Straffan: a private family church with roots in an earlier parish history

Straffan Church was built in the 1830s by Hugh and Anna Barton (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2015)

Patrick Comerford

This afternoon [18 October 2015], I was invited by the Revd Stephen Neill to preach at the Harvest Thanksgiving Service in Straffan, Co Kildare.

In the past, I have stayed at Barberstown Castle in Straffan, when I have been at weddings, but this was my first time in the parish church in Straffan.

Straffan is part of the parish of Celbridge and Straffan with Newcastle Lyons, one of three churches on the borders of Co Dublin and Co Kildare, west and south-west of Dublin, and about 20 km from Dublin city centre.

Although suburban Dublin has almost reached them, each of these churches retains a mainly rural setting. These churches have individual and rich histories, stretching back to at least 1400, or even earlier. Saint Finian’s church in Newcastle Lyons, where I was invited to baptise a child about 15 years ago, was built ca 1400 on the site of older churches dating back to early Christian settlement. In contrast, both Christ Church, Celbridge, and Straffan Church, Straffan were originally private chapels on the Castletown and Straffan demesnes.

Straffan House, now better known as the K Club, was built in 1832. Because of Hugh Barton’s connections with the wine business in France with his friend Daniel Guestier, Straffan House was designed closely along the lines of Chateau Louveciennes by Frederick Darley of Dublin.

A monument to Hugh Barton in the nave of Straffan Church (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2015)

Straffan Church was founded by Hugh and Anna Barton in 1830, and was consecrated on 18 June 1838. The church was originally built by Hugh Barton as a private chapel for himself, his family and their large staff working at both Straffan House and on the land on the Straffan estate. Neighbours from the surrounding big houses also worshipped there.

The original church consisted of a porch with vestry and utility room surmounted by a spire. The porch opened into the nave with a simple sanctuary at the east end. The north and south transepts, followed by a raised sanctuary were added later giving the church its present cruciform shape.

The church remained a private chapel until 1933, when it was transferred to the Church of Ireland Representative Church Body (RCB).

The reredos and oak panelling in the sanctuary display particularly fine Victorian craftsmanship (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2015)

There are many memorials to members of the Barton family on the church walls. At the top of the nave is a fine carved font dated Christmas 1875. The carved pulpit, reredos and oak panelling around the sanctuary are of particularly fine workmanship.

The windows in the transepts were made in the 1870s by Heaton, Butler & Bayne (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2015)

The oldest windows are in the transepts and were made in the 1870s by Heaton, Butler & Bayne. In the nave, there is a rich variety of later windows depicting Christ’s life and dedicated to the memory of Bertram Francis Barton, a former owner of Straffan House (1899-1904). The three windows on the south nave (Christ blessing the children; the Crucifixion; and the Resurrection) are by Alfred Ernest Child (1875–1939) of Dublin, part-time manager of Sarah Purser’s workshop at An Tur Gloine in Upper Pembroke Street, Dublin. The three windows in the north nave are by HW Bryans of London.

The East Window is by Catherine O’Brien of An Tuar Gloine (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2015)

The East Window by Catherine O’Brien of An Tuar Gloine is dedicated to Canon Lionel Fletcher, who was the Rector of Straffan for 50 years. All the other windows are dedicated to members of the Barton family.

The two manual organ was built by Peter Conagher & Co of Huddersfield and Dublin and installed in 1897. This fine organ is still in perfect weekly use.

Encaustic tiles in the church are fine examples of this Victorian craft that is part of the Gothic revival (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2015)

The aisle has fine example of Victorian encaustic and mosaic tiles, perhaps by Minton or Craven Dunnill.

The graves in the churchyard are only of members of the Barton family and their descendants, but the churchyard also has a war memorial remembering parishioners who died in World War I.

The ruins of Saint Patrick’s Church, Straffan, which dates back to the mid-13th century or earlier (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2015)

However, despite the relatively recent history of this church, the church presence in Straffan predates this church by many centuries. It probably dates back to the early 13th century, for around 1250 Saint Patrick’s, Straffan, and its vicarage, were incorporated in the Hospital of Saint John outside Newgate, Dublin.

The vicarage was suppressed in 1397 and was united with Saint John’s Hospital. But in 1531 Archbishop Allen restored the vicarage.

