Finding Irish links and links with CS Lewis in a plaque in the cloisters in Durham Cathedral

The monument to Archdeacon George Hans Hamilton in the cloisters in Durham Cathedral (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Patrick Comerford

As I was walking through the cloisters in Durham Cathedral during my recent visit, I noticed a plaque commemorating George Hans Hamilton (1823-1903), who was Archdeacon of Lindisfarne (1865-1882), Archdeacon of Northumberland (1882-1905), and a Canon of Durham Cathedral.

The plaque caught my attention because his name indicated and the fading coat-of-arms on the memorial indicated, to me at least, not only that Archdeacon Hamilton was Irish but that he was part of the Hamilton family who are closely identified with both Balbriggan and Skerries in north Co Dublin.

I have been familiar with both towns since my schooldays, until recently I regularly went for walks on the beach in Skerries, and I often did Sunday duty in Holmpatrick Church, Skerries, and Saint George’s Church, Balbriggan.

There is a large monument to one branch of the Hamilton family in the centre of Skerries, and some memorial tablets from an older church that have survived in the new church when it was being built in the 1860s.

One curious monument to the memory of James Hamilton of Sheepshill and Holmpatrick reads in part: ‘A gentleman who during a long and most active life displayed that zealous energy and ingenious integrity that forms a useful and virtuous man … He died the 20th of October 1800, in the 73rd year of his age … Of the uncommonly numerous offspring of thirty six children he was survived by eight sons and eight daughters.’

James Hamilton’s descendants include Richard Branson. However, with 36 children born over 200 years ago, Hamilton must be the ancestor of thousands upon thousands of people today. But … 36 children? A most active life that displayed zealous energy indeed! Useful and virtuous? What about his poor wife or wives?

Archdeacon Hamilton, on the other hand, is directly related to the Balrothery and Balbriggan branch of the Hamilton family, and my search for his family background led to the discovery that he was also related to interesting Irish literary figures too.

The future archdeacon was born on 21 January 1823, the third son of Henry Hamilton (1780-1854) of Tullylish, Co Down, and a grandson of Hugh Hamilton (1729-1805), Bishop of Clonfert and Kilmacduagh (1795-1799) and then Bishop of Ossory (1799-1805).

Bishop Hugh Hamilton was born in Balrothery, near Balbriggan, Co Dublin, in 1725. He was an older brother of Judge George Hamilton (1732-1793) of Hampton, Balrothery, who was MP for Belfast and a Baron of the Exchequer. Judge Hamilton is remembered mainly for developing the town of Balbriggan. As part of the development of Balbriggan, he sold the Lower Mill to the business of Comerford and O’Brien in Balbriggan in the early 1780s. His son, the Revd George Hamilton built Saint George’s Church, Balbriggan, in 1813.

The most elaborate memorial in Saint George’s Church recalls George Alexander Hamilton, who died on 17 September 1871. His wife Amelia Fancourt Hamilton is remembered on a similar memorial that says: ‘Her clothing and coal clubs were for many years a great benefit to the poor of this neighbourhood.’ It also mentions that she set up an infant school in 1836 at Hampton Gates.

The elaborate memorial to George Alexander Hamilton, who died in 1871 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

The Hamiltons were a clerical family with seemingly innumerable priests in the Church of Ireland. Bishop Hamilton was a Professor of Philosophy in Trinity College Dublin, Vicar of Saint Ann’s, Dublin, and Dean of Armagh before he became a bishop. Three of his sons were priests: Hans Hamilton of Knocktopher, Co Kilkenny, who fled Co Kilkenny during the ‘Tithe War’ in the 1830s; George Hamilton (1783-1830), of Killemogh, Co Laois, a Biblical scholar; and the Revd Hugh Hamilton (1790-1865) of Innishmacsaint, Co Fermanagh.

Another son of Bishop Hamilton, Henry Hamilton (1780-1854), grew up in Dublin, but lived much of his life in Tullylish, Co Down. As well as the archdeacon who is commemorated in Durham Cathedral, Henry Hamilton was the father of two other priests: the Revd Hugh Hamilton (1811-1884) of Dublin, and Canon William Alfred Hamilton (1824-1897), Rector of Taney, Dundrum, Co Dublin. His daughter Sarah was a doctor’s wife who lived in the family home, Hampton Hall, Balbriggan; her son, the Revd Rowland Scriven (1859-1944), was a curate in Balbriggan from 1898 until 1920, when he moved to England.

The Hamilton family was intermarried with many of the great literary figures in Ireland, and both John Millington Synge and CS Lewis are direct descendants of Bishop Hamilton.

Archdeacon George Hans Hamilton was a first cousin of the Revd Thomas Robert Hamilton, the first Rector of Saint Mark’s, Dundela, in Belfast, and the grandfather of CS Lewis.

In the cloisters in Durham Cathedral (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

The future archdeacon, George Hans Hamilton, was born on 21 January 1823, He was educated at Shrewsbury School and Trinity College, Dublin and was ordained in 1847.

After a time as a curate in Sunderland he became chaplain of Durham Prison and then Vicar of Berwick. He was chaplain to the High Sheriff of Durham in 1884.

Hamilton first married Arabella Sarah (Bella) Best on 9 May 1848. Her father John Best (1791-1825) was an accountant with the East India Company in Bombay; her mother Arabella née Robinson (1795-1855) was from Sunderland. Best seems to have spent much of his time travelling between Bombay and Sunderland. When he died in Bombay at the age of 33, he left a pregnant widow in India with four other children under the age of 10.

Bella Hamilton died in January 1868. She was the mother of two sons and a daughter: Hans Alfred Hamilton (born 1849), who seems to have been the ‘black sheep’ of the family; and Henry (Harry) Best Hans Hamilton (1850-1935); and Eliza Arabella Sarah (1858-1919), known as Ella.

Soon after Bella’s death, Hamilton married his second wife Lady Louisa Frances Clements (1843-1939) in 1869. She was a sister of Robert Bermingham Clements (1847-1892), 4th Earl of Leitrim. The couple were the parents of another daughter and three more sons: George Francis Clements Hamilton (1870-1900); Robert Charles Clements Hamilton (1871-1901), a refrigeration engineer, who was killed in an explosion on the first refrigerated ship bringing bananas to Britain from the West Indies; Sir Collingwood George Clements Hamilton (1877-1947), an electrical engineer and Conservative politician; and Louisa Lindisfarne Clements (Hamilton) Maitland (1878-1952).

Hamilton was a great advocate of prison reform. His character was drawn upon by Charles Reade in It Is Never Too Late to Mend (1856). He was Archdeacon of Lindisfarne (1865-1882), Archdeacon of Northumberland (1882-1905), and a canon of Durham Cathedral. He died on 23 September 1905 – he was 80 and still in office; his widow, Lady Louisa Hamilton, died on 31 August 1939.

As for Archdeacon Hamilton’s first cousin, the Revd Thomas Hamilton, he baptised his grandson, Clive Staples Lewis, in Saint Mark’s Church, Dundela, on 29 January 1899.

A portrait in Saint Mark’s Church, Dundela, of the Revd Thomas Hamilton, grandfather of CS Lewis (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

A history of the Church of Ireland on Inishbiggle

Looking across to Inishbiggle from Bullsmouth … the Heinrich Böll Memorial Weekend in 2013 included a lecture on the history of the Church of Ireland on the island (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2013)

The Aughaval Group of Parishes is a Church of Ireland group of parishes in Co Mayo, in the Diocese of Tuam, Limerick and Killaloe. It includes Holy Trinity Church, Westport, Saint Thomas’s Church, Dugort, Achill Island, Holy Trinity Church, Inishbiggle Island, Christ Church, Castlebar, Turlough Church, near Castlebar.

Last week (20 February 2025), the Aughaval Group of Parishes reposted my photographs and my short history of history of the Church of Ireland on Inishbiggle, part of a lecture I delivered in Holy Trinity Church, Inishbiggle on Sunday 6 May 2013.

My lecture was part of a guided walk on Inishbiggle Island led by Sheila McHugh during the ninth Annual Heinrich Böll Memorial Weekend 2013, and it was followed by poetry readings by Paddy Bushe, Eva Bourke and Jan Wagner, introduced by Mechtild Manus, Director Goethe-Institut Irland.

