and a thirst for vengeance. She thinks her long-lost brother Orestes is dead. But when he returns, she urges him to kill them both her mother and her stepfather in a savage and terrifying conclusion.
This is only the fifth major London revival of Elektra in the past 75 years. Yet John Burgess has described Electra as being, along with The Cherry Orchard, ‘perhaps the most formally perfect play ever written’. Other describe Electra as ‘a female Hamlet’.
For both Shakespeare and Sophocles, royal fathers have been murdered to make way for intolerable marriages and both the Prince of Denmark and the Princess of Mycenae voice their lonely protest. Sophocles’ supreme irony comes when Clytemnestra and Electra’s compromising sister, Chrysothemis point out that the blood-cycle started with the slaughter of another daughter Iphigenia by Agamemnon in a sacrifice before the Trojan War.
Electra is one of the most enduring figures in classical tragedy. She is the leading character in both Electra by Sophocles and Electra by Euripides, and a vengeful figure in The Libation Bearers, the second play of the Oresteia trilogy by Aeschylus. She is also the central figure in plays by Alfieri, Voltaire, Hofmannsthal and Eugene O’Neill.
In psychology, she gives her name to the Electra complex, analogous to a boy’s experience in the Oedipus complex, although the idea of the Electra complex is not widely used by mental health professionals today.
The Electra Palace Hotel (left) is an integral part of Ernest Hébrard’s design of Aristotelous Square in the heart of Thessaloniki (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)
Electra remains a powerful figure in Greek culture today. Aristotelous Square is the main square in the heart of Thessaloniki, and like the White Tower it is virtually synonymous with the city itself. It is a venue for many cultural and political events, and is lined with hotels, cafés and bars.
The two quarter-circle sides of the square are occupied by two culturally important and imposing buildings: the Electra Palace Hotel, where I stayed once while I was travelling to and from Mount Athos, and the Olympion Theatre cinema, the venue of the annual Thessaloniki International Film Festival. There are also Electra Hotels in Athens, Rhodes and Kefalonia.
Walking around the harbour of Rethymnon, I have sometimes noticed a boat named Elektra. It brings to mind both the ought to mind both the plays by Sophocles and Euripides and the score Mikis Theodorakis wrote for the film Electra (1962). The film, starring Irene Papas, is based on the play by Euripides, was the first in a Greek tragedy trilogy by Michael Cacoyannis, followed by The Trojan Women (1971) and Iphigenia (1977).
In his music, Theodorakis expressed his political values and fused his idealism and his commitment to freedom. His scores for Zorba and Electra show how he caught Greek cultural imaginations, combining Greek traditional music and classical composition, high art and popular culture.
Elektra in Rethymnon … bringing together, Sophocles, Euripides and Theodorakis (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)
Electra is an electrifying figure. Her name comes from the Ancient Greek ἤλεκτρον (ḗlektron, amber), related to ἠλέκτωρ (ēléktōr, shining sun). The origin of the Greek word is unknown, but some think it might have come from a Phoenician word elēkrŏn, meaning ‘shining light’.
The word electricity, from Neo-Latin and ultimately Greek, first appears in English in Francis Bacon’s writings. But the first scientific usage of the English words electricity and electric is generally ascribed to Sir Thomas Browne in his Pseudodoxia Epidemica (1646).
The words electricity and electric in English are derived from the New Latin ēlectricus (‘electrical’; ‘of amber’), and in turn from ēlectrum (‘amber’) and the adjectival -icus. The Latin term was apparently used first with the sense ‘electrical’ in 1600 by the English physician and scientist William Gilbert in his work De Magnete.
The word electron in English – a blend of electric + ion – was first coined in 1891 by the Irish physicist George Johnstone Stoney (1826-1911). He changed the word multiple times from an earlier electrolion and original electrine, which he used as early as 1874, as the name for the electric charge associated with a univalent ion.
But the connection between electricity and Greek tragedy, and the alignment of the words we use with vengeful retribution and the savage and terrifying consequences for absolute despots, their families and those they rule are impossible for me tnot to make in these days.