Few of the names of the Vicars of Straffan survive from this time, and from the end of the 17th century the parish was united with Kildrought (Celbridge), although this union was not made official until an Order in Council in 1829.

Barton’s church was built in Straffan in the following decade, and for 30 years the Revd Samuel Greer (1800-1886) was the perpetual curate or Vicar of Straffan (1834-1864) and at the same time curate of Celbridge (1828-1864).

In 1933, Straffan was joined with Celbridge and Canon Lionel Fletcher (1865-1946) of Straffan was instituted as Rector of Celbridge that year. In all, he spent almost half a century at Straffan, from 1894 to 1943.

A Gothic window in the ruins of Saint Patrick’s, Straffan (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2015)

Bringing the fruits of the harvest to those who are signs of the kingdom

Blackberries coming to full fruit in Greystones, Co Wicklow, last week … a sign of a late harvest (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2015)

Patrick Comerford

Harvest Thanksgiving Eucharist,

Straffan, Co Kildare,

3.30 p.m., Sunday 18 October 2015.

Readings: Joel 2: 21-27; Psalm 126; I Timothy 2: 1-7; Matthew 6: 25-33.

May I speak to you in the name of + the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, Amen.

I want to thank your rector, the Revd Stephen Neill, for inviting me to your Harvest Thanksgiving celebrations this afternoon.

Stephen has been a good friend for many years, and I was delighted to attend his institution earlier this year as your rector: I know you are blessed to have him here, and I am sure he is equally blessed to be with you here.

Although I live in south Dublin, I have actually stayed in Straffan, and in Barberstown Castle earlier this summer when I was taking part in a wedding.

Living in Dublin, and living close to where I work in the south Dublin suburbs, I need to get out into the countryside on a regular basis, and to be in touch with the cycle of life and growth, sowing and harvest.

Last week, I was in Greystones, and was surprised how late autumn actually is this year. Like many people who grew up in the countryside, I grew up knowing the old country belief that blackberries should not be picked after Michaelmas, Saint Michael’s Day, 29 September. But three weeks later, the blackberries are still ripening on the brambles. Summer was too wet and too cold to allow them to come to full fruit until recent weeks.

I know that for many farmers, this has been a poor summer, but the interesting version of an “Indian Summer” we had in recent weeks provided many farmers with some compensation at harvest time.

The weather these past few weeks has compensated for the summer rains. Two weeks ago, while I was in Co Wexford, it was to see how farmers were gathering in a late harvest. The fields are still green and gold in many of these parts of Co Kildare this weekend.

Harvest fields of green and gold between Kilmuckridge and Kilnamanagh, Co Wexford, two weeks ago (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2015)

I was in Wexford two weeks ago because I regularly need to get in touch with my roots. Despite living in Dublin for so many years, I still yearn for those fields of green and gold that give that sense of belonging that many of us get when we move out of the city and return to provincial and rural life.

Going back to places that shape us and give us identity helps to integrate ourselves, spiritually as well as every other way, and helps us to prepare ourselves for the next steps forward in life.

It is as though, psychologically and spiritually, we need to take stock of what is in the barn, be aware of the riches and blessings we have from God in the past and in the present, so that in faith we can move forward.

Autumn seems a good time to take stock in all those ways. The summer holidays are over, the children are back at school, colleges and universities have reopened. Before the clocks go back and the winter evenings close in, now is the time to take a few steps back and just see where we are going.

It is time to take stock of the riches we have been blessed with, to realise what we have and what we no longer need, what we have been blessed with and what we can bless others with, what is there and what is missing.

Sometimes it is good to count our blessings. As the Prophet Joel says in our Old Testament reading this afternoon: “Be glad and rejoice, for the Lord has done great things” (Joel 2: 21).

I see that in this parish, the ‘Harvest Appeal’ is going to the Church of Ireland Bishops’ Appeal Fund. I was interested, during the Diocesan Synod last week [13 October 2015], to see how generous you have been in previous years in your giving to the Bishops’ Appeal.

But it might be good and appropriate stewardship to report back to you on some of the ways that money is used and spent.

The Bishops’ Appeal is one of the generous supporters of the work of Us, or the United Society, previously known as the United Society for the Propagation of the Gospel.

Us, the old USPG, is more than 130 years older than Straffan Church building – it was founded back in 1703, making it one of the oldest Anglican mission agencies, and I am a member of the boards and trustees in Ireland and in .