This is my lecture in full:

Patrick Comerford

This island is unique in Ireland. While other islands, such as Valentia in Co Kerry may have both Catholic and Church of Ireland churches, Inishbiggle is the only island with only a Church of Ireland church. In addition, Holy Trinity Church, on the eastern side of this island, is the oldest and probably the only truly historical building on the island, and perhaps also its most beautiful building.

We can say that Inishbiggle is an island off an island, but we could also call it a new island, for it has been inhabited continuously for less than two centuries.

At the time of the Tudor Reformation in Ireland, Inishbiggle was part of the larger Co Mayo estates claimed by the Butler Earls of Ormond as heirs to the Butlers of Mayo, and those claims were confirmed to Thomas Butler, Earl of Ormond, at the Composition of Connaught in 1585, and again in a grant from King James I in 1612.

The Ormond Butlers’ loyalty to the Tudor and Stuart monarchies made them key figures in implementing the Anglican Reformation in Ireland. The Butler Lordship of Achill included Inishbiggle, and continued until 1696, when the Butlers leased their Mayo estates first to Sir Thomas Bingham and then to Thomas Medlycott. Later in the 18th century, the Medlycott family was facing financial difficulties and sold the estate to John Browne of Westport House, 1st Earl of Altamont, in 1774. He sold it back to the Medlycotts but the estates, including Achill Island and Inishbiggle, were bought by Sir Neal O’Donel of Newport House in 1785 – for £33,598 19s 4d.

Although the O’Donel family built the Church of Ireland parish church at Burrishole for Newport, and despite continuous ownership of Achill and Inishbiggle by leading members of the Church of Ireland since the Reformation, no Church of Ireland churches were built on these islands until the mid-19th century.

And, despite this continuous record of ownership for many centuries, the history of Inishbiggle as an inhabited island is recent, modern history, for the island remained uninhabited until 1834.

Saint Thomas’s Church, Dugort … the centre of Edward Nangle’s mission work on Achill and Inishbiggle (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2013)

In 1837, there was no church on either Achill Island or Inishbiggle, and the Rector, Canon Charles Wilson, reported that Sunday services held were held in a private house. That year, the Achill Mission approached the O’Donel estate about leasing Inishbiggle. Sir Richard O’Donel himself admitted at one stage that his Achill estates had provided him with little income, and he certainly was unwilling to invest any of his dwindling fortune into helping his tenants.

A year later, by 1838, a few buildings had started to appear on the island, and in 1839 a prominent Church of Ireland author and clergyman of the day, the Revd Caesar Otway (1780-1842), known for his advocacy on behalf of the poor, visited Inishbiggle.

Otway had earned a reputation for studying and seeking to improve the conditions of the poor in the west of Ireland. At the time of his visit to Inishbiggle, he was the assistant chaplain at the Magdalen Asylum in Dublin, and his writings, expressing his concerns for the poorest people in Ireland, include Sketches in Ireland (1827), A Tour in Connaught (1839), and Sketches in Erris (1841). Otway suggested Inishbiggle as ideal place for growing wheat and proposed building a mill on the island, but his proposals were never followed through.

Otway might have been the most important 19th century Church of Ireland clergyman to visit Inishbiggle but for the arrival of the Revd Edward Nangle as part of his endeavours to extend the work and scope of the Achill Mission.

In 1841, Inishbiggle had a population of 67 living in 12 houses.

During the difficult Famine years immediately after the death of Caesar Otway, Inishbiggle developed slowly, with the arrival of both Protestants and Catholics from Achill Island and from mainland Co Mayo, settling on Inishbiggle to take advantage of lower rents and in the hope of finding better living conditions.

The Revd Canon Edward Nangle (1800-1883) … a portrait in Saint Thomas’s Church, Dugort (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2013)

In March 1848, hundreds of people from Dooniver, Bullsmouth and Ballycroy approved a declaration of thanks to Canon Nangle for supplying them with potatoes and turnips from one of the mission farms in Inishbiggle. Without the food, they said, they would have starved. As Anne Falvey writes, “Despite the criticisms heaped upon him, we can only surmise how much more tragic the situation would have been but for the charitable efforts of Nangle and hundreds of generous donors.”

The first schoolhouse was built on Inishbiggle that year. But by 1851, the population had dropped to 61 people, living in ten houses. A year later, Edward Nagle and the Trustees of the Achill Mission at Dugort bought Inishbiggle from Sir Richard O’Donel of Newport in 1852. The trustees of the mission were the Hon Somerset Richard Maxwell, the Right Hon Joseph Napier, George Alexander Hamilton, and Edward Nangle. Apart from Nangle, the other three trustees came from families with strong church associations.

The Radisson Blu Farnham Estate Hotel … Farnham House had once been the home of Somerset Maxwell, a trustee of the Achill Mission (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2011)

1, Somerset Maxwell (1803-1884), who had briefly been the Tory MP for Co Cavan (1839-1840), was a grandson of Henry Maxwell, Bishop of Meath, and the son of the Revd Henry Maxwell (1774-1838), 6th Lord Farnham. Bishop Maxwell had built Saint Mary’s Church of Ireland parish church in Bunclody, Co Wexford, then known as Newtownbarry after the Maxwell-Barry family – of interest to us this morning as we are honouring John F Deane this weekend on his 70th birthday, and his father, like my Comerford ancestors, came from Bunclody.

Somerset Maxwell eventually succeeded his brother Henry Maxwell in 1868 as the 8th Lord Farnham, but, while he inherited the Farnham estate in Co Cavan, by then the Farnham or Maxwell-Barry estate in Newtownbarry had been sold as an encumbered estate. It may have been through the influence of Somerset Maxwell and his family that a number of Cavan Protestant families came to Achill, such as the Sherridan family.

2, Joseph Napier (1804-1882), later Sir Joseph Napier, was MP for Dublin University (1848-1858), Attorney General for Ireland (1852), and Lord Chancellor of Ireland (1858-1859). However, he was not a member of the same Napier family that I recently identified as the Irish ancestors of the new Archbishop of Canterbury, Archbishop Justin Welby.

George Alexander Hamilton's memorial in Saint George’s Church, Balbriggan, Co Dublin (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2011)

3, George Alexander Hamilton (1802-1871) was an MP for Dublin City (1835-1837) and then for Dublin University (1843-1859), and a clergyman’s son too – he was the son of the Revd George Hamilton of Hampton Hall, Balbriggan, Co Dublin, and he contributed generously to the building of Saint George’s Church, Balbriggan, where he is buried.

But, despite the wealth, power and privilege of these trustees and their strong clerical family links with the Church of Ireland, Inishbiggle long remained without a church and Holy Trinity Church was not built until the end of the 19th century.

Griffith’s Valuation shows there were 18 families living on this island in 1855: their family names were Cafferky (2), Campbell (1), Cooney (1), Fallon (2), Henery (i.e., Henry) (1), Landrum (1), McDermott (1), McManmon (1). Mealley (i.e., Malley or O’Malley) (4), Molly (or Molloy) (1), Nevin (1), Reaf (1) and Sweeny (1).

By 1861, Inishbiggle had 32 houses and a population of 145. By 1871, there were 30 houses with 154 people. By 1881, there were 171 people in 29 houses.

But by the 1880s, emigration was taking its toll from the Church of Ireland community on both Achill and Inishbiggle. The Rector of Achill, the Revd Michael Fitzgerald, gave some idea of the scale of that emigration when he wrote: “During the months of April and May 1883, and within the last ten days, I have lost by the rapid tide of free emigration to Canada, the United States of America, and Australia, forty-two members of my flock, thirty-six of whom belong to Achill Sound, and six to the island of Inishbiggle.”

It was a very steep fall indeed. By 1891, the population had fallen by 36 to 135, living in 24 houses – a population figure and a figure for housing units that were both lower than they had been a generation earlier in 1861.

In 1901, the census shows the population was still 135 people living in 25 houses on the island. Of these, 39 people or 29 per cent of the population were members of the Church of Ireland. The following Church of Ireland members were living in 11 households on this island:

● Michael Henry (62); his wife Anne Henry (60); son James Henry (25); daughter Margaret K Miller (30); and father-in-law Patrick Gallagher (88). (Numbers, 5).