I now associate electricity and electric cars with Elon Musk and his attitude to political violence as he props up Trump in America, whips up the far-right in Germany, seeks to intervene in the democratic process in Britain, France and many other countries and whips up crowds with fascist salutes. Musk chose two days before the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz to address a rally of the far-right AfD in Germany, and to call for Germany to ‘move beyond’ Nazi guilt, saying ‘children should not be guilty of the sins of their parents.’
The electrifying and violent consequence of Musk’s actions are threatening to create dramatic tragedies throughout the democratic world, with savage and terrifying conclusions.
Last word: 48, ‘Απόκρυφα, Apocrypha
Next word: 50, Metamorphosis, Μεταμόρφωσις
Electra and Orestes in ‘Stories from the Greek Tragedians’ by Alfred Church (1897)
Previous words in this series:
1, Neologism, Νεολογισμός.
2, Welcoming the stranger, Φιλοξενία.
3, Bread, Ψωμί.
4, Wine, Οίνος and Κρασί.
5, Yogurt, Γιαούρτι.
6, Orthodoxy, Ορθοδοξία.
7, Sea, Θᾰ́λᾰσσᾰ.
8,Theology, Θεολογία.
9, Icon, Εἰκών.
10, Philosophy, Φιλοσοφία.
11, Chaos, Χάος.
12, Liturgy, Λειτουργία.
13, Greeks, Ἕλληνες or Ρωμαίοι.
14, Mañana, Αύριο.
15, Europe, Εὐρώπη.
16, Architecture, Αρχιτεκτονική.
17, The missing words.
18, Theatre, θέατρον, and Drama, Δρᾶμα.
19, Pharmacy, Φᾰρμᾰκείᾱ.
20, Rhapsody, Ραψῳδός.
21, Holocaust, Ολοκαύτωμα.
22, Hygiene, Υγιεινή.
23, Laconic, Λακωνικός.
24, Telephone, Τηλέφωνο.
25, Asthma, Ασθμα.
26, Synagogue, Συναγωγή.
27, Diaspora, Διασπορά.
28, School, Σχολείο.
29, Muse, Μούσα.
30, Monastery, Μοναστήρι.
31, Olympian, Ολύμπιος.
32, Hypocrite, Υποκριτής.
33, Genocide, Γενοκτονία.
34, Cinema, Κινημα.
35, autopsy and biopsy
36, Exodus, ἔξοδος
37, Bishop, ἐπίσκοπος
38, Socratic, Σωκρατικὸς
39, Odyssey, Ὀδύσσεια
40, Practice, πρᾶξις
41, Idiotic, Ιδιωτικός
42, Pentecost, Πεντηκοστή
43, Apostrophe, ἀποστροφή
44, catastrophe, καταστροφή
45, democracy, δημοκρατία
46, ‘Αρχή, beginning, Τέλος, end
47, ‘Αποκάλυψις, Apocalypse
48, ‘Απόκρυφα, Apocrypha
49, Ἠλεκτρον (Elektron), electric
50, Metamorphosis, Μεταμόρφωσις
Daily prayer in Christmas 2024-2025:
36, Wednesday 29 January 2025
‘And these are the ones sown on the good soil’ (Mark 4: 20) … the garden in the cloisters in Arkadi Monastery in Crete (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)
Patrick Comerford
This is the last week in the 40-day season of Christmas, which continues until Candlemas or the Feast of the Presentation on Sunday (2 February 2025). This week began with the Third Sunday of Epiphany (Epiphany III, 26 January 2025).
We celebrated the Chinese New Year and the beginning of the Year of the Snake last night. I have a medical consultation later this morning. But, before today begins, I am taking some quiet time this morning to give thanks, to reflect, to pray and to read in these ways:
1, today’s Gospel reading;
2, a short reflection;
3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary;
4, the Collects and Post-Communion prayer of the day.