And I spent the best part of a week this summer at a residential conference at the High Leigh Conference Centre in England, where I heard about exciting and fresh new things that are being done by this old mission agency.

Sheba Sultan, a writer and member of the Church of Pakistan, spoke about the challenges facing women in Pakistan.

Canon Delene Mark from South Africa spoke of people trafficking, especially the trafficking of young women, and the abuse of young women, yet could still tell us how the Church can ensure the Gospel is good news for women. He said: “The Gospel is good news for women. How? Only through us.”

The Revd Dr Miranda Threlfall-Holmes, author of The Essential History of Christianity, discussed gender justice with Dr Paulo Ueti, a theologian and New Testament scholar from Brazil.

The Revd Dr Monodeep Daniel, of the Delhi Brotherhood Society, drew on the Old Testament story of the rape of Tamar (see II Samuel 13) as he spoke of the way the Delhi Brotherhood works with women who suffer domestic and sexual violence, especially women who suffer doubly because of their gender and their caste.

Anjum Anwar is a Muslim woman on the staff of Blackburn Cathedral. She challenged us about how we live as good neighbours with people of different religious beliefs and values given the tensions we live with in the world today.

Since that conference in High Leigh at the end of July, I have also been receiving regular briefings about how Us has taken on as its Advent this year the role of co-ordinating fundraising on behalf of the Anglican Diocese in Europe as it reaches out to refugees arriving throughout Europe.

The Diocese in Europe is working on the frontline with refugees, and has asked Us to be the official agency for Anglican churches in Britain and Ireland to channel donations for its work, providing emergency medical support, food, shelter and pastoral care for refugees.

The initial focus, of course, is on the situation in Greece, working with people who are fleeing conflicts in Syria, Afghanistan and Eritrea. The need for healthcare is particularly acute. Many refugees, including the elderly and children, are arriving in need of urgent medical care, but Greece’s overstretched public resources, and the lack of medicines in the country, mean many refugees are going untreated.

At the moment, the diocese has committed to the following initiatives in partnership with the Greek Orthodox Church:

● On the Island of Leros, a church centre is housing refugees and providing food, clothing, toiletries and medicine.

● On the Island of Samos, a church hostel is caring for 600 refugees, many of whom have medical needs. The hostel is mostly supporting Iraqi and Afghan refugees.

● In Athens, the church is working with the Salvation Army to provide food, water and medicine to refugees who congregate in local parks.

This work goes hand-in-hand with local initiatives throughout Greece. Last month I was privileged to visit twice the voluntary work of doctors, pharmacists and other volunteers who have set up a clinic and advice centre working with people without papers or without insurance from a shop front in a back street of Rethymnon in Crete.

All this work shows how relevant mission is in the world today. A mission agency that is over 300 years old is meeting the most contemporary and the most pressing needs in our world today.

These people are like the birds of the air, unable to sow or reap or gather for themselves. But by caring for them, by responding to their needs, the Church is showing that God still cares for them, that we know they are loved by God and so are worth caring for ourselves.

Taking stock of what we have in our barns, and giving thanks for the harvest are important ways of celebrating and of praising God. But in giving thanks and in giving to the Bishops’ Appeal you are also showing that the Kingdom of God spreads beyond the boundaries of borders of our own parish and diocese.

May you continue to rejoice in the harvest and be generous in your giving – the two go together – so that others may know of the love of God, and so that we may express this in our love for others.

As Christ tells us in our Gospel reading this afternoon: “Strive first for the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well” (Matthew 6: 33).

And so, may all we think, say and do be to the praise, honour and glory of God, + the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, Amen.

Look at the birds of the air; they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns (Matthew 6: 26) … a barn on a farm at Cross in Hand Lane, outside Lichfield (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Collect:

Eternal God,
you crown the year with your goodness
and give us the fruits of the earth in their season:
Grant that we may use them to your glory,
for the relief of those in need
and for our own well-being;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

(Revd Canon Professor) Patrick Comerford is Lecturer in Anglicanism, Liturgy and Church History, the Church of Ireland Theological Institute, and a canon of Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin. This sermon was preached at the Harvest Thanksgiving Service in Straffan Church, Co Kildare, on 14 October 2015.