● John Henry (70) and his two Roman Catholic daughters, Mary Henry (30) and Margaret Henry (17). (Numbers, 1).

● Patt Malley (55), one of the workers who built this church; his wife Catherine Malley (50), and their five children Ellen (16), Honor (14), Patt (12), Celia (10) and Sarah (6). (Numbers, 7).

● Edward Calvey (60) and his Roman Catholic wife Anne Calvey (60), and their five children, of whom one was a Roman Catholic and four were members of the Church of Ireland: John (33), Roman Catholic; Edward (29), Church of Ireland; Peter (23), Church of Ireland; Michael (19), Church of Ireland; and Timothy (12), Church of Ireland. (Numbers, 5).

● Patrick McManmon (60); his wife Mary (60); and their seven children Mary (27), Frank (25), Ellen (23), Bridget (20), Patrick (16), Kate (15), and James (12). (Numbers, 9).

● James McManmon (74), his two Roman Catholic sisters, Mary McManmon (72) and Bridget Doran (57), and his two Roman Catholic nieces, Ellen Doran (25) and Kate O’Boyle (34). (Numbers, 1).

● James Sheerin (69), his wife Martha Sheerin (69), their daughter, Kate Sydney Sheerin (30) and a Roman Catholic servant, Anne Cafferkey (20).(Numbers, 3).

● Matilda Brice (66), a widow who lived alone. (Numbers, 1.)

● John Gallagher (42), his wife Mary Gallagher (50) and their sons Edward (14) and Francis (13). (Numbers, 4.)

● Francis Gallagher (84), who lived alone. (Numbers, 1.)

● John McManmon (65), his Roman Catholic wife Catherine McManmon (62), and their two sons, one Church of Ireland, Frank (24) and one Roman Catholic, Martin (21). (Numbers, 2.)

Martha Sheerin (1834-1917) was a daughter of George Lendrum (1799-1871), a Scripture Reader who moved to Dugort with Edward Nangle in 1834. She was born in Dugort in 1834, and is an interesting example for this morning’s study, for through her father’s family she is related to many families on Inishbiggle and Achill. The Lendrum family was intermarried with the Egan, Geraghty, McDowell, McHale, McNamara, Patton and Sherridan families. Within a few generations, these families became related not only to most of the Church of Ireland families on these islands, but to many of the other families too.

Ten years later, the 1911 census shows the Church of Ireland inhabitants had dropped in number to 36, living in ten households, while the general population of the island had risen to 149 people living in 29 houses or units. The Church of Ireland population was now 24 per cent. In other words, the island’s population was rising, but the Church of Ireland population was dropping, and the fall in numbers would have been greater but for the arrival of a school teacher and his family.

The Church of Ireland people on the island were:

● James McManmon (82) (the rest of his family, two sisters, two nieces and a grand nephew, are all Roman Catholics). (Numbers, 1.)

● Edward Calvey (73), his wife Ann Calvey (69), one Roman Catholic son, John Calvey (48), and four Church of Ireland sons: Edward (46), Peter (44), Michael (39), and Timothy (33). (Numbers, 6.)

● Patrick McManmon (74), his wife Mary (70), and their four children Mary (41), Ellen (38), Patrick (30), James (26). (Numbers, 6.)

● James Henry (35), his mother Ann Henry (70), and his Roman Catholic niece, Margaret Henry (16). (Numbers, 2.)

● John Gallagher (59) and his son Francis Gallagher (23). (Numbers, 2.)

● Pat O’Malley (70), his wife Catherine O’Malley (60), and their three daughters, Honor (24), Celia (19) and Sarah (16). (Numbers, 5.)

● Michael Gallagher (44), his wife Mary Gallagher (31) and their four children Margaret (8), John (7), Mary (5), and Ellen (3). (Numbers, 6.)

● Martha Sheerin (77), by now a widow, her daughter, Kate Sydney Sheerin (40), and a Roman Catholic servant, Julia Cafferkey (17). (Numbers, 2.)

● John Tydd Freer (42), his wife Annie (39) and their two daughters and one son, Olive May (13), Dorothy Margaret (9) and Charles Crawford Freer (5). He was a teacher, born in Queen’s Co, she was born in Co Galway, the first two children were born in Dublin, and their son was born in Co Mayo. (Numbers, 5.).

● Matilda Bryce (73), who was living alone. (Numbers, 1.)

As we are paying tribute to John F Deane this weekend, it is worth remembering how the arrival of a teacher-family can have a major impact on the life of an island. Without the arrival of the Freer family on Inishbiggle, the decline in the Church of Ireland population would have been steeper. So, despite the recent building of Holy Trinity Church, there was never the potential or realistic hope for a sustainable Church of Ireland parish on Inishbiggle.

There are variations in the spellings and ages given at each census, but these are easily reconciled.

In 1912, a Mr Fenton wrote to the Department of Education, saying there were 16 families on the island, of whom 14 were Roman Catholic and two were part of the Church of Ireland.

A list of school-going children attending the mission school on the island that year shows there were 41 Roman Catholic children and six Church of Ireland children on the island: Margaret (8) John (6) and Mary (5) Gallagher, and Harold (11), Dorothy (9) and Charles (5) Freer; 34 Roman Catholic children and five Church of Ireland children were attending the Church of Ireland-run school, which was still known as the Mission School.

What these returns and statistics tell us is that the Church of Ireland community on Inishbiggle was never large enough to give hope to a sustainable parish developing on the island, and that by the beginning of the second decade of the last century, the community was in decline, with numbers falling as the original settlers on the island reached old age and died.

Nevertheless, they lived in more prosperous conditions, albeit marginally so, and they show a higher standard of literacy and education. Indeed, this higher standard of education made it easier for their children to emigrate, because their job prospects were higher than those of their neighbours.

Their family names also indicate that, by and large, the members of the Church of Ireland on the island shared the ethnic or social backgrounds of their neighbours: Calvey, Gallagher, Henry, MacManmon, Malley or O’Malley, Sheerin, and so on. We can also see from the patterns of family membership that there is an interesting degree of inter-marriage between Protestant and Catholic families, despite the negative attitudes that would have been prevalent in both communities at the time.

Holy Trinity Church, Inishbiggle (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2013)

By 1971, Charles Crawford Freer, by then Press Officer for the Church of Ireland, reported that the Church of Ireland population of Inishbiggle had fallen from 15 to five.

When I visited Holy Trinity Church and Inishbiggle in 1990, there were three members of the Church of Ireland on the island. The last surviving members of the Church of Ireland congregation were James Gallagher, grandson of Patrick O’Malley, who built this church in the 1890s, and his sister Ellen. When Ellen Gallagher died in 1995, she was buried in Achill Sound Cemetery. Her brother James continued to look after the Church which he opened frequently during the summer for services led by visiting clergy on holiday.

Although one diocesan history states this church was built by the Achill Mission, the Achill Mission had long closed by the time the church was built in the 1890s not with mission funds but through an initial generous donation of £600 from a Miss Ellen Blair of Sandymount, Dublin.

In 1893, the Bishop of Tuam, the Right Revd James O’Sullivan (1834-1915), and the Diocesan Architect, John G Skipton (1861-1921), came to Inishbiggle by boat on a five-mile journey from Achill Sound to select a site for the new church. They were accompanied by the Revd Michael Fitzgerald, Rector of Achill, and the Revd R O’Connell.

On “a fine day” in 1895, Bishop O’Sullivan, his wife and the Rector returned to lay the foundation stone for Holy Trinity Church. It was reported at the time that the local people were “joyful” at the prospect of having a church of their own.

The contractors were Berry and Curran, and the work was carried out by local labourers. The story is told that during this building work a heavy piece of wood crashed to the ground, just missing Patrick O’Malley, who was rescued thanks to the hasty intervention of Patrick Nevin.

The building work was completed by 1896. Bishop O’Sullivan came from Achill Island to Inishbiggle, this time on “a sunny day,” with a large number of people in rowing boats for the consecration of the new church. The consecration was followed by a celebration of the Holy Communion.

The church is built of stone with a natural pebble-dash finish, a small tower with a bell and cross and a wrought-iron gate. In summertime, this church is even prettier as the pink rhododendrons surrounding it come into bloom and form an archway.