The Sower and the Seed … an image in the East Window in Holy Trinity Church, Rathkeale, Co Limerick (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)
Mark 4: 1-20 (NRSVA):
1 Again he began to teach beside the lake. Such a very large crowd gathered around him that he got into a boat on the lake and sat there, while the whole crowd was beside the lake on the land. 2 He began to teach them many things in parables, and in his teaching he said to them: 3 ‘Listen! A sower went out to sow. 4 And as he sowed, some seed fell on the path, and the birds came and ate it up. 5 Other seed fell on rocky ground, where it did not have much soil, and it sprang up quickly, since it had no depth of soil. 6 And when the sun rose, it was scorched; and since it had no root, it withered away. 7 Other seed fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up and choked it, and it yielded no grain. 8 Other seed fell into good soil and brought forth grain, growing up and increasing and yielding thirty and sixty and a hundredfold.’ 9 And he said, ‘Let anyone with ears to hear listen!’
10 When he was alone, those who were around him along with the twelve asked him about the parables. 11 And he said to them, ‘To you has been given the secret of the kingdom of God, but for those outside, everything comes in parables; 12 in order that
“they may indeed look, but not perceive,
and may indeed listen, but not understand;
so that they may not turn again and be forgiven”.’
13 And he said to them, ‘Do you not understand this parable? Then how will you understand all the parables? 14 The sower sows the word. 15 These are the ones on the path where the word is sown: when they hear, Satan immediately comes and takes away the word that is sown in them. 16 And these are the ones sown on rocky ground: when they hear the word, they immediately receive it with joy. 17 But they have no root, and endure only for a while; then, when trouble or persecution arises on account of the word, immediately they fall away. 18 And others are those sown among the thorns: these are the ones who hear the word, 19 but the cares of the world, and the lure of wealth, and the desire for other things come in and choke the word, and it yields nothing. 20 And these are the ones sown on the good soil: they hear the word and accept it and bear fruit, thirty and sixty and a hundredfold.’
‘These are the ones on the path where the word is sown’ (Mark 4: 14) … spring growth on the pathway to the beach at Platanias in suburban Rethymnon, Crete (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)
Today’s Reflection:
Chapter 4 in Saint Mark’s Gospel is the ‘parables chapter,’ recalling parables that make this chapter the central teaching section of his Gospel. Christ is in a boat beside the sea teaching a very large crowd who are listening on the shore (see Mark 4: 1-2), and in this morning’s reading (Mark 4: 1-20), he describe the ‘kingdom of God’ using images of a sower scattering seed on the ground in the hope and expectation of growth and the harvest.
I am not good at sowing, not good at growing plants or trees, and certainly not good at growing them from seed.
I like to explain this away by excuses such as heavy hay fever since childhood or claiming I do not have green fingers. But to tell the truth it may be because of a combination of faults: because I expect quick results and because I expect perfection.
I enjoy sitting in the garden, reading, eating in the open, listening to the fountain, but not wedding the flower beds, tending the plants or mowing the lawn. In short, I don’t do gardening, I don’t do garden centres.
But some years ago visiting both the National Botanic Gardens in Dublin and the Lavender Field at Avoca in Kilmacanogue, Co Wicklow, on the same weekend I found myself unexpectedly appreciating gardens and growing and growth. In both cases, these are places where people with vision did not expect immediate results.
The Botanic Gardens were founded in Glasnevin in 1795 by people with vision such as the Speaker of the Irish House of Commons, John Foster. But it was another 40 years or more before the basic shape of the gardens was established by 1838.
David Moore, who was appointed curator that year, had the vision to develop the glasshouse accommodation, and he commissioned Richard Turner, the great Dublin ironmaster, to provide an iron house to replace the previous wooden house.
Work on the main curvilinear glasshouse started in 1843. It was a vision for the future and a gift to the future. Those who planned it and devoted their energy to building those glasshouses in Glasnevin had no idea of the pleasure they were bequeathing to future generations, and today the glasshouses in the Botanic Gardens stand as a great achievement of Victorian engineering, planning and vision.
In many ways, the buildings they planned and the seeds sown in them have brought forth not just thirtyfold, but sixtyfold, a hundredfold, and perhaps even more. Today, the living collections at the National Botanic Gardens include over 300 endangered species from around the world, and six species already extinct in the wild. These are a vital resource, and the staff there speak of them like a ‘Noah’s Ark’ for the future.
In those glasshouses, Victorian architecture, engineering, art and science come together. Without careful, measured, timing and proper planning we would not see the results today.