Would you know my name If I saw you in … Barberstown?

Barberstown Castle … a modern hotel dating back to the 13th century (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2015)

Patrick Comerford

I stayed last night in Barberstown Castle near Straffan, Co Kildare, 25 km west of Dublin. I was there for a wedding reception, and awoke looking out to the castle, the castle courtyard and 20 acres of gardens that looked freshly green and aglow after the overnight rain.

Barberstown Castle has been run as an hotel since the 1970s, but dates back to the late 13th century, and is made up of four buildings from different periods in history. The castle recently had a multimillion euro make-over, and the original castle battlements now blend in with Elizabethan and Victorian extensions, with the 19th century windows in the mediaeval tower and 21st century facilities in the modern wings.

Barberstown Castle stands on the vast expanse of lands in the Straffan area that came into the possession of Maurice FitzGerald at the beginning of the Anglo-Norman presence in Ireland. The lands were granted to the ancestor of the FitzGerald families by Strongbow (Richard de Clare) in 1170-1171.

By 1250, Robert de Copella was at Straffan, and he was followed by Thomas Fanning (1275) and Sir John Fanning, who in 1288 conveyed Straffan and Ballespaddagh (Irishtown) to Richard Le Penkiston on a deed witnessed by Richard de la Salle, John Posswick and Nicholas Barby. Each of these witnesses gave his name to surrounding townlands: Sealstown (de la Salle), Possextown (Posswick) and Barberstown (Barby).

Nicholas Barby said to have built the first Barberstown Castle ca 1288-1300 on the land originally owned Maurice Fitzgerald family. The castle was built as a fortress to protect the village and people of Barberstown from the attack of the neighbouring Ui Faelain clan, who tried to burn Barberstown in 1310.

The battlements of Barberstown Castle (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2015)

Since then, the castle has been in the middle of political struggles and local wars that have often led to changes in ownership. These struggles and wars mean Barberstown has had 37 owners since 1288, although many proprietors went to extreme lengths to hold on to the castle.

One story about the many desperate efforts to hold on to the castle tells of the body buried in the tower of the castle keep. In a stipulation was mean to refer to his death, the lease on the castle was due to run out when he was buried in the ground. The end of the lease would usher in an increase in rent, and so when he died the man was buried in the tower above the earth so his family could continue to hold the lease without the rent being raised.

Inside the mediaeval tower in Barberstown Castle this morning (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2015)

Barberstown was still owned by the Penkiston family in the 14th century, nut was owned by Suttons in the 15th century. The Sutton family was living at Barberstown Castle as tenants of the Penkiston family in 1473, built the castle tower, which measures 8 metres by 7 metres, with walls that are 1.4 metres thick. The walls of the castle keep slope inwards as a defensive measure, and the rooms on the upper floors of the castle, reached by a 53-step staircase, are larger than those on the ground level because their walls are thinner.

The tower has a north-west facing entrance and a corner stair turret that projects west. There is an added battered base and a projecting latrine turret at the south-west corner.

The Gaynor family built the Elizabethan house attached to the castle in the 16th century. But the Sutton family appears to have returned to the castle, for in 1630 William Sutton owned the castle and the population of Barberstown was then 36.

In 1660, the castle was granted to John King, Lord Kingston, who had been a general in Cromwell’s army but then supported the restoration of Charles II to the throne in 1660, when he was given a peerage. But after James II came to the throne, the Earl of Tyrconnell confiscated the castle from Robert King, 2nd Lord Kingston, in 1689.

After the Battle of the Boyne, the castle was leased to Roger Kelly for £102 a year. Barberstown Castle was bought from the Young family for £1,033 in 1703 by Bartholomew Vanhomrigh. Bartholomew Vanhomrigh, a Dutch merchant from Amsterdam, had been Lord Mayor of Dublin in 1697-1698, and he became the sixth owner of the castle in six years. At the time, the castle stood on 335 acres.

A grove of willow trees in the gardens of Barberstown Castle (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2015)

Vanhomrigh’s principal residence was nearby at Celbridge Abbey. He was the father of Esther Vanhomrigh (1688-1723), the Vanessa who was the focus of the passionate letters and amorous attention of Dean Jonathan Swift. She was fictionalised as Vanessa in Swift’s poem Cadenus and Vanessa (1713), in which he wrote:

Each girl, when pleased with what is taught,
Will have the teacher in her thought.