Inside Holy Trinity Church, Inishbiggle (Photograph: Dan MacCarthy, 2012)

With its white walls and intimate size, Holy Trinity Church has a simple, plain interior that lends itself to quiet prayer and contemplation. Beyond the vestibule, the old carved organ is inscribed: “Washington, New York, USA.’’ The organists at Holy Trinity have included: Mrs Margaret Brown, Mrs Cynthia Blair and the teacher’s wife, Mrs Annie Hughes Freer.

Beyond the organ, the aisle leads to the five rows of wooden pews. There is a small pulpit at the north side of the chancel arch. The altar in the sanctuary area stands in front of a lofty ceiling and a tall, three-light East Window. There is a small vestry off the sanctuary area.

During the years that followed the building of the church, many Protestants left the island for one reason or another. But the clergy of Achill and Dugort parish continued to serve the church and the few members of the Church of Ireland who lived on this island.

To mark the arrival of electricity on the island a decade or two ago, a special joint service for members of the Catholic Church and the Church of Ireland was held in Holy Trinity Church.

As far as I can find out, no weddings or funerals were held in the church. But successive bishops of Tuam, including Bishop John Neill and Bishop Richard Henderson, had a generous vision for the use of the church, and in 2003, Inishbiggle set an ecumenical landmark when the church was rededicated to serve both the Church of Ireland and the Roman Catholic communities.

There is a small churchyard or cemetery beside the church. As a mark of gratitude, Patrick O’Malley later had a stone wall built around the cemetery, replacing the original sod wall. However, the cemetery has not been used for burials for 80 or 90 years.

A school, predating the church, was standing on this same site in 1870, replacing the first school dating from the 1840s. The teacher lived in the now roofless cottage beyond the church on the edge of the island facing Annagh and the mainland. The cottage was later abandoned, has become roofless, and is falling into ruins.

Donna Allen, in her essay in Cathar na Mart, relies on local memory for recalling some of the Church of Ireland clergy who served on this island: Fitzgerald; Boland; Horn; Abernethy – who left about 1939 to serve in World War II; Marshall, who returned to his native England; Sidebottom; Plowman; and Friess, who was then living in retirement with his wife in Mulranny.

However, as Inishbiggle was always part of the parishes of Achill and Dugort, the Tuam Diocesan Records make it possible to put together a list of all the clergy who served Holy Trinity Church and the Church of Ireland parishioners on the island.

The first recorded rector of Burrishoole and Achill was the Revd John [Horsley] de la Poer Beresford (1773-1855), but he may have never visited either Achill or Inishbiggle. He was born in 1773, and he was a barrister prior to his ordination in 1803. Once he was ordained, he was immediately appointed to this parish by his father, the Archishop of Tuam, William Beresford, 1st Lord Decies. But Archbishop Beresford was not averse to finding sinecures for his sons: another son, George Beresford, was Provost of Tuam, while a third, Canon William Beresford, was Prebendary of Lackagh.

Beresford’s successor, Canon Thomas Mahon (1786/7-1825), was from Co Leitrim, and like most of the rectors he was a graduate of Trinity College, Dublin.

The parishes of Achill and Dugort were sometimes united and sometimes separate parishes. But, as some critics suggest, these were not places to send clergy who were difficult or who found it difficult to find appointments to other parishes. Nor were the clergy outsiders who came in with little experience of or sympathy for the people. Mahon’s successor, Canon John Galbraith (1786-1850), was born in Co Galway, a first cousin of the 1st Earl of Clancarty, and he later became Provost of Tuam (1844-1850).

He was succeeded as Provost of Tuam by Canon Charles Henry Seymour (1813-1879), who was born in Co Mayo, and his father, grandfather, brother and nephew were all priests of the Church of Ireland. He moved from Achill to become Vicar, Provost and then Dean of Tuam, dying there on 14 April 1879, aged 65.

Nor was their interest in mission on Achill and Inishbiggle isolated from the wider mission of the Church. For example, John Galbraith’s daughter, Eileen, translated the New Testament into the Mori language of South Sudann. Canon Thomas Stanley Treanor (ca 1836-1910) was a chaplain with the Mission to Seamen (1878-1910) after leaving Achill in 1878, and wrote about those experiences in Cry from the Sea (1906).

The Revd John Hoffe, curate of Achill (1870-1872) and then Rector of Dugort (1872-1878), left these islands to become curate of Sandford Parish (1878-1879) in Dublin, where his rector was the Revd Thomas Good, who had been a missionary in Sri Lanka (Ceylon) in the 1860s and 1870s, and where a previous rector, Canon (later Bishop) William Pakenham Walsh, had worked for the Church Mission Society for ten years.

George Abraham Heather (1830/1-1907), who came to Dugort in 1871, had been secretary of the Church Mission Society Ireland (1863-1867).

Nor should their interest in Irish be dismissed as seeing it as another tool in proselytism or evangelism. Thomas de Vere Coneys, who was curate in Achill (1837-1840), left to become Professor of Irish in Trinity College Dublin in 1840. William Kilbride, curate from 1852-1853, had been the Bedell Scholar in Irish in Trinity College, Dublin (1847), and spent almost half a century as Rector of the Arran Islands from 1855 to 1898. Robert O’Callaghan, curate of Achill from 1857-1861, was also a Bedell Scholar in Irish (1855).

The calibre of the clergy who served these islands is typified by men such as William Skipton (1832/3-1903), who was in Dugort (1861-1867) after Nangle, and later became Dean of Killala (1885-1903). His successor, George Abraham Heather, who was in Dugort from 1867 to 1871, later became Archdeacon of Achonry (1895) and Dean of Achonry (1895-1907).

Their tenacity and commitment is typified by men such as the Revd Michael Fitzgerald (ca 1831-1897), who was so worried about the toll emigration was taking on his parishioners on Inishbiggle. He remained rector of this parish for 15 years until he died at Achill Rectory on 15 July 1897 at the age of 65.

The plaque commemorating Canon Thomas Boland at the west end of Saint Thomas’s Church, Dugort (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2013)

His successor, Canon Thomas Boland (ca 1857-1939), who is remembered in a plaque at the west end of Saint Thomas’s Church, Dugort, had been involved in mission work in Galway for 11 years before coming to Achill and worked here for 40 years. Canon Olaf Vernon Marshall (1907-1978) worked in children’s homes and schools as a chaplain and a superintendent until coming here as Rector of Achill and Dugort (1964-1968). When he moved it was to Omey, the Church of Ireland parish in Clifden, Co Galway.

The Revd Walter Mervyn Abernethy left not to move to England but to become an army chaplain in World War II. When the war ended, he then remained in England, working in parishes mainly in the Dioceses of Norwich and Lichfield.

Bishop John Coote Duggan (1918-2000), who was the rector for only a very brief time (1969-1970), was Archdeacon of Tuam at the same time before becoming Bishop of Tuam (1970-1985).

After becoming bishop, he appointed his curate, the Revd Louis Dundas Plowman (1917-1976) as Bishop’s Curate of Achill and Dugort, and he lived in Achill Rectory. He was a Dublin Corporation official before his ordination in 1969 in his 50s. Canon Plowman later became Rector of Killala and died in Crossmolina Rectory in 1976.

The grave of Dean Herbert Friess and his wife Hildegard Wilhelmina Margarita near the main door of Saint Thomas’s Church, Dugort (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2013)

More recently, the Very Revd Herbert Friedrich Friess (1909-1997), was Rector of Achill and Dugort (1973-1979) and he had an interesting life story. He was born in Germany in 1909, and studied theology at the University of Leipzig (BD 1934). He became a wartime refugee in England, where he served as a German pastor before being ordained deacon and priest by the Church of England Bishop of Sheffield in 1942. After almost a quarter century in parish work in England, he came to Ireland in 1964 as Rector of Crossmolina (1964-1973) and then Dean of Killala (1968-1973). In what must have seemed like a straight swop with Canon Plowman, he became Bishop’s Curate of Achill and Dugort (1973-1979), and lived in the Rectory at Achill Sound.

