An unexpected introduction to the descendants and family of Bishop Bedell

Bishop William Bedell of Kilmore (right) with Archbishop William Sancroft of Canterbury (left) in a window in the chapel of Emmanuel College, Cambridge … has Bishop Bedell descendants who continued to live in Ireland? (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

William Bedell (1571-1642) was the Church of Ireland Bishop of Kilmore, one of the great ‘Caroline Divines,’ and the fifth Provost of Trinity College Dublin. He is remembered for undertaking the translation of the Bible into Irish, and for his martyr-like death during the violence and wars that eventually led to the Cromwellian era.

He was under house arrest when he died of typhus on 7 February 1642. His last words were: ‘Be of good cheer, be of good cheer; whether we live or die we are the Lord’s.’ During his funeral at Kilmore Cathedral, a large Irish military force fired a volley over his grave, crying, according to some accounts: ‘Requiescat in pace, ultimus Anglorum.’

Father Edmund Farrely, a Roman Catholic priest who was present, was heard to exclaim: ‘O sit anima mea cum Bedello!, May my soul be with Beddell’s.’ His grave is shaded by a sycamore tree, said to have been planted by his own hands.

Saint Feithlimidh’s Cathedral, Kilmore, built as a memorial to Bishop William Bedell (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Bishop Bedell had two surviving sons, William and Ambrose, who received legacies of £80 and £60 a year each.

The eldest son, the Revd William Bedell, who was the bishop’s biographer, was born in Bury in 1613. He was ordained by his father in 1634 and became Vicar of Kinawley (Derrylin, Co Fermanagh) in the Diocese of Kilmore. He married Mary Barber from Essex, and after his father’s death, they left Ireland and returned to England. They first lived Black Notley in Essex, and then in Bury. William became was the Rector of Rattlesden in 1645, and remained there until he died in March 1671.

William and Mary Bedell had eight children, of whom the eldest, Leah, was baptised at Whepstead in 1643, and the other seven at Rattlesden: William, John, James, Ambrose, Penelope, Agnes and Isabella. The Revd John Bedell succeeded his father as Rector of Rattlesden, but died the following year, 1672.

The second surviving son, Ambrose Bedell, married in Ireland before the 1641 rebellion broke out. His wife Mary was a daughter of Peter Hill, Sheriff of Co Down. After the Restoration, he had a grant of lands in Co Cavan and Co Antrim. He died there in 1683, and had no surviving children.

Willaim Bedell’s grave in the churchyard of Kilmore Cathedral, Co Cavan (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

When I wrote a biographical sketch of Bishop Bedell for the site ‘Dead Anglican Theologians Society’ back in 2012, I said at the time, ‘It appears there are no longer any living descendants of the bishop.’

But I was wrong.

William Bedell was born at Black Notley, a mile outside Braintree in Essex, and some days ago I was contacted by David Grice, who lives near Braintree, and who is interested in Bedell’s earlier career as an Anglican priest in Venice, and who is also interested in finding Bedell’s descendants.

David Grice went to school in Queen Elizabeth’s Grammar School, where his history master was the late DP Adams, author of a history of the Comberford family and the Moat House on Lichfield Street, Tamworth (DP Adams, The Moat House and the Comberford Family, Tamworth, 1967). His schoolfriends included Archbishop Alan Harper and the Revd Stan Evans, so we found we shared many common interests.

David was sure Bishop Bedell had many Irish descendants through his eldest son, the Revd William Bedell, although William had returned to live in Essex. He pointed out that the name Bedell had continued to descend among members of the Stanford family, and he wondered whether the descendants of Bishop Bedell included the Irish-born composer Charles Villers Stanford (1852-1924) and Professor William Bedell Stanford (1910-1984), Chancellor of Dublin University and Regius Professor of Greek at Trinity College Dublin.

Genealogists must always be prepared to correct the information we present. We work on the data available at any one time, but if we come across new information, we must modify or correct how we have presented information in the past.

And so, I pursued two questions:

Did Bishop William Bedell have descendants in Ireland?

And, if so, were Charles Villiers Stanford and William Bedell Stanford among those descendants?

A plaque at Kilmore Cathedral recalls the former bishop (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

The youngest son of Bishop Bedell, Ambrose Bedell, married Mary, only daughter of Peter Hill, Sheriff of Down, and his wife, the sister of Randall, first Earl of Antrim. When Ambrose married, his father bought part of the lands of Carne from the Revd Martin Baxter, Vicar of Kildallan.