The Lavender Field in Kilmacanogue, outside Bray, is a more recent example of planning carefully and reaping the benefits in measured ways over the years.
The Lavender Farm owes its origins to Brian Cox and Donald Pratt, who had the idea in 1983 of starting an Irish perfume company, and moved to Kilmacangoue in 1987. Some of their fragrances are sourced from lavender from their own field, across the road from their offices in Kilmacanogue.
Forty years or so later, this ‘field of dreams,’ nestling between the two Sugarloaf mountains, is producing top quality lavender oil and provides the inspiration for many of the company’s ideas. The lavender is harvested every summer and the Lavender Harvest Party celebrates nature’s amazing gift of the golden oil from the lavender.
Some of the lavender is actually growing along the roadside, even on the rocky waste left on the margins of the motorway. But without the seed that had fallen by the roadside and the rocky places, I might never have noticed the lavender that is growing on the deep, rich soil, and producing this abundant harvest.
Nonetheless, this lavender field has taken a generation to reach the maturity that is its glory today.
Too often we expect immediate results. And too often we judge whether a project is a success or a failure by asking whether it is producing immediate, measurable, visible apparent results. If not, we dismiss that project as an immediate failure.
Just because something works now does not mean it is right for the future. Just because something does not work now does not mean it is wrong for the future. Like the Victorian engineers who had vision in Glasnevin almost two centuries ago, we may not see the growth that follows our work today. Like a sower scattering seed, I sometimes think of God sowing seeds in the minds of many people that eventually grow into full bloom.
In one of his less well-known poems, ‘The Last Laugh’ (1974), John Betjeman wrote:
I made hay while the sun shone.
My work sold.
Now, if the harvest is over
And the world cold,
Give me the bonus of laughter
As I lose hold.
The Victorian glasshouses in the National Botanic Gardens, Glasnevin, are a visible lesson in planting seeds with hope for the future (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)
Today’s Prayers (Wednesday 29 January 2025):
The theme this week in ‘Pray With the World Church’, the Prayer Diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), is ‘A Reflection on 2 Timothy’. This theme was introduced on Sunday with a Programme Update by the Revd Canon Dr Nicky Chater, Chair of Gypsy, Roma and Traveller Friendly Churches and Chaplain for these communities in the Diocese of Durham.
The USPG Prayer Diary today (Wednesday 29 January 2025) invites us to pray:
Bless all who work to offer shelter and security to marginalised and vulnerable people and grant us generosity in supporting them.
The Collect:
Almighty God,
whose Son revealed in signs and miracles
the wonder of your saving presence:
renew your people with your heavenly grace,
and in all our weakness
sustain us by your mighty power;
through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.
The Post-Communion Prayer:
Almighty Father,
whose Son our Saviour Jesus Christ is the light of the world:
may your people,
illumined by your word and sacraments,
shine with the radiance of his glory,
that he may be known, worshipped, and obeyed
to the ends of the earth;
for he is alive and reigns, now and for ever.
Additional Collect:
God of all mercy,
your Son proclaimed good news to the poor,
release to the captives,
and freedom to the oppressed:
anoint us with your Holy Spirit
and set all your people free
to praise you in Christ our Lord.
Yesterday’s Reflection
Continued Tomorrow
A sign seen in the Happy Pear restaurant in Greystones, Co Wicklow (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 Lavender Field, Kilmacanogue, Co Wicklow … an example of planning carefully and reaping the benefits over the years (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)
Patrick Comerford
This is the last week in the 40-day season of Christmas, which continues until Candlemas or the Feast of the Presentation on Sunday (2 February 2025). This week began with the Third Sunday of Epiphany (Epiphany III, 26 January 2025).
We celebrated the Chinese New Year and the beginning of the Year of the Snake last night. I have a medical consultation later this morning. But, before today begins, I am taking some quiet time this morning to give thanks, to reflect, to pray and to read in these ways:
1, today’s Gospel reading;
2, a short reflection;
3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary;
4, the Collects and Post-Communion prayer of the day.