Dean Friess continued to take Sunday services in Dugort, Achill Sound and Inishbiggle regularly after his retirement, and many people still remember him with affection. He died on 3 April 1997; his wife Hildegard Wilhelmina Margarita (1907-1997) died a few weeks later on 1 May 1997; they are buried together in Saint Thomas’s Churchyard in Dugort.

From 1979, the churches on Achill and Inishbiggle were served by the Rectors of Castlebar and Westport. They have included the Revd William John (‘Jack’) Heaslip (1991-1995), better known today as the chaplain to U2, and Archdeacon Gary Hastings (1995-2009), who has his own take on Irish music.

Looking from Bullsmouth across to Inishbiggle … Frederick MacNeice left his family at Bullsmouth watching the sunset while he took the Sunday afternoon service in Holy Trinity Church, Inishbiggle (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2013)

But apart from the resident rectors and curates, Inishbiggle was also served by visiting clergy and students, who often stayed during the summer months either at the Rectory at Achill Sound, or at the Old Rectory in Dugort.

Perhaps one of the most interesting of those holidaying clergy was Bishop John Frederick MacNeice (1866-1942), father of the poet Louis MacNeice.

Frederick MacNeice first visited Achill in 1911 and ever since had a “special love” for these islands, and he first brought his son Louis with him here in 1927. In 1929, the family stayed at the Old Rectory in Dugort, visiting Keel, climbing Slievemore, and he took services in Dugort, crossing over from Bullsmouth in the late afternoon to take “the Island service” in Inishbiggle, while his family remained at Bullsmouth watching “a beautiful sunset behind Slievemore.”

Frederick returned the following summer (1930), this time without Louis. By then he was a canon of Saint Patrick’s Cathedral, Dublin; a year later he became Bishop of Cashel (1931), and in 1934 he became Bishop of Down and Dromore.

Three years after his father died, Louis MacNeice returned to Achill in 1945, re-enacting a fraught family holiday 16 years earlier in 1929. One of the poems he wrote afterwards is ‘The Strand’ (1945), published in Holes in the Sky in 1948:

The Strand (1945) by Louis MacNeice

White Tintoretto clouds beneath my naked feet,
This mirror of wet sand imputes a lasting mood
To island truancies; my steps repeat

Someone’s who now has left such strands for good
Carrying his boots and paddling like a child,
A square black figure whom the horizon understood –

My father. Who for all his responsibly compiled
Account books of a devout, precise routine
Kept something in him solitary and wild,

So loved the western sea and no tree’s green
Fulfilled him like these contours of Slievemore
Menaun and Croaghaun and the bogs between.

Sixty-odd years behind him and twelve before,
Eyeing the flange of steel in the turning belt of brine
It was sixteen years ago he walked this shore

And the mirror caught his shape which catches mine
But then as now the floor-mop of the foam
Blotted the bright reflections – and no sign

Remains of face or feet when visitors have gone home.

In conclusion, how can I summarise the history of the Church of Ireland on this island? I could summarise it in the following points:

1, The history of Church of Ireland people on the island is intimately tied in with the first efforts to populate Inishbiggle in the middle decades of the 19th century.

2, Many of them inter-related … but perhaps to no greater degree than they were inter-related with the other families on these islands.

3, The family names of the Church of Ireland families on Inishbiggle indicate they were from very similar backgrounds to their Catholic neighbours.

4, There was a high degree of intermarriage between members of the Church of Ireland and Catholic families, despite official opposition to intermarriage which intensified after the Ne Temere decree was promulgated in 1908.

5, The higher educational standards among Church of Ireland islanders, no matter how marginal, made it more possible for them to find employment off the island, and so education, ironically, contributed not to improved fortunes for the members of the Church of Ireland, but to their eventual numerical decline.

6, The figures for the Church of Ireland population were always low, and never offered the hope of a sustainable parish on this island.

7, The decline in numbers in the Church of Ireland population on Inishbiggle began in the 1880s, as the Revd Michael Fitzgerald noted in 1883.

8, The clergy who served the Church of Ireland people on Inishbiggle were often fluent in the Irish language, not in a functional way but because they had a genuine cultural and academic interest in the language.

9, Those clergy, residents and visitors like Bishop Frederick MacNeice, often came to these islands with a wider and more compassionate interest in children’s rights, the plight of the poor and the oppressed, and with a genuine interest in education, land reform and culture.

10, The story of the Church of Ireland on this island is not the story of a minority that has slowly faded away, but is a story that can be claimed by everyone who loves these islands, because it is part of what made Achill and Inishbiggle and their people what and who they are today.

APPENDIX

RECTORS, VICARS AND CURATES OF ACHILL

Rectors and Vicars of Burrishoole, Kilmeena and Achill

1803-1809: John [Horsley] de la Poer Beresford
1809-1825: Thomas Mahon
1825-1830: John Galbraith

Rector and Vicars of Achill:

1803-1809: John [Horsley] de la Poer Beresford
1809-1825: Thomas Mahon
1825-1830: John Galbraith
1830-1847: Charles Wilson
1847-1850: Charles Henry Seymour
1850-1852: Edward Nangle
1852-1872: Joseph Barker
1872-1878: Thomas Stanley Treanor
1878-1879: Edward Browne Dennehy
1879-1881: Charles le Poer Trench Heaslop
1882-1897: Michael Fitzgerald
1898-1938: Thomas Boland
1938-1939: Patrick Kevin O’Horan
1939-1942: Walter Mervyn Abernethy
1942-1945: Frederick Rudolph Mitchell
1945-1953: George Harold Kidd
1953-1956: William Fitzroy Hamilton Garstin
1956-1960: George Sidebottom
1964-1969: Olaf Vernon Marshall

1969: Achill grouped with Westport Union

1969-1970: John Coote Duggan (rector).
1969-1971: Louis Dundas Plowman, curate, resident in Achill Rectory.
1970-1972: John Barnhill Smith McGinley (Rector).
1972-1973: Louis Jack Dundas Plowman, bishop’s curate
1973-1979: Herbert Friedrich Friess

1979-1982: Achill served by the Rector of Wesport, the Revd Noel Charles Francis, and the Vicar of Castlebar (1981-1984), the Revd GR Vaughan.

1984-1991: Henry Gilmore, Rector of Castlebar
1991-1995: William John Heaslip
1995-2009: Gary Hastings
2009-present: Val Rogers

Perpetual Curates, Incumbents, of Dugort, Saint Thomas’s

1851: Edward Nangle
18??-1861: Nassau Cathcart
1861-1867: William Skipton
1867-1871: George Abraham Heather
1872-1878: John Hoffe
1879-1886: John Bolton Greer
1886-1890: Vacant
1890-1914: Robert Lauder Hayes
1914-1924: Bertram Cosser Wells

1924: Joined to Achill

Curates of Achill:

1834-1851: Edward Nangle
ca 1837: Joseph Baylee
1837-1840: Thomas de Vere Coneys
1842-1852: Edward Lowe (also curate of Dugort 1852).
1844: John French
1852: Joseph Barker
ca 1852: James Rodgers
1852-1853: William Kilbride
1857-1861: Robert O’Callaghan
1861-1863: Abel Woodroofe
1867: George Abraham Heather
1870-1872: John Hoffe
1873-1876: Robert Benjamin Rowan
1877: Charles Cooney
1879: John Bolton Greer
1910-1912: James O’Connor
1969-1972: Louis Jack Dundas Plowman

Curates of Dugort:

1852: Edward Lowe

This lecture in Holy Trinity Church. Inishbiggle Island, on Sunday 6 May 2013, was part of a guided walk on Inishbiggle Island led by Sheila McHugh during the ninth Annual Heinrich Böll Memorial Weekend 2013. It was followed by poetry readings by Paddy Bushe, Eva Bourke and Jan Wagner, introduced by Mechtild Manus, Director Goethe-Institut Irland.

The Law brothers, Victorian cricketers and an actor with Comerford family links

Three sons of Patrick Comerford Law – Alexander, Patrick and Robert – went to school in Rugby in the mid-19th century (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2023)

The brothers Alexander Patrick Law and Patrick Francis Law were celebrated first-class cricketers in the 1850s and 1860s, while their brother Arthur Law was a celebrated actor and playwright throughout the later decades of the 19th century.

