COMERFORD WAY: Patrick Comerford’s online journal on Anglicanism, theology, spirituality, history, architecture, travel, poetry, beach walks ... and more
28 March 2026
Mowbray Stephen O’Rorke,
the bishop with the ‘tallest
mitre in Christendom’ and
his family roots in Ballinasloe
Patrick Comerford
For many years, I maintained a website and Facebook page for a project I had called the Dead Anglican Theologians Society. The project has been moribund for the past five years, but should I ever have thoughts about breathing new life into it, some of the 20th century theologians I ought to include are Alfred Hope Patten (1885-1958), Bishop Mowbray Stephen O’Rorke (1869-1953) and Eric Milner-White (1884-1963), three key Anglican theologians I was reminded of when I was in Walsingham earlier this month, speaking at the Ecumenical Pilgrimage.
The ashes of Bishop Mowbray Stephen O’Rorke are buried in the Shrine Church, beneath a very impressive, mediaeval-style effigy, close to the Holy House, the Annunciation Altar and a similar effigy memorialising Alfred Hope Patten.
It was said Bishop O’Rorke wore the ‘tallest mitre in Christendom’. He had been a bishop in what is now Ghana, where he was supported by the Anglican mission agency SPG (now USPG), and was one of the leading figures in the Anglo-Catholic movement throughout the first half of the 20th century. He also had very strong family links with Ireland, and his parents were married in Saint Peter’s Church, Dublin, before they emigrated to Birmingham.
The Right Revd Mowbray Stephen O’Rorke (1869-1953), second Bishop of Accra, was the second of five sons of William Joseph O’Rorke of Ballinasloe, Co Galway, and later of Birmingham and Nottingham, and Annie Elizabeth Wilson, daughter of William Wilson of Saunders Grove, near Baltinglass, Co Wicklow.
Although he was born in England, Bishop O’Rorke was proud of his Irish family background and chose to do his theological training at Trinity College, Dublin.
William Joseph O’Rorke may have romanticised that he was related to James Rorke (1827-1875), the Irish-born adventurer who gave his name to Rorke’s Drift in South Africa, explaining why William gave the name ‘The Drift' to the family home on Magdala Road in Nottingham.
However, it is more likely William Joseph O’Rorke was a closely related to a well-known clerical and land-owning branch of the O’Rorke family in Co Galway that once owned the Clonbern and Bermingham House estates. Some sources suggest he may have been related to the Revd John O’Rorke (1775-1849), and through him to Charles Dennis O'Rorke (1827-1915), of Clonbern House, Co Galway, and Sir George Maurice O’Rorke, the Irish-born Speaker of the House of Representatives, New Zealand.
The Revd John O’Rorke born in 1775, the son of the Revd Timothy O’Rorke, also known known as Timothy or Teige, Thaddeus or Thady, or later in late as Thomas O’Rorke. The Rev Thaddeus O’Rorke joined the Church of Ireland and after that was always known as Thomas O’Rorke. He was the Curate of Cong, Co Mayo, and his headstone bears the name Thomas. The Revd Timothy O’Rorke always referred to himself and to his father as Thomas.
John O’Rorke was educated at Trinity College Dublin (BA 1800), and from 1801 he was the curate of Moylough, Co Galway. He later became Rector of Foxford, Co Mayo, and Vicar of Straid, in the Diocese of Achonry, but he continued to live in Moylough.
He leased land from the Bellews of Mountbellew and bought the Clonbern estate in Co Galway from the family of Archbishop Beresford of Tuam in 1828. His landholdings included over 1,600 acres in Co Roscommon and 217 acres in Co Westmeath. He was not popular in the Moylough area and was frequently was involved in law suits, particularly with a neighbouring landholder, Daniel Moore Kilkelly.
John O’Rorke was married three times, and had a large number of children before he died at Moylough House, Co Galway, on 31 January 1849 at the age of 73 after a fall from his horse.
His son, Charles Dennis O’Rorke, built Clonbern House in the early 1850s and inherited Bermingham House, near Tuam, from his uncle, John Dennis, a famous huntsman. By the 1870s, Charles O’Rorke owned 1,302 acres in Co Galway and over 1,000 acres in Co Kerry. The Land Commission acquired an estate of over 5,200 acres belonging to Charles Trench O’Rorke of Clonbern in 1927.