The Sower and the Seed … an image in the East Window in Holy Trinity Church, Rathkeale, Co Limerick (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)
Mark 4: 1-20 (NRSVA):
1 Again he began to teach beside the lake. Such a very large crowd gathered around him that he got into a boat on the lake and sat there, while the whole crowd was beside the lake on the land. 2 He began to teach them many things in parables, and in his teaching he said to them: 3 ‘Listen! A sower went out to sow. 4 And as he sowed, some seed fell on the path, and the birds came and ate it up. 5 Other seed fell on rocky ground, where it did not have much soil, and it sprang up quickly, since it had no depth of soil. 6 And when the sun rose, it was scorched; and since it had no root, it withered away. 7 Other seed fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up and choked it, and it yielded no grain. 8 Other seed fell into good soil and brought forth grain, growing up and increasing and yielding thirty and sixty and a hundredfold.’ 9 And he said, ‘Let anyone with ears to hear listen!’
10 When he was alone, those who were around him along with the twelve asked him about the parables. 11 And he said to them, ‘To you has been given the secret of the kingdom of God, but for those outside, everything comes in parables; 12 in order that
“they may indeed look, but not perceive,
and may indeed listen, but not understand;
so that they may not turn again and be forgiven”.’
13 And he said to them, ‘Do you not understand this parable? Then how will you understand all the parables? 14 The sower sows the word. 15 These are the ones on the path where the word is sown: when they hear, Satan immediately comes and takes away the word that is sown in them. 16 And these are the ones sown on rocky ground: when they hear the word, they immediately receive it with joy. 17 But they have no root, and endure only for a while; then, when trouble or persecution arises on account of the word, immediately they fall away. 18 And others are those sown among the thorns: these are the ones who hear the word, 19 but the cares of the world, and the lure of wealth, and the desire for other things come in and choke the word, and it yields nothing. 20 And these are the ones sown on the good soil: they hear the word and accept it and bear fruit, thirty and sixty and a hundredfold.’
‘These are the ones on the path where the word is sown’ (Mark 4: 14) … spring growth on the pathway to the beach at Platanias in suburban Rethymnon, Crete (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)
Today’s Reflection:
Chapter 4 in Saint Mark’s Gospel is the ‘parables chapter,’ recalling parables that make this chapter the central teaching section of his Gospel. Christ is in a boat beside the sea teaching a very large crowd who are listening on the shore (see Mark 4: 1-2), and in this morning’s reading (Mark 4: 1-20), he describe the ‘kingdom of God’ using images of a sower scattering seed on the ground in the hope and expectation of growth and the harvest.
I am not good at sowing, not good at growing plants or trees, and certainly not good at growing them from seed.
I like to explain this away by excuses such as heavy hay fever since childhood or claiming I do not have green fingers. But to tell the truth it may be because of a combination of faults: because I expect quick results and because I expect perfection.
I enjoy sitting in the garden, reading, eating in the open, listening to the fountain, but not wedding the flower beds, tending the plants or mowing the lawn. In short, I don’t do gardening, I don’t do garden centres.
But some years ago visiting both the National Botanic Gardens in Dublin and the Lavender Field at Avoca in Kilmacanogue, Co Wicklow, on the same weekend I found myself unexpectedly appreciating gardens and growing and growth. In both cases, these are places where people with vision did not expect immediate results.
The Botanic Gardens were founded in Glasnevin in 1795 by people with vision such as the Speaker of the Irish House of Commons, John Foster. But it was another 40 years or more before the basic shape of the gardens was established by 1838.
David Moore, who was appointed curator that year, had the vision to develop the glasshouse accommodation, and he commissioned Richard Turner, the great Dublin ironmaster, to provide an iron house to replace the previous wooden house.
Work on the main curvilinear glasshouse started in 1843. It was a vision for the future and a gift to the future. Those who planned it and devoted their energy to building those glasshouses in Glasnevin had no idea of the pleasure they were bequeathing to future generations, and today the glasshouses in the Botanic Gardens stand as a great achievement of Victorian engineering, planning and vision.
In many ways, the buildings they planned and the seeds sown in them have brought forth not just thirtyfold, but sixtyfold, a hundredfold, and perhaps even more. Today, the living collections at the National Botanic Gardens include over 300 endangered species from around the world, and six species already extinct in the wild. These are a vital resource, and the staff there speak of them like a ‘Noah’s Ark’ for the future.