These three brothers were what we might today call sporting and stage ‘celebrities’ of the Victorian era, and they had strong Comerford family connections through their father, the Revd Patrick Comerford Law, and both were born in his Norfolk rectory. A fourth brother followed their father and two grandfathers into parish ministry.

The Revd Patrick Comerford Law (1797-1869) was born to Irish parents in Tenby, Pembrokeshire, on 21 August 1797. His father, the Revd Francis Law (1768-1807), was a curate of Newcastle, Co Wicklow (1790); Vicar of Attanagh, on the borders of Laois and Kilkenny (1801-1807), and Rector of Cork. He in turn was a son of Canon Robert Law (1730-1789), Rector of Saint Mary’s, Dublin (1772-1789), Rector of Middleton, Co Cork, and Treasurer of Cloyne.

Patrick Comerford Law’s mother, Belinda Isabella Comerford, was one of the two surviving daughters of Patrick Comerford, a Cork wine merchant who was also related to the Hennessy family of Cognac fame. Belinda Comerford’s sister was the poet and author Mary Teresa (Comerford) Boddington (1776-1840). Belinda Comerford and Francis Law were married on 3 November 1795.

Patrick Comerford Law was educated at Trinity College Dublin (BA 1818), and at first he practised at the Irish Bar. He was then ordained deacon in 1828, priest in 1829, and was an army chaplain in Birr, King’s County (Offaly), Rector of Samlesbury, Lancashire (1829), Rector of Northrepps (1830-1869) on the north coast of Norfolk, Rural Dean (1842), and chaplain to the Marquis of Cholmondeley.

His second cousin, Michael Law, was the father of Sir Edward Fitzgerald Law (1846-1908) of Athens, who was involved in reforming the Greek economy in the 1890s and in the negotiations leading to the eventual reunification of Crete with Greece state. He gave his name to a street in Athens and is buried in the First Cemetery, Athens.

Patrick Comerford Law married Frances Arbuthnot on 17 October 1828 in Saint George’s Church, Balbriggan, Co Dublin, where the Revd George Hamilton was the rector. She was a daughter of the Right Revd Alexander Arbuthnot, Bishop of Killaloe, and his wife Anne (Bingham). Frances Comerford Law was born at Clarisford House, the bishop’s palace in Killaloe, Co Clare. Frances died at Northrepps Rectory on 19 November 1857, Patrick Comerford Law died there on 15 April 1869.

They were the parents of ten children, seven sons and three daughters, including the cricketers Alexander and Patrick Law and the actor and playwright Arthur Law.

Corpus Christi College, Oxford … Alexander Patrick Law (1832-1895) matriculated in 1851 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Alexander Patrick Law (1832-1895) was the eldest of four surviving sons of the Revd Patrick Comerford Law and his wife Frances. He was born on 14 January 1832 at his father’s rectory in Northrepps in Norfolk. He was educated at Rugby School, before going up at the age of 19 to Corpus Christi College, Oxford, in June 1851 as a commoner at New Inn Hall (BA, MA, 1860).

While he was an undergraduate at Oxford, Law made his debut in first-class cricket for the Gentlemen of England against the Gentlemen of Kent at Lord’s. Four years into his studies at Oxford, Law made his debut for Oxford University in first-class matches against the Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC).

He played first-class cricket three times in 1856 for the Gentlemen of England against various combined gentlemen teams. He appeared in two first-class matches for Oxford University in 1857, against the MCC and Cambridge University in the University Match, and also appeared for the Gentlemen of England against the Gentlemen of Kent and Sussex.

After graduating from Oxford, Law made several first-class appearances for the MCC, the Gentlemen of England and the Gentlemen of the North. He played a total of 19 first-class matches, scoring 488 runs at an average of 15.74 and a high score of 59. With his right-arm roundarm medium bowling, he took 19 wickets at a bowling average of 27.15, with best figures of 5 for 72.

Alexander Patrick Law later died at Kew on 30 October 1895.

A plaque in Dorset Square recalls the beginnings of Marylebone Cricket Club in 1787 … Alexander and Patrick Law played for MCC from the 1850s to the 1870s (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2023)

His brother, Patrick Francis Law (1836-1909), was also a celebrated cricketer. Patrick was born at Northrepps Rectory on 28 August 1836, was also educated at and later worked as a clerk at the War Office.

Patrick played cricket for Rugby School (1854-1855), the Gentlemen of Norfolk (1855-1868), the Civil Service (1864), CL Bell’s Civil Service XI (1866), Marylebone Cricket Club (1866-1872), and the Gentlemen of Warwickshire (1871).

He married Julia Taylor Jones in Walsingham on 9 July 1868, when the wedding was conducted by his brother, the Revd Robert Arbuthnot Law.

The playwright, actor and scenic designer Arthur Law (1844 -1913), a younger son of the Revd Patrick Comerford Law

A younger brother was the playwright, actor and scenic designer William Arthur Law (1844 -1913), better known as Arthur Law. He was born in their father’s Norfolk rectory on 22 March 1844 and was educated at the Royal Military College, Sandhurst.

After eight years in the Royal Scots Fusiliers (1864-1872), Arthur Law went into acting, making his debut at the Theatre Royal, Edinburgh, in 1872. After two years touring the provinces, he came to London in 1874 and joined the German Reed Company. While performing with the Reeds he wrote comic theatre works that became part of the German Reed repertoire.

Law married the actress and popular concert singer Fanny Holland (1847-1931) at Saint Mary Abbott’s, Kensington, London, on 7 July 1877. They appeared together with the German Reeds at the Gallery of Illustration and Saint George’s Hall. She also appeared briefly at the Opera Comique as Josephine in HMS Pinafore in December 1879 and January 1880.

Law and Holland performed on tour as ‘Mr & Mrs Arthur Law’s Entertainment’ from 1879 to 1881, but their venture was not a success.

Some of Law’s plays for the German Reeds include A Night Surprise (1877), under the pseudonym, ‘West Cromer’, A Happy Bungalow (1877), with music by Charles King Hall; and Cherry Tree Farm (1881) and Nobody’s Fault (1882), both with music by Hamilton Clarke.

In 1881, he wrote Uncle Samuel, a curtain-raiser for the D’Oyly Carte Opera Company played at the Opera Comique, with music by George Grossmith. It played along with Patience in 1881, and Law appeared in the role of John Bird. This was his only association with D’Oyly Carte.

Law later appeared on stage at the Savoy Theatre as Mr Wranglebury in the Desprez & Faning companion piece Mock Turtles (1882), and as Major Murgatroyd in Patience (1882), filling in for Frank Thornton.

From then on, he devoted himself to writing for the stage. His first ‘serious’ drama, Hope, was produced at the Standard Theatre in London in 1882. That year he also wrote a musical farce, Mr Guffin’s Elopement, in collaboration with George Grossmith, for Toole’s Theatre, starring JL Toole. In 1885, Grossmith and Law wrote The Great Tay-Kin, produced at Toole’s.

Law went on to wrote dozens of other plays. His best-known include an adaptation of The Mystery of a Hansom Cab at the Princess’s Theatre (1888); The Judge at Terry’s Theatre (1890); The Magic Opal, an operetta with music by Isaac Albéniz at the Lyric Theatre and the Prince of Wales’s Theatre (1893); The New Boy at Terry’s and the Vaudeville Theatre (1894); The Sea Flower at the Comedy Theatre (1898), A Country Mouse at the Prince of Wales’s (1902); The Bride and Bridegroom at the New Theatre (1904); and Artful Miss Dearing at Terry’s (1909).

A few of Law’s plays were also produced on Broadway, including The New Boy at the Standard Theatre (1894) and A Country Mouse at the Savoy Theatre, New York (1902). He also created the scenic design for The Bachelor, by Clyde Fitch at the Maxine Elliott Theatre (1909).

Law lived for a time in Killaloe, his mother’s home town in Co Clare, and at Hill Cottage, Pulborough, Sussex. He died on 2 April 1913 in Parkstone in Poole, Dorset, at the age of 69; his wife Fanny Holland died on 18 June 1931 in Bournemouth, at the age of 83.