The bishop’s father, William Joseph O’Rorke, was born in Ballinasloe, Co Galway, in 1835, the son of Owen O’Rorke; his mother, Ann Elizabeth Wilson (1840-1912), was the daughter of William Wilson of Sander’s Court, near Baltinglass, Co Wicklow.
The couple were married in Saint Peter’s Church, Dublin, on 23 September 1862. He gave his address as 20 Union Square, Islington, London, and she was living at 38 Longwood Avenue, Dublin. (No 39 Longwood Avenue was later the home of Adelaide Margaret Field (1878-1953) who was baptised in Saint Peter’s in 1878 and married Charles William Comerford (1877-1953) in Holy Trinity Church, Rathmines, in 1910).
Anne and William O’Rorke moved to Birmingham, and they were the proprietors of a temperance hotel in Yardley. Later they ran the Caledonian Hotel on Lister Gate, Nottingham, which was bombed on 24 September 1916 in the only Zeppelin raid on the city. They were the parents of six children, five sons and a daughter, who were born in Birmingham and Nottingham between 1863 and 1879.
Mowbray Stephen O’Rorke was born in Birmingham on 21 May 1869 and he was baptised in the Wesleyan Methodist Chapel, Bristol Street, Birmingham, on 1 August 1869.
He was educated at University School, Nottingham, and Wesley College, Sheffield. He was engaged in business in London from 1885 to early 1899, and was called to the Bar at the Middle Temple. He moved to Dublin in 1899, where he studied theology at Trinity College, Dublin in preparation for ordination (BA, Div Test 1902; MA, 1905; BD and DD 1912).
He was ordained deacon on 21 September 1902 and priest on 20 December 1903 by the Bishop of Durham, Handley Moule, previously Norrisian Professor of Divinity at Cambridge.
His first appointments were as a curate in Jarrow (1902-1905) and at Saint Margaret’s, Durham (1905-1910). He then spent a year in Australia as the priest-in-charge of Saint Paul’s Cathedral, Rockhampton, Queensland (1910-1911). He returned to England and the Diocese of Durham on 14 May 1912 as the curate of Saint Oswald’s, Durham (1912-1913). While he was there, his mother Ann Elizabeth (Wilson) O’Rorke died in Nottingham on 29 June 1912.
When Nathaniel Temple Hamlyn (1864-1929) retired as the first Bishop of Accra on the Gold Coast (now Ghana), he was succeeded by O’Rorke as the second Bishop (1913-1924). He was consecrated bishop in the chapel Lambeth Palace on 25 January 1913 by Randall Davidson, Archbishop of Canterbury; AF Winnington-Ingram, Bishop of London; George Nickson, Bishop of Jarrow; Henry Montgomery, secretary of SPG (now USPG) and former Bishop of Tasmania; Bishop Nathanael Temple Hamlyn; and Herbert Mather, former Bishop of Antigua, who had been in charge of the Diocese of Accra during the vacancy.
In the Diocese of Accra, he worked hard to train local priests, introduced a number of Anglo-Catholic liturgical practices and oversaw the establishment of new churches. However, he understood that the success of the Anglican Mission depended on the development of Ghanaian leadership, and he ordained two Ghanaian priests in 1916. But O’Rorke was aware too of the factors that led to the listlessness of the Anglican mission in Ghana. His work was hampered at times by interference from the colonial government.
He attended the sixth Lambeth Conference of bishops in July 1920 and August 1920 and also took part in the Anglo-Catholic Congress that year. On Tuesday 29 June 1920, he was among the 1,200 robed priests and 22 bishops who walked through Holborn in central London to Mass in Saint Alban’s Church and the opening of the first Anglo-Catholic Congress.
He returned to England in 1924, and was succeeded by John Aglionby as Bishop of Accra (1924-1951). By then, there were only three African clergy in the diocese, and it was not until O’Rorke left in 1924, that a theological college was started.
He was the Rector of Blakeney and Langham Parva in the Diocese of Norwich in 1924-1934, and with Cockthorpe in 1924-1929. As the Rector of Blakeney, Norfolk, he was the close neighbour of Father Hope Paten when he was restoring the shrine and pilgrimage in Walsingham.