In those glasshouses, Victorian architecture, engineering, art and science come together. Without careful, measured, timing and proper planning we would not see the results today.
The Lavender Field in Kilmacanogue, outside Bray, is a more recent example of planning carefully and reaping the benefits in measured ways over the years.
The Lavender Farm owes its origins to Brian Cox and Donald Pratt, who had the idea in 1983 of starting an Irish perfume company, and moved to Kilmacangoue in 1987. Some of their fragrances are sourced from lavender from their own field, across the road from their offices in Kilmacanogue.
Forty years or so later, this ‘field of dreams,’ nestling between the two Sugarloaf mountains, is producing top quality lavender oil and provides the inspiration for many of the company’s ideas. The lavender is harvested every summer and the Lavender Harvest Party celebrates nature’s amazing gift of the golden oil from the lavender.
Some of the lavender is actually growing along the roadside, even on the rocky waste left on the margins of the motorway. But without the seed that had fallen by the roadside and the rocky places, I might never have noticed the lavender that is growing on the deep, rich soil, and producing this abundant harvest.
Nonetheless, this lavender field has taken a generation to reach the maturity that is its glory today.
Too often we expect immediate results. And too often we judge whether a project is a success or a failure by asking whether it is producing immediate, measurable, visible apparent results. If not, we dismiss that project as an immediate failure.
Just because something works now does not mean it is right for the future. Just because something does not work now does not mean it is wrong for the future. Like the Victorian engineers who had vision in Glasnevin almost two centuries ago, we may not see the growth that follows our work today. Like a sower scattering seed, I sometimes think of God sowing seeds in the minds of many people that eventually grow into full bloom.
In one of his less well-known poems, ‘The Last Laugh’ (1974), John Betjeman wrote:
I made hay while the sun shone.
My work sold.
Now, if the harvest is over
And the world cold,
Give me the bonus of laughter
As I lose hold.
The Victorian glasshouses in the National Botanic Gardens, Glasnevin, are a visible lesson in planting seeds with hope for the future (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)
Today’s Prayers (Wednesday 29 January 2025):
The theme this week in ‘Pray With the World Church’, the Prayer Diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), is ‘A Reflection on 2 Timothy’. This theme was introduced on Sunday with a Programme Update by the Revd Canon Dr Nicky Chater, Chair of Gypsy, Roma and Traveller Friendly Churches and Chaplain for these communities in the Diocese of Durham.
The USPG Prayer Diary today (Wednesday 29 January 2025) invites us to pray:
Bless all who work to offer shelter and security to marginalised and vulnerable people and grant us generosity in supporting them.
The Collect:
Almighty God,
whose Son revealed in signs and miracles
the wonder of your saving presence:
renew your people with your heavenly grace,
and in all our weakness
sustain us by your mighty power;
through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.
The Post-Communion Prayer:
Almighty Father,
whose Son our Saviour Jesus Christ is the light of the world:
may your people,
illumined by your word and sacraments,
shine with the radiance of his glory,
that he may be known, worshipped, and obeyed
to the ends of the earth;
for he is alive and reigns, now and for ever.
Additional Collect:
God of all mercy,
your Son proclaimed good news to the poor,
release to the captives,
and freedom to the oppressed:
anoint us with your Holy Spirit
and set all your people free
to praise you in Christ our Lord.
Yesterday’s Reflection
Continued Tomorrow
A sign seen in the Happy Pear restaurant in Greystones, Co Wicklow (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 Lavender Field, Kilmacanogue, Co Wicklow … an example of planning carefully and reaping the benefits over the years (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)
28 January 2025
Ten photographs from
Clare and Kerry in new
visitor guides for tourists
The Cascades at Ennistymon … one of my photographs in the new ‘Co Clare Visitor Guide’ edited by Sally Davies (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)
Patrick Comerford
The site SmartTraveller365 is an online tourist service in Ireland providing tourists and visitors to Ireland with free online services and information on what to see and do in Ireland.
The SmartTraveller365 website and service include smart phone coupons that offer shopping and entrance discounts at many of Ireland’s top attractions, shops and experiences.