Their son, Hamilton Patrick John Holland Law (1879-1960), was educated at Clare College, Cambridge, and was a professional musician who lived in Bournemouth. He married Frances Dora Brereton (1887-1973), only daughter of the Revd Cecil Brereton (1856-1939), Rector of Hardham, in Saint Mary’s Church, Pulborough, Sussex, on 9 October 1907, and they were the parents of three daughters.

The actress and popular concert singer Fanny Holland (1847-1931) married Arthur Law in 1877

The fourth surviving brother in this family was the Revd Robert Arbuthnot Law (1842-1889). He was born at Northrepps Rectory on 28 February 1842 and was educated at Rugby and Trinity College, Cambridge. He was the curate of All Saints’ Church, Hertford (1866-1869), Rector of Larling, Norfolk (1870-1875), and of Gunthorpe with Bale, Norfolk (1875-1889).

He married Agnes Sparke (1834-1882), only daughter of Canon John Henry Sparke of Gunthorpe Hall and granddaughter of Sir Jacob Henry Astley. They were married at All Souls’ Church, Langham Place, London, on 20 January 1870 with her uncle, Canon Edward Bowyer Sparke, officiating.

Robert Law died at Gunnersbury Lodge, Acton, Middlesex, 11 December 1889 and was buried at Gunthorpe; Agnes died at Burgh Hall, Melton Constable, Norfolk, on 18 June 1892. They were the parents of three sons: Arbuthnot Patrick Astley Law (1872-1938), Hubert Henry Bingham Law (1873-1936), and Alexander Delaval Hamilton Law (1874-1938.

The playing fields of Rugby … three sons of Patrick Comerford Law – Alexander, Patrick and Robert – played cricket there (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2023)

Praying at Christmas through poems and with USPG: 6 January 2023

The Magi arrive at the Crib … a scene in a shop window in Askeaton, Co Limerick (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2022)

Patrick Comerford

Christmas is not a season of 12 days, despite the popular Christmas song. Christmas is a 40-day season that lasts from Christmas Day (25 December) to Candlemas or the Feast of the Presentation (2 February).

Throughout the 40 days of this Christmas Season, I am reflecting in these ways:

1, Reflecting on a seasonal or appropriate poem;

2, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary, ‘Pray with the World Church.’

We arrived in Budapest late last night and Charlotte and I are staying at the Ecumenical Council of Churches in Hungary. We are spending the next three or four days visiting the Anglican Church of Saint Margaret of Hungary and Father Frank Hegedus with the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel) to see how the church and church agencies in Hungary are working with refugees from the war in Ukraine.

For many of the Ukrainain refugees, today is Orthodox Christmas Eve. In the West, the Christmas season comes to a close for many today with our celebrations of the Feast of the Epiphany. Traditionally, the Epiphany celebrates three events in the life of Christ: the Adoration of the Christ Child by the Magi; the Baptism of Christ by John in the River Jordan; and the Wedding Feast of Cana.

For my Christmas Poem this morning [6 January 2023], I have chosen TS Eliot’s ‘The Journey of the Magi.’

This poem was written after Eliot’s conversion to Christianity and his confirmation in the Church of England in 1927, and was published in Ariel Poems in 1930. This poem is truly a sermon in poem, and often on this feast, instead of preaching a sermon on this day, I have read this poem instead.

Eliot wrote ‘The Journey of the Magi’ after his conversion to Christianity and his confirmation as an Anglican on 29 June 1927, and it was published in 1930 in Ariel Poems. Later, Eliot became a churchwarden at Saint Stephen’s in Gloucester Road, London, and he remained a lifelong Anglo-Catholic.

The Adoration of the Magi, by Peter Paul Rubens … the Altarpiece in the Chapel of King’s College, Cambridge

The poem recalls ‘Dover Beach’ by Matthew Arnold (1822-1888), with the rhythm of journey and also Arnold’s recollection of how

Sophocles long ago
Heard it on the Ægæan, and it brought
Into his mind the turbid ebb and flow
Of human misery; we
Find also in the sound a thought,
Hearing it by this distant northern sea.

Or where Arnold writes:

Ah, love, let us be true
To one another! for the world, which seems
To lie before us like a land of dreams,
So various, so beautiful, so new,
Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light,
Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain;
And we are here as on a darkling plain
Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,
Where ignorant armies clash by night.

The poem also shows some influences of the earlier ‘The Magi’ by WB Yeats, my choice of poem yesterday. But, unlike Yeats, Eliot’s ‘The Journey of the Magi’ is a truly Anglican poem, for the first five lines are based on the 1622 ‘Nativity Sermon’ of Lancelot Andrewes (1555-1626), Bishop of Winchester, who first summarised Anglicanism in the dictum ‘One canon reduced to writing by God himself, two testaments, three creeds, four general councils, five centuries and the series of Fathers in that period … determine the boundary of our faith.’

The tomb of Lancelot Andrewes in Southwark Cathedral (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2022)

Eliot’s poem recalls the journey of Magi to Bethlehem from the point of view of one of the Wise Men. In this way, the poem continues Eliot’s use of the dramatic monologue – a form adapted from Robert Browning. In this poem, Eliot chooses an elderly speaker who is world weary, reflective and sad – he works in a similar way in ‘The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock,’ ‘Gerontion,’ and with the Tiresias narrator of ‘The Waste Land,’ and possibly also with the narrator of ‘The Hollow Men.’

In this poem, Eliot’s narrator is a witness to momentous historical change who seeks to rise above that historical moment, a man who, despite material wealth and prestige, has lost his spiritual bearings. The speaker is agitated, his revelations are accidental and born out of his emotional distress, and he speaks to the reader directly.

Instead of celebrating the wonders of the journey, the wise man recalls a journey that was painful and tedious. He remembers how a tempting, distracting voice was constantly whispering in their ears on that journey that ‘this was all folly.’

The poem picks up Eliot’s persistent theme of alienation and a feeling of powerlessness in a world that has changed.

Instead of celebrating the wonders of his journey, the surviving Magi complains about a journey that was painful, tedious, and seemingly pointless. The speaker says that a voice was always whispering in their ears as they went that ‘this was all folly.’ The magus may have been unimpressed by the new-born infant, but he realises that the incarnation changes everything, and he asks:

… were we led all that way for
Birth or Death?

The birth of the Christ was the death of the old religions. Now in his in old age, he realises that with this birth his world had died, and he has little left to do but to wait for his own death.

The Magi arrive at a crib in a house on High Street, Stony Stratford (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2023)

On their journey, the Magi see ‘three trees against a low sky’ – a vision of the future Crucifixion on Calvary. The Incarnation points to the Cross. Without Good Friday and Easter Day, Christmas has no significance for us at all. The birth of Christ leads to the death of old superstitions and old orders.

The ‘running stream’ may refer to the Baptism of Christ by John the Baptist in the River Jordan, which is also an Epiphany moment.

The ‘six hands at an open door dicing for pieces of silver’ recall both the betrayal of Christ by Judas for 30 pieces of silver, and the dice thrown for Christ’s garment at the foot of the cross.

The empty wineskins recall the miracle at the Wedding in Cana, which is also recalled at Epiphany time.

The early morning descent into a ‘temperate valley’ evokes three significant Christian events: the nativity and the dawning of a new era; the empty tomb of Easter; and the Second Coming and the return of Christ from the East, dispelling darkness as the Sun of Righteousness.

In his old age, as he recalls these events, has the now-elderly Wise Man little left to do apart from waiting for his own death?

He is a witness of historical change, does he manage to rise above his historical moment?

With his material wealth and prestige, has he lost his spiritual bearings?

Or has he had spiritual insights before his time?

The Adoration of the Magi … a window by Meyers of Munich in the south transept of Saint George’s Church, Balbriggan, Co Dublin (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

The Journey of the Magi, by TS Eliot

A cold coming we had of it,
Just the worst time of the year
For a journey, and such a long journey:
The ways deep and the weather sharp,
The very dead of winter.
And the camels galled, sore-footed, refractory,
Lying down in the melting snow.
There were times when we regretted
The summer palaces on slopes, the terraces,
And the silken girls bringing sherbet.
Then the camel men cursing and grumbling
And running away, and wanting their liquor and women,
And the night-fires going out, and the lack of shelters,
And the cities dirty and the towns unfriendly
And the villages dirty and charging high prices:
A hard time we had of it.
At the end we preferred to travel all night,
Sleeping in snatches,
With the voices singing in our ears, saying
That this was all folly.