O’Rorke offered the necessary pontifical services, from the consecration of churches to the blessing of bell and became and became one of the first Guardians of the Shrine at Our Lady of Walsingham. He was the episcopal presence on 13 October 1931, when the image of Our Lady of Walsingham was moved from the parish church of Saint Mary and enthroned in the newly-built Holy House, and consecrated the Holy House and the Shrine Church. As a founding priest guardian (1931-1953), had Saint Cuthbert’s stall on the south side of the chancel, although he did not sign the Guardians’ Roll.
When he retired to the west country for health reasons, he remained a guardian and he returned to Walsingham in 1938 to bless the newly-built Shrine Church. He held a general licence in the Diocese Bath and Wells (1934-1939) as chaplain of Saint Audries School, West Quantoxhead, Somerset and then of King’s College, Taunton.
O’Rorke retired in 1939, and had a general licence in London from 1939 and Exeter from 1947. He lived in Roborough, South Devon, and died in a nursing home in Eastbourne, Sussex, on 15 March 1953. His will included a £500 bequest to SPG (now USPG). He was also a friend and supporter of exiled Russian Orthodox Christians.
His ashes were buried in the Shrine Church in Walsingham under his stately effigy beside the Annunciation Altar, close to the Holy House and to the monument to Hope Patten. He is depicted in one of the six carved heads in the shrine church roof.
Bishop O’Rorke’s siblings also led interesting lives. He was one of the two brothers among five who were ordained, one was an army chaplain and prisoner of war, and another brother was a vet and army officer.
His parents, Ann Elizabeth (Wilson) O’Rorke, who died in Nottingham on 29 June 1912 and William Joseph O’Rorke who died in Nottingham on 2 March 1924, were the parents of six children, a daughter and five sons:
1, Owen William Wilson O’Rorke (born 1863), born Birmingham, later lived in New Orleans, Louisiana, where he married Celina Marie Bonnafon (1875-1945) and was the father of two sons and a daughter.
2, George Samuel O’Rorke MA LLD (1866-1963), born Birmingham, a solicitor in Nottingham.
3, (Right Revd) Mowbray Stephen O'Rorke MA DD (1869-1953), later Bishop of Accra.
4, Annie Elizabeth O’Rorke (1874-1962), born Nottingham.
5, (Revd) Benjamin Garniss O’Rorke MA DSO (1875-1918), was an army chaplain and prisoner of war. He studied at Oxford and was ordained deacon in Exeter Cathedral in 1898 and priest in 1899, serving his title at Saint Peter's, Tiverton, until 1901.
He was a chaplain during the Boer War, and became assistant deputy chaplain general with the British Expeditionary Force. He was captured during the retreat from Mons on 25 August 1914 when the Coldstream Guards and others fought a rear guard action to hold off the Germans as the British forces escaped. He was a prisoner of war in Germany for 10 months before being repatriated as a non-combatant. He returned to France with the 33rd Division as senior chaplain. He was mentioned in Despatches and awarded the DSO. He died from pneumonia in Falmouth Military Hospital, Cornwall, on Christmas Day 1918, aged 43, and is buried in Falmouth Cemetery. His book In the Hands of the Enemy, was one of the first books to describe what it was like to be a POW.
He was also the author of Our opportunity in the West Indies, published by SPG in 1913.
He married Myra Roberta MacDougall (1872-1958), daughter of the Revd Henry MacDougall (1820-1900). They were the parents of one daughter, Kathleen Myra Frances O’Rorke (1910-2010), who later lived in Ithaca, New York. The widowed Myra O’Rorke married Major Steuart Menzies (1862-1939) in 1928.
6, (Lieut-Col) Frederick Charles O’Rorke FRCVS (1879-1976), born Nottingham, was a vet with the Army Veterinary Corps on the Western Front, 1914-1919. He also served in World War II. He married Dorothy Violet Whitaker (1880-1963), who died in Castlebar, Co Mayo, and they were the parents of (Lieut-Col) Frederick Denis Whitaker O’Rorke (1909-1998).
29.5 million in Texas,
or Gruffalo book sales,
along Japan’s coastline,
and total blog readers
Patrick Comerford
The viewing and reading figures for this blog continue to surprise me, and these figures passed the 29.5 million mark by late yesterday afternoon (27 March 2026).