Vanhomrigh soon sold the castle, and Hugh Henry was living there in 1716. He was MP for Limavady (1713) and Antrim (1727-1743) probably built Oakley Park in Celbridge, which was an ancestral home of Archbishop Justin Welby.

Hugh Henry’s nephew, also Hugh Henry, built Lodge Park in Straffan in 1775. His son Joseph Henry matriculated from Trinity College at 13, inherited the Straffan estate, including Barberstown Castle, in 1749, and was MP for Longford (1761-1768) and Kildare (1770-1776). The Henry family’s tenants at Barberstown Castle included the Cairncross family, with Joseph Cairncross (1754) and Hugh Cairncross (1780) living there in the second half of the 18th century.

Joseph Henry is featured in many caricatures painted by William Hogarth and on display in the National Gallery of Ireland. His son John Joseph Henry gave the site for the Roman Catholic Church in Straffan in 1787. In 1801 he married Lady Emily Elizabeth FitzGerald (1778-1856), a daughter of the Duke of Leinster and a niece of Lord Edward FitzGerald.

But his extravagant lifestyle was his downfall. He was once one of the richest commoners in Ireland, but he became so embarrassed financially that he was obliged to sell Straffan and move to France. He died in 1846.

The Straffan estate and Barberstown Castlewere bought by the wine merchant Hugh Barton (1766-1844), of the wine firm Barber and Guestier. Barton built a new house, Straffan House (1828-1831), designed by Frederick Darley and based on a chateau at Louveciennes. Today Straffan House is the home of the K-Club.

Hugh Barton, who still owned Barberstown Castle in 1826, completed the last wing of the house in the 1830s.

A four-poster bed in Room 60 in Barberstown Castle, named after Mrs Norah Devlin (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2015)

By 1836, Admiral Hercules Robinson (1789-1864) was living at Barberstown House. He was a son of the Revd Christopher Robinson, Rector of Granard, Co Longford, band a grandson of Sir Hercules Langrishe of Knocktopher Abbey, Co Kilkenny.

Admiral Robinson fought alongside Admiral Nelson at the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805, and from 1817 to 1820 he commanded the Favourite on the Cape of Good Hope and St Helena station. He was High Sheriff of Co Westmeath in 1842. His son, Sir Hercules George Robert Robinson (1824-1897), was Governor of South Africa and became Lord Rosmead in 1896.

Later residents of the castle included Edward Smith (1842) and a Mr Littleboy (1881). Sandham Francis Symes was living there in 1901 and 1918. His wife Lavinia died at Barberstown Castle in 1918 and was buried in Mount Jerome Cemetery, Dublin. He died on 15 July 1942. But by then Robert Huddleston was living in the castle.

By the mid-20th century, however, the castle became too expensive to maintain as a private family home and the Huddleston family sold Barberstown Castle. A Mrs Trodd was there in 1971, and by 1973 Mrs Norah Devlin converted the castle into an hotel.

The names of former proprietors on bedroom doors in Barberstown Castle (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2015)

Eric Clapton bought the castle in 1979, the year he married Pattie Boyd. He was then pursuing a solo career following the breakup of Cream, which included Ginger Baker and Jack Bruce, and of Derek and the Dominoes. He lived in the old tower for some time before selling it to the current owner, Ken Healy, in 1987.

Four years later, Eric Clapton’s four-year-old son Conor died in 1991, and Clapton expressed his grief in the song ‘Tears in Heaven’:

Would you know my name
If I saw you in heaven?
Would it be the same
If I saw you in heaven?

I must be strong
And carry on,
’Cause I know I don’t belong
Here in heaven ...

During renovations in 1996, an underground tunnel was discovered, leading from the castle to the parish church in Straffan. This is thought to be a “priest’s hole” dating back to the Penal Times.

The names of all the previous owners of Barberstown Castle are painted on the hotel’s bedroom doors. I was staying in a room named after Mrs Norah Devlin, but the room next to me was named after Eric Clapton.

I enjoy much of Eric Clapton’s music but I have found his views on Enoch Powell, racism, immigration and foxhunting too extreme and beyond the limits of acceptability. Perhaps it was better that I woke up in the next room this morning.

The elegant interior of Barberstown Castle (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2015)