Then at dawn we came down to a temperate valley,
Wet, below the snow line, smelling of vegetation;
With a running stream and a water mill beating the darkness,
And three trees on the low sky,
And an old white horse galloped away in the meadow.
Then we came to a tavern with vine-leaves over the lintel,
Six hands at an open door dicing for pieces of silver,
And feet kicking the empty wineskins.
But there was no information, and so we continued
And arrived at evening, not a moment too soon
Finding the place; it was (you may say) satisfactory.

All this was a long time ago, I remember,
And I would do it again, but set down
This set down
This: were we led all that way for
Birth or Death? There was a Birth, certainly,
We had evidence and no doubt. I had seen birth and death,
But had thought they were different; this Birth was
Hard and bitter agony for us, like Death, our death.
We returned to our places, these Kingdoms,
But no longer at ease here, in the old dispensation,
With an alien people clutching their gods.
I should be glad of another death.

The Adoration by the Magi … an Ethiopian artist’s impression (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

USPG Prayer Diary:

The theme in the USPG Prayer Diary this week is ‘Refugee Response in Finland.’ This theme was introduced on Sunday by the Revd Tuomas Mäkipää, Chaplain at Saint Nicholas’ Anglican Church in Helsinki, who tells how a USPG grant is helping to support Ukrainian refugees.

The USPG Prayer Diary invites us to pray today (The Feast of Epiphany) in these words:

Let us pray for asylum seekers, longing to live in peace without fear. May God light their path and their destination be a place of peace and security..

Yesterday’s reflection

Continued tomorrow

‘Star of Bethlehem’ (1887-1890) by Edward Burn-Jones (1833-1898) … the largest watercolour of the 19th century, and now in Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery

Two Oxford war heroes with many interesting family connections with Ireland

Captain Noel Godfrey Chavasse is commemorated by a paving stone depicting a pair of Victoria Crosses outside Saint Peter’s College, Oxford (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2022)

Patrick Comerford

As I was wandering around Oxford almost aimlessly earlier this month, I stumbled unexpectedly upon a plaque to Noel Chavasse that reminded me of the connections between a distinguished Oxford clerical family and a family with an interesting role in life in Ireland.

Captain Noel Godfrey Chavasse (1884 -1917) was a medical doctor, an Olympic athlete, a war hero, and one of only three people to be awarded the Victoria Cross twice – indeed, the only man to be awarded the VC twice during World War I.

During the Battle of Guillemont in 1916, he was hit by shell splinters while rescuing men in no-man’s land, but continued in his heroic throughout the night under a constant rain of sniper bullets and bombing. He carried similar heroic acts at Passchendaele in 1917, becoming the most highly decorated British officer in World War I, although he died of his wounds on 4 August 1917.

Noel Chavasse was the younger of identical twin sons of the Rev Francis Chavasse, later Bishop of Liverpool and founder of Saint Peter's College, Oxford. His twin brother, the Revd Christopher Maude Chavasse (1884-1962), was also an Olympic athlete, was decorated with the Military Cross (MC) during World War I, and later became Bishop of Rochester.

Christopher and Noel Chavasse were born at Saint Peter-le-Bailey Rectory on New Inn Hall Street, Oxford, where their father was Rector. They both attended Magdalen College School in Oxford, followed by Liverpool College, before going on to Trinity College Oxford.

During his medical training, Noel Chavase had a placement at the Rotunda Hospital in Dublin. He is commemorated by more war memorials in the United Kingdom than any other individual: 16 have currently recorded by the National Inventory of War Memorials, including two paving stones in Oxford, each depicting a pair of crosses: one outside Saint Peter’s College and one near Magdalen College School.

Christopher and Noel Chavasse were born at Saint Peter-le-Bailey Rectory on New Inn Hall Street, Oxford, now part of Saint Peter’s College (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2022) (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2022)

The twin’s father, Francis James Chavasse (1846-1928), was the Rector of Saint Peter-le-Bailey in Oxford when they were born at the Rectory. Later, after being Principal of Wycliffe Hall, Oxford, and Bishop of Liverpool, Bishop Chavasse returned to Oxford in 1923, and moved back into the vacant rectory of Saint Peter-le-Bailey on New Inn Hall Street.

He was instrumental in founding Saint Peter’s Hall in 1928, and church took on the combined role of the parish church and a college chapel. The first master of Saint Peter’s Hall was the Revd Christopher Chavasse. Saint Peter’s Hall became a full Oxford University college in 1961, the parish was merged with Saint Ebbe’s and the church became the college chapel.

The Chavasse family was rooted in the West Midlands but originally came from south-east France in the 17th century. The family was close, and the twins were closely related to the Chavasse families in Ireland.

Claude Chavasse (1886-1971), who was just two years younger than the twins, was also born in Oxford and was one of the Irish nationalists rounded up in the aftermath of the Easter Rising in 1916.

Brendan Behan is said to have based the character ‘Monsewer’ in The Hostage on Claude Chavasse.

Claude first came to the attention of the authorities when he was stopped by a police sergeant in Co Cork in February 1916 and gave his name in Irish. He was arrested and spent two nights in prison in Macroom, where he alleged he was beaten for refusing to speak English.

He was arrested again after the Easter Rising and took part in a hunger strike in the prison. He took the Republican side in the civil war, taught at Scoil Acla on Achill Island, and remained active in the Irish language movement until his death in 1971. His sister Marguerite also attended Scoil Acla and through her friendship with the Trench family persuaded Switzer’s in Dublin to sell Achill knitting produce.

Colonel Kendal George Fleming Chavasse (1904-2001) from Co Waterford, played a distinguished role in Tunisia and Italy in World War II, and commanded the Royal Irish Fusiliers 2nd Battalion in Italy, Egypt and Palestine.

I remember him from my childhood in Co Waterford, when he was an innovative farmer, a founder member of the Irish Farmers’ Association and was involved in West Waterford Hunt and the Dungarvan Show. He was the longest-serving lay reader in the Church of Ireland and a member of the General Synod.

His son, Henry Perceval Kendal (Hal) Chavasse (1933-2022) of Cappagh House, between Cappoquin and Dungarvan, was once the British military attaché in Mexico and Panama, and then in Columbia. When he retired and returned to west Waterford, he was the forestry manager at Lismore Castle and a farmer, and for many years he was the treasurer and ‘the voice’ of the annual Dungarvan Show. He died earlier this year on 21 February 2022.

Teampol na mBocht or the Church of the Poor, at Altar or Toormore, west of Schull, Co Cork … Canon Claude Lionel Chavasse was rector in 1934-1940 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Canon Claude Lionel Chavasse (1897-1983) also fought in World War I before graduating from Exeter College, Oxford, Oxfordshire, and studied for ordination at Saint Stephen’s House, Oxford. He was ordained in 1929, and was the Rector of Teampol-na-mBocht, west of Schull, Co Cork (1934-1940), of Mallow, Co Cork (1940-1944), and Baltinglass, Co Wicklow (1957-1967). In retirement, he lived in Lemybrien, outside Dungarvan, Co Waterford.

I have fond memories of his daughter, Judith Mary Chavasse (1933-2018), who was an encouraging parishioner in Saint George’s Church, Balbriggan, when I did regular Sunday duty in the Holmpatrick and Balbriggan Group of Parishes.

She trained as a nurse at Saint Thomas’s in London, and returned to Ireland, becoming head of nursing in University College Dublin. Judith was a visionary and a great thinker. She led the development of nursing towards its recognition as a profession and academic discipline in Ireland, and was awarded an honorary doctorate by TCD.

After her retirement in 1996, she moved to Balbriggan, where was an active parishioner in Saint George’s, securing heritage grants for its restoration.

Earlier this year, a special service on 19 June 2022 marked the opening of the Judith Chavasse Centre – formerly Saint George’s School – in Hampton Street, Balbriggan. The guest preacher was a former parishioner, the Revd Trevor Sargent, now Rector of Bunclody, Co Wexford and a trustee of the Anglican mission agency USPG.

When Saint Peter’s parish was merged with Saint Ebbe’s, Saint Peter’s Church became the chapel of Saint Peter’s College (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2022)