Sally Davies, Senior Manager of Irish County Visitor Guides with SmartTraveller365, is producing a new series of colourgul, slimeline, ocket-size and user-friendly visitor guides that now include: the Co. Clare Visitor Guide, the County Kerry Visitor Guide, the West Cork Visitor Guide and the West Cork Visitor Guide.
Nine of my photographs have been published as part of the Co. Clare Visitor Guide, and one more also appears in the County Kerry Visitor Guide.
The Harbour at Ballyvaughan … one of my photographs in the ‘Co Clare Visitor Guide’ edited by Sally Davies (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)
Initially, Sally Davies asked to use just one or two of my photographs from my blog. But eventually, she decided to use nine of my photographs in the 64-page Co. Clare Visitor Guide she has edited and one in her guide to Co Kerry.
I am reluctant to allow my photographs to be used commercially. Businesses need to be realistic about their costings and margins, and professional photographers need to be paid for their work, without being undercut by amateurs who use their phones for images on social media. I am also anxious to retain the copyright of my own creative work, and certainly do not want my work being used to promote religious, social, political or business values I would not otherwise endorse.
On the other hand, I firmly believe in promoting small, local enterprises of the sort that are facilitated by guides like guidebooks such as these new publications, and it is a pleasure to be involved in areas that I know so well.
During my five years in parish ministry in west Limerick and north Kerry, living in the rectory in Askeaton, my parochial areas included parts of the River Shannon and some of the islands in the estuary – although I was never quite sure which islands, such as Scattery or Canon Island were in my parishes and which were linked with my colleagues.
Tarbert in Co Kerry was at the heart of Kilnaughtin parish, and the ferry across the mouth of the Shannon to Killimer brought me directly to many of the places described in the latest Co. Clare Visitor Guide.
My role as Precentor in the chapters of the Diocesan Cathedrals also made me familiar with the two cathedrals in Co Clare, in Killaloe and Kilfenora. In addition, I was eager during those years to explore Comerford family stories in many parts of Co Clare, including Miltown Malbay, Spanish Point and Ballyvaughan.
So I was delighted that Sally Davies has used nine of my photographs in her Co. Clare Visitor Guide, which arrived a few days ago. These photographs are of:
• the Duck Inn in Sixmilebridge (p 7)
• the Teardrop Memorial, Kilkee (p 26)
• the Cascades at Ennistymon (p 36)
• Quin Abbey (p 38)
• Canon Island Abbey (p 38)
• Canon Island (p 46)
• Scattery Island (p 47)
• and two photographs of the beach and harbour at Ballyvaughan (p 49).
Georgie Comerford is remembered as Miltown Malbay’s greatest-ever footballer … he played for four counties and two provinces
In addition, the pages on Miltown Malbay in this new publication include the story of Georgie Comerford (p 31), a sporting star in the 1930s, drawing on biographical details and images on my blog:
Teenage Years
Underage Success
• In 1929 George captained Clare to win the inaugural All Ireland minor championship
.. In the Munster final Clare defeated Waterford 1-6 to 0-4
.. In the All-Ireland final Clare defeated Longford 5-3 to 3-5, with George scoring 1-2 of the Clare total from full forward
.. This remains Clare’s only All-Ireland title at this grade.
• In 1930 George was on the Clare minor team that retained the Munster title defeating Tipperary 2-1 to 1-3, but Clare were unable to repeat success at All-Ireland level.
Georgie Comerford is remembered as Miltown Malbay’s greatest ever footballer and played for four counties and two provinces …
In addition, Sally Davies has used one of my photographs in another guide to Co Kerry. My photograph of the Daniel O’Connell Memorial Church in Cahersiveen appears on p 42 in the 76-page County Kerry Visitor Guide.
The ‘Duck Inn’ at Sixmilebridge … one of my photographs in the ‘Co Clare Visitor Guide’ edited by Sally Davies (Photograph: Patrick Comerford,)
• The SmartTraveller365 guides are available to read online and to download HERE
Patrick Comerford
The site SmartTraveller365 is an online tourist service in Ireland providing tourists and visitors to Ireland with free online services and information on what to see and do in Ireland.