Ambrose Bedell made a deposition on 26 October 1642 about the Cavan rebels of 1641. He was a captain in the royalist army in Colonel Arthur Hill’s regiment until 1649, and was one of the ‘’49 Officers.’ Ambrose Bedell bought adjoining lands in Carne in 1661 from Thomas Richardson. He was the High Sheriff of Cavan in 1668. In 1682, he went to London to be touched for the King’s Evil or scrofula, and later wrote to the Archbishop of Canterbury saying his health had been fully restored. Bedell died the following year, 1683, at Cavan, aged 65, and was buried beside his father in the churchyard in Kilmore.

Ambrose Bedell left his lands and two mills in Co Cavan first to his nephew James Bedell and his heirs male; and failing such to his nephew Ambrose Bedell (James Bedell’s next brother) and his heirs male; and, failing such, to his heirs next in blood to his father, Bishop William Bedell.

Annagh Church, Belturbet, Co Cavan … many members of the Stanford family are buried there (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

So, Ambrose Bedell’s line of descent had died out, and I began searching for descendants of his brother, the Revd William Bedell, Vicar of Kinawley, Diocese of Kilmore (1634-1637) and Rector of Rattlesden, Suffolk (1644-1670). This William’s children included a daughter:

Isabella Bedell, who was born ca 1662. She married Major Daniel French of Belturbet, Co Cavan, ca 1685. He was Provost (Mayor) of Belturbet (1682, 1700), High Sheriff of Co Cavan (1690), and a JP. They were the parents of three daughters, all born after 1685:

1, Elinor.
2, Mary, who married … Fletcher.
3, Susanna, who was twice married: 1, John Britton, and had three daughters: Mary, Winifred, and Isabella; and 2, Francis Le Hunte. Susanna and Francis Le Hunte were the parents of Richard Le Hunte, of Artramont, Co Wexford, Barrister, MP for Wexford (1771-1776, and 1776-1783), died 1783.

Richard Le Hunt left Isabella Stanford his diamond ring, his little mare called Polly, and £200, while he left Artramont to his cousin, Major George Le Hunte, great-grandfather of Sir George Ruthven Le Hunte of Artramont, Governor of South Australia.

Isabella French died in 1718; her will is dated 21 June 1718, and was proved on 18 August 1718. Her eldest daughter was:

Elinor (French) married Captain John Stanford (1686-1745) on 22 November 1707. John was the eldest son of Luke Stanford (d. 1733), of Belturbet, Co Cavan, ‘a merchant of large dealing,’ and his wife Anne Hecclefield (d. 1755). John Stanford was born in Killeshandra, Co Cavan, in 1686, and was educated by a Mr Walker of Drogheda and at Trinity College Dublin (BA 1706). He was High Sheriff of Co Cavan (1734) and Co Monaghan (1741) and a JP for Co Cavan. He died in 1745.

John Stanford and Elinor (French) were the parents of three children, two sons and a daughter:

1, John Stanford (1719-1735), educated at Cavan and TCD (entered 1734). He died aged 15 in 1735.
2, Bedell Howard Stanford (1720-1776), married Elizabeth Jones, and died in Belturbet, Co Cavan. in 1776.
3, Daniel Stanford married Mary Richardson, and of whom next.
4, Anne, born 1727, married Dr Henry Richardson of Belturbet, Co Cavan. 5, Charity, married John Bradshaw.
6, Isabel.
The third son:

Daniel Stanford, of Dominick Street, Dublin, married Mary Richardson, daughter of the Revd James Richardson, in 1759. Their children included three sons and three daughters:

1, John Stanford (1760-1806), of whom next.
2, James Stanford.
3, Bedell Stanford.
1, Elinor, married the Revd Francis Eastwood.
2, Mary, baptised in Saint Mary’s Church, Dublin, 22 December 1770; she died young.
3, Isabella, married in Wexford John Brownrigg.

Daniel Stanford died in 1787. His eldest son:

John Stanford (1761-1806), of Carn, Co Cavan, and of Gloucester Street, Dublin. He was born in Co Derry. Educated at TCD (entered 1776, tutor the Revd William Richardson, FTCD, but did not graduate). He was a Barrister-at-Law and High Sheriff, Co Cavan (1789). He married at Wexford, 22 October 1784, Barbara, second daughter of Major Loftus Cliffe, and his wife Anne, daughter of William Hore, of Harperstown, Co Wexford, MP for Taghmon (1727-1731, 1741-1746). He grandmother, the Hon Dorothy Ponsonby, was a daughter of William Ponsonby, 1st Viscount Duncannon, and a sister of the 1st Earl of Bessborough.