This is the eighth time this month alone that the half-million figure in readership numbers has been passed, already reaching 29 million mark on Wednesday afternoon (25 March 2026), 28.5 million mark two days earlier (23 March 2026 ), 28 million on 20 March 2026, 27.5 million on16 March 2026, 27 million on 12 March 2026, 26.5 million on 3 March 2026, and 26 million at the beginning of the month (Sunday 1 March 2026). The number of hits on two days this month have been the highest daily figures I have ever recorded: 323,156 (yesterday, 27 March 2026), and 318,307 (1 March 2026).
This year so far has seen a phenomenal amount of traffic on this blog, reaching a volume of readers that I never have expected when I first started blogging 16 years ago. Half the total hits have been within the past nine or ten months. The total of hits last month (February 2026) was the highest monthly total ever (3,386,504), with this blog passing the half-million mark seven times in all in February, and that figure has already been outpaced this month, with a total of over 4 million by mid-day today.
At the end of last year, this blog had 21 million hits (31 December 2025). So far this year, there have been more than 8.8 million hits or visitors in 2026.
I first began blogging in 2010, and it took almost two years until July 2012 to reach half a million readers – a number reached eight times this month alone. Half of the 29.5 million hits have been within the last nine or ten months, since mid-July.
Throughout last year and this year, the daily figures have been overwhelming on many occasions. Of the 12 days of busiest traffic on this blog, six were this month (March), three were in February, one was in January, and two were in January 2025:
• 323,156 (27 March 2026)
• 318,307 (1 March 2026)
• 314,018 (28 February 2026)
• 301,449 (2 March 2026)
• 289,076 (11 January 2025)
• 285,366 (12 January 2025)
• 280,802 (26 February 2026)
• 273,022 (27 February 2026)
• 270,983 (25 March 2026)
• 261,422 (13 January 2026)
• 234,737 (26 March 2026)
• 228,931 (18 March 2026)
The number of readers continues to be overpowering, with the daily averages currently running at about 143,000 hits a day so far this month. Ten years ago, the daily average was around 1,000.
To put this figure of 29.5 million in context:
Countries like Mozambique, Nepal and Yemen, the state of Texas and cities such as Jakarta in Indonesia have populations of about 29.5 million – depending on who is doing the counting.
In terms of language, literacy and literature, about 29.5 million people speak Fulah (Senegalese), macrolanguage) Uzbek and the Algerian dialect of spoken Arabic as their first language, while Julia Donaldson, the best-selling children’s author known for The Gruffalo, has sold over 29.5 million books in the UK.
29,500 sq km is 29.5 million sq metres, and 29,500 km is 29.5 million metres.
Lake Malawi (also known as Lake Nyasa or Niassa) in East Africa has a surface area of about 29.5 to 29.6 sq km, making it the ninth largest freshwater lake in the world. It is a deep, rift valley lake bordering Malawi, Tanzania, and Mozambique, renowned for its immense biodiversity and depth of up to 700 metres.
Japan has a coastline of over 29,500 km.
29.5 million minutes is 56 years, 1 month and 1 day. In other words, if this blog was getting only one hit a minute, it would take more than 56 years, from February 1970, to reach this latest figure of 29.5 million.
It is now four years since I retired from active parish ministry in March 2022. These days, though, about 100-120 people on average are reading my daily prayer diary posted on this blog each morning. A similar number are reading my current series of postings on the churches and chapels of Walsingham each day. I imagine many of my priest-colleagues would be prayerfully thankful if the congregations in their churches totalled 700 or more people each week.
Today, I am very grateful to the real readers among those 29.5 million hits on this blog to date, and in particular I remain grateful to the faithful core group of about 100-120 people who join me in prayer, reading and reflections each day.
Daily prayer in Lent 2026:
39, Saturday 28 March 2026
Patrick Comerford
We have come to the end of Passion Week, and Holy Week begins tomorrow, Palm Sunday (29 March 2026). Today marks Earth Hour, and the blocks go forward an hour tonight at the beginning of Summer Time. Earth Hour is a reminder of the fragility of our earth revealed by disasters reminds us of our need to care for the world.
Before today begins, before the weekend begins, I am taking some quiet time this morning to give thanks, to reflect, to pray and to read in these ways:
1, reading 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.