The SmartTraveller365 website and service include smart phone coupons that offer shopping and entrance discounts at many of Ireland’s top attractions, shops and experiences.
Sally Davies, Senior Manager of Irish County Visitor Guides with SmartTraveller365, is producing a new series of colourgul, slimeline, ocket-size and user-friendly visitor guides that now include: the Co. Clare Visitor Guide, the County Kerry Visitor Guide, the West Cork Visitor Guide and the West Cork Visitor Guide.
Nine of my photographs have been published as part of the Co. Clare Visitor Guide, and one more also appears in the County Kerry Visitor Guide.
The Harbour at Ballyvaughan … one of my photographs in the ‘Co Clare Visitor Guide’ edited by Sally Davies (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)
Initially, Sally Davies asked to use just one or two of my photographs from my blog. But eventually, she decided to use nine of my photographs in the 64-page Co. Clare Visitor Guide she has edited and one in her guide to Co Kerry.
I am reluctant to allow my photographs to be used commercially. Businesses need to be realistic about their costings and margins, and professional photographers need to be paid for their work, without being undercut by amateurs who use their phones for images on social media. I am also anxious to retain the copyright of my own creative work, and certainly do not want my work being used to promote religious, social, political or business values I would not otherwise endorse.
On the other hand, I firmly believe in promoting small, local enterprises of the sort that are facilitated by guides like guidebooks such as these new publications, and it is a pleasure to be involved in areas that I know so well.
During my five years in parish ministry in west Limerick and north Kerry, living in the rectory in Askeaton, my parochial areas included parts of the River Shannon and some of the islands in the estuary – although I was never quite sure which islands, such as Scattery or Canon Island were in my parishes and which were linked with my colleagues.
Tarbert in Co Kerry was at the heart of Kilnaughtin parish, and the ferry across the mouth of the Shannon to Killimer brought me directly to many of the places described in the latest Co. Clare Visitor Guide.
My role as Precentor in the chapters of the Diocesan Cathedrals also made me familiar with the two cathedrals in Co Clare, in Killaloe and Kilfenora. In addition, I was eager during those years to explore Comerford family stories in many parts of Co Clare, including Miltown Malbay, Spanish Point and Ballyvaughan.
So I was delighted that Sally Davies has used nine of my photographs in her Co. Clare Visitor Guide, which arrived a few days ago. These photographs are of:
• the Duck Inn in Sixmilebridge (p 7)
• the Teardrop Memorial, Kilkee (p 26)
• the Cascades at Ennistymon (p 36)
• Quin Abbey (p 38)
• Canon Island Abbey (p 38)
• Canon Island (p 46)
• Scattery Island (p 47)
• and two photographs of the beach and harbour at Ballyvaughan (p 49).
Georgie Comerford is remembered as Miltown Malbay’s greatest-ever footballer … he played for four counties and two provinces
In addition, the pages on Miltown Malbay in this new publication include the story of Georgie Comerford (p 31), a sporting star in the 1930s, drawing on biographical details and images on my blog:
Teenage Years
Underage Success
• In 1929 George captained Clare to win the inaugural All Ireland minor championship
.. In the Munster final Clare defeated Waterford 1-6 to 0-4
.. In the All-Ireland final Clare defeated Longford 5-3 to 3-5, with George scoring 1-2 of the Clare total from full forward
.. This remains Clare’s only All-Ireland title at this grade.
• In 1930 George was on the Clare minor team that retained the Munster title defeating Tipperary 2-1 to 1-3, but Clare were unable to repeat success at All-Ireland level.
Georgie Comerford is remembered as Miltown Malbay’s greatest ever footballer and played for four counties and two provinces …
In addition, Sally Davies has used one of my photographs in another guide to Co Kerry. My photograph of the Daniel O’Connell Memorial Church in Cahersiveen appears on p 42 in the 76-page County Kerry Visitor Guide.
The ‘Duck Inn’ at Sixmilebridge … one of my photographs in the ‘Co Clare Visitor Guide’ edited by Sally Davies (Photograph: Patrick Comerford,)
• The SmartTraveller365 guides are available to read online and to download HERE
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