John Stanford died in 1806. He was the father of two sons and a daughter:

1, John Stanford, dsp.
2, Bedell Stanford (1786-1857), of whom next.
3, Anne, who married Augustus Heron in 1809.

The second son:

Bedell Stanford (1786-1857), was born ca 1786. He was a captain in the Cavan militia (1807), a JP (1809), and High Sheriff of Co Cavan (1835). He married ca 1820 Elizabeth Christiana Gale, daughter of (the Revd) John Gale (1768-1842). They were the parents of:

1, Charlotte Barbara, born 1823.
2, John Woodward Stanford (1825-1904), of whom next.
3, Elizabeth Anne (1826-1907), unmarried.
4, Harriet Mary (1828-1828).
5, Frances Harriet, born 1829, married her cousin, the Revd Walter Charles Edward Kynaston.
6, Bedell Henry Stanford (1832-1842).
7, Walter Frederick Stanford (1834-1850).
8, (Revd Canon) William Bedell Stanford (1836-1929), Rector of Wishaw, Diocese of Worcester, and a canon of Christchurch, New Zealand. Educated at Baliol College Oxford. He married his cousin Harriet, daughter of (Very Revd) Frederick Owen, Dean of Leighlin, and granddaughter of (Revd) Roger Carmichael Owen, Rector of Camolin, Co Wexford, by Anne, daughter of Major Loftus Cliffe. They have living descendants.
9, Robert Loftus Stanford (1839- ). Educated Cheltenham College and Exeter College, Oxford (BA, LLB). Born Buckinghamshire 1839; he married in 1864, his cousin Louisa Owen, daughter of Dean Frederick Owen. Moved to New Zealand 1864; Stipendiary Magistrate, Wanganui.
10, Henry Bedell Stanford, married Florence Carter.

The eldest son:

John Woodward Stanford (1825-1904), of Carn, Co Cavan, and Chetwode Priory, Buckinghamshire. He married Louise Reade, and they were the parents of five sons and two daughters:

1, (Major) Henry Bedell Stanford.
2, (Revd) Charles Woodward Stanford.
3, Walter John Stanford, civil engineer.
4, (Revd) Alfred Bracebridge Stanford (1867-1895), educated Emmanuel College Cambridge, died at Mafeking in 1895.
5, Archibald Alfred Stanford.
1, Elizabeth Mary.
2, Charlotte Barbara.

The eldest son:

(Major) Henry Bedell Stanford (1861-1904), major, Royal Garrison Artillery. He was born on 9 October 1861, and married on 10 October 1887, Florence, daughter of Colonel William Frederick Carter CB and his wife Hannah Emily (Anderson); Florence was born in Halifax, Nova Scotia, in 1859. Henry died on 14 July 1904.

They were the parents of one son and two daughters:

1, Jack Stanford, of whom next.
2, Norah (1889-1960), married James Stuart and had three children.
3, Aileen.

Major Henry Bedell Stanford’s son:

Jack Stanford, born 27 July 1888. Through his descent from the French family, he became the senior representative of the descendants of William Bedell, Bishop of Kilmore.

A memorial plaque in the chapel of Trinity College Cambridge to the composer Charles Villiers Stanford (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

So, yes, Bishop Bedell had descendants, who eventually moved to England, New Zealand and Canada. But they did not seem to include either Charles Villiers Stanford or William Bedell Stanford.

I had to search another branch of the Stanford family to find their lines of descent.

Luke Stanford (d. 1733) and his wife Ann (Hecclefield or Hucklefield), whose son John Stanford (1686-1745), who married Elinor French, Bishop Bedell’s eventual heir, was also the ancestor of the composer Charles Villiers Stanford (1852-1924), and of a well-known clerical family.

Luke Stanford came to Ireland during the reign of Charles II. He and his wife Ann were the parents of:

1, John Stanford (1686-1745), who married Elinor French (see above).
2, Luke Stanford, of whom next.
3, Thomas Stanford.
4, Anne, who married William Berkeley.
5, Hecklefield Stanford (born 1723).

The second son:

Luke Stanford (died 1774), married Anne Heart in 1751. They were the parents of:

William Luttrell Stanford (born 1752). He married Mary Poe. They were the parents of three sons and one daughter:

1, William Stanford (born 1775), of whom next.