John 11: 45-47 (NRSVA):
45 Many of the Jews therefore, who had come with Mary and had seen what Jesus did, believed in him. 46 But some of them went to the Pharisees and told them what he had done. 47 So the chief priests and the Pharisees called a meeting of the council, and said, ‘What are we to do? This man is performing many signs. 48 If we let him go on like this, everyone will believe in him, and the Romans will come and destroy both our holy place and our nation.’ 49 But one of them, Caiaphas, who was high priest that year, said to them, ‘You know nothing at all! 50 You do not understand that it is better for you to have one man die for the people than to have the whole nation destroyed.’ 51 He did not say this on his own, but being high priest that year he prophesied that Jesus was about to die for the nation, 52 and not for the nation only, but to gather into one the dispersed children of God. 53 So from that day on they planned to put him to death.
54 Jesus therefore no longer walked about openly among the Jews, but went from there to a town called Ephraim in the region near the wilderness; and he remained there with the disciples.
55 Now the Passover of the Jews was near, and many went up from the country to Jerusalem before the Passover to purify themselves. 56 They were looking for Jesus and were asking one another as they stood in the temple, ‘What do you think? Surely he will not come to the festival, will he?’ 57 Now the chief priests and the Pharisees had given orders that anyone who knew where Jesus was should let them know, so that they might arrest him.
Today’s Reflection:
As we approach Palm Sunday and Holy Week, the Gospel readings at the Eucharist in the lectionary focus on how the plots against Jesus have been escalating in Jerusalem. In today’s reading, the Passover is near, and many people have gone up to Jerusalem before the Passover to purify themselves (verse 55).
This morning’s reading (John 11: 45-47) follows the Gospel passage about the raising of Lazarus (John 11: 1-45), the seventh of the Seven Signs in Saint John’s Gospels and a story sometimes associated with last Sunday, the Fifth Sunday in Lent (Lent V, 22 March 2026).
Many of the people who have come to Jerusalem are wondering where Jesus is and whether he is coming to the city for the festival (verse 56). But Jesus knows he is not safe and is no longer walking about openly. Instead he has retreated to Ephraim near the wilderness with the disciples (verse 54).
Where do you look for Jesus?
Where do you find him?
Where do you expect to find him?
Do you look for him in the crowds and in the cities?
Do you only look for him at the time of the big festivals, such as Christmas and Easter?
Do you look for him in the wilderness?
Do you take time to be with him on your own, setting aside times for retreat and prayer?
Do you only seek him in the wilderness times in your own life, in anxious moments or times of crisis?
Do you find him among his disciples, in the church and among people whose lives reflect the values of the kingdom of God?
Today’s Prayers (Saturday 28 March 2026):
The theme this week (22-28 March 2026) in ‘Pray With the World Church,’ the Prayer Diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), is ‘Myanmar Earthquake: One Year On’ (pp 40-41). This theme was introduced last Sunday with a programme update by the Revd Davidson Solanki, the USPG Senior Regional Manager for Asia and the Middle East.
The USPG Prayer Diary today (Saturday 28 March 2026, Earth Hour) invites us to pray:
Today we remember the fragility of our earth revealed by disasters such as the earthquake in Myanmar. May this awareness inspire us to care for the world and look forward to a day when all will be restored (Revelation 21).
The Collect:
Most merciful God,
who by the death and resurrection of your Son Jesus Christ
delivered and saved the world:
grant that by faith in him who suffered on the cross
we may triumph in the power of his victory;
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:
Lord Jesus Christ,
you have taught us
that what we do for the least of our brothers and sisters
we do also for you:
give us the will to be the servant of others
as you were the servant of all,
and gave up your life and died for us,
but are alive and reign, now and for ever.
Additional Collect:
Gracious Father,
you gave up your Son
out of love for the world:
lead us to ponder the mysteries of his passion,
that we may know eternal peace
through the shedding of our Saviour’s blood,
Jesus Christ our Lord.
Collect on the Eve of Palm Sunday:
Almighty and everlasting God,
who in your tender love towards the human race
sent your Son our Saviour Jesus Christ
to take upon him our flesh
and to suffer death upon the cross:
grant that we may follow the example of his patience and humility,
and also be made partakers of his resurrection;
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.
Yesterday’s Reflections
Continued Tomorrow
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