The eldest son of William Luttrell Stanford and his wife Mary (Poe) was:

William Stanford (1775- ). He was a woollen merchant at 33 Lower Sackville Street (now O’Connell Street), Dublin, and also had a family home in Co Cavan. He married Sarah Margaret McCullan (died 1846), daughter of James McCullan KC. They were the parents of three sons and a daughter:

1, (Revd) William Henry Stanford (1801-1856), of whom next.
2, (Revd Dr) Charles Stuart Stanford (1805-1873), of whom after William Henry Stanford.
3, John James Stanford (1810-1880), of whom after Charles Stuart Stanford.
4, Mary.

The eldest son:

(The Revd) William Henry Stanford (1801-1856), born in Dublin, educated TCD (BA 1827, MA 1829), ordained deacon and priest in 1827. He was a curate in Slane, Maynooth, Birmingham, Blackburn, Bray, Stottesden and Taney (1827-1837) before becoming Perpetual Curate (vicar) of Taney (1837-1851) and Rector of Rincurran (1851-1856). He married in 1833, Esther Katharyne Peter of 1 Saint Stephen’s Green, Dublin. They were the parents of:

1, William Henry Nassau Stanford (1834-1871).
2, Adelaide Esther Katharine (born 1835), married John Hatchell Cooper.
3, (Revd) Bedell Stanford (1837-1896), of whom next.
4, Charles Edward Stuart Stanford.
5, Virginia Pauline.

Their third son:

(Revd) Bedell Stanford (1837-1895). He was born in Dublin in 1837 and educated at TCD (BA 1863, Div Test 1868). He was ordained deacon and priest in 1867 and 1868, and was curate in Castlerahan in the Diocese of Kilmore (1867-1869), curate, Saint Luke’s, Dublin (1869-1882), Assistant Chaplain, Old Molyneux Chapel (1882-1886), and curate, Saint Paul’s (1886-1894). He died in 1895.

Bedell Stanford married in 1868 Phoebe Thompson (d. 1901) of Burlington Road, Dublin, and they were the parents of an only son:

(Revd) Bedell Stanford (1873-1945). He was born in Dublin and educated at Rathmines School and TCD (BA 1896, Div Test 1897, MA 1899). He was a curate in a number of parishes before becoming Rector of Holy Trinity, Belfast (1909-1915), Diocesan Curate in Waterford (1915-1922) and curate-in-charge, Ballintemple, Diocese of Cashel (1922-1931). He died on 6 March 1945.

He married Susan Jackson of Albany Road, Ranelagh, in 1902, and they were the parents of four daughters and two sons:

1, Adela Constance Dorothy (born 1903), married William Henry Joseph Sherlock Bosanquet.
2, Helen Maud (born 1906), married Francis Thomas Hewson.
3, Charles Bedell Stanford (1908-1909).
4, William Bedell Stanford (1910-1985), Regius Professor of Greek, TCD (1940-1980), Chancellor of Dublin University (1982-1984), and a Senator (1948-1969). He was born in Belfast and was educated at Bishop Foy’s School, Waterford, and TCD He married Dorothy Isabel Wright, and they were the parents of two sons and two daughters.
5, Marjorie Kathleen (born 1912).
6, Eileen May (born 1914), married Maurice Henry Le Clerc.

The second son of William Stanford Stanford and his wife Sarah Margaret (McMullan) was:

(Canon) Charles Stuart Stanford (1805-1873). He was born in 1805, educated at TCD (BA 1828, MA 1832, BD and DD 1855), and ordained deacon and priest in 1835. He was the Perpetual Curate (Vicar) of Glasnevin (1837-1843), Rector of Saint Thomas’s (1855-1872) and a canon of Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin (1843-1854).

He was the editor of the Christian Examiner and the Dublin University Magazine (1833-1834), and published a number of anti-Catholic pamphlets.

He married (1), Pamela Louisa Campbell (died 1859), and (2), Agnes Fayle. He died in Surbiton in 1873.

There were seven children in this family:

1, Guy Howard Stanford (born 1842).
2, Charles Edward FitzGerald Stanford (1854- ).
3, Helen Emily, married Edward Fitzgerald Frederick Campbell.
4, Lucy Frances Felicite.
5, Pamela Charlotte Augusta.
6-7, two other daughters.

The third son of William Stanford and his wife Sarah Margaret (McMullan) was:

John James Stanford (1810-1880). In 1851, he married Mary Henn (1817-1892) and they were the parents of:

(Professor) Charles Villiers Stanford (1852-1924), the composer. He married Jennie Wetton (1856-1921) in 1878, and they were the parents of:

1, Geraldine Mary (1883-1956).
2, Guy Desmond Stanford (1885-1953), who married Gwendolyn Dalrymple.

Charles Villiers Stamford was Professor of Music at Cambridge and composed a substantial number of concert works, including seven symphonies. His best-remembered pieces are his choral works for church performance, chiefly composed in the Anglican tradition. His students included the composers Gustav Holst and Ralph Vaughan Williams.

Charles Villiers Stanford (1852-1924) … Irish-born composer, his students included Gustav Holst and Ralph Vaughan Williams

Additional sources:

Ross Hinds (ed.), William Bedell Stanford: Regius Professor of Greek 1940-80: Trinity College, Dublin: Memoirs (Hinds, Dublin 2002).
JB Leslie and WJR Wallace (eds), Clergy of Dublin and Glendalough Biographical Succession Lists (Dublin, 2001).
LG Pine (ed), Burke’s Genealogical and Heraldic History of the Landed Gentry of Ireland (London, 1957).
Paul Rodmell, Charles Villiers Stamford (2017).

Following God’s leading by the lakes and rivers of Co Cavan

The Parish Church of Annagh stands on a prominent hilltop in Belturbet, Co Cavan (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

I am in Belturbet, Co Cavan, this evening [22 April 2016] for the institution of my friend and colleague, the Revd Tanya Woods, as the Rector of Annagh. Tanya and I were students together, and then she was back as a student in the Theological Institute again in 2012-2013.

I wonder whether we had ideas when our paths crossed during those years where God’s call would lead us in our lives and in our ministry.

Tanya invited me to preach at the Harvest Thanksgiving Service in Belturbet 2½ years ago, and I was in the same church two years earlier for the ordination as deacon of one of my students, the Revd Naomi Quinn.

I spent much of this morning seeing my GP about an inflammation in my lungs and a cough that has persisted for most of this week since I almost lost my voice last Sunday. I fear that this has been caused by my sarcoidosis flaring up on my lungs and as a post-op reaction to medical procedures two weeks ago.

But this afternoon it was a pleasure to take the journey from Dublin through the countryside, villages and small towns of Co Meath and Co Cavan, being refreshed by the views of the landscape, the hills and the lakes. And passing through Virginia and Lough Ramor always brings back memories of a holiday many, many years ago, when I was in my teens in 1967.

I had finished my Intermediate Certificate exams, and I was about to face into the two-year cycle for the Leaving Certificate exams in Gormanston.

This was the summer of the Six-Day War in the Middle East, but it was also the year of Scott McKenzie and The Streets of San Francisco. My father tried to teach me how to play golf and he took me out rowing on Lough Ramor, hoping to persuade me of sensible, solid career choices. But my mind was changing, my values were about to mature and I had no idea where I was going.

The Church of Ireland parish church in Belturbet, known as Annagh, stands on a prominent hill at the top of this border town, just 4 km from the border between Co Cavan and Co Fermanagh, 36 km south of Enniskillen and 14 km from Cavan town. This is one of best places for crossing the River Erne, which meanders through the fields and meadows immediately below the hilltop on which the church stands.

When the Anglo-Normans arrived in Co Cavan in the early 13th century, Walter de Lacy built a motte-and-bailey on Turbot Island. The fort was probably made of wood and has not survived, although the steep mound of earth where it was built can still to be seen.

Remembering the Butlers of Belturbet, Newtownbutler and Lanesborough in Annagh Parish Church in Belturbet (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Belturbet celebrated its 400th anniversary as a planned town in 2010. The town was first was developed around 1610 by Stephen Butler. The Butlers also gave their name to nearby Newtownbutler and held the title of Earl of Lanesborough in the Irish peerage. The titles, which date back to Theophilus Butler (1669-1723) and his brother, Brinsley Butler (1670-1735), who were MPs for Belturbet, Kells and Cavan at different times in the early 18th century, became extinct in 1998 at the death of Denis Anthony Brian Butler, 9th Earl of Lanesborough (1918–1998).

Belturbet retains much of its original layout. The road from neighbouring Butler’s Bridge leads into Butler Street and the Main Street leads to the square or the Diamond, where all the town’s important buildings cluster together.

When John Wesley passed through Belturbet in 1760, he described it as “a town in which there is neither Papist nor Presbyterian; but, to supply that defect, there are Sabbath-breakers, drunkards, and common swearers in abundance.”

Belturbet is mentioned by James Joyce in Ulysses in the fifteenth episode, Circe, where Cissy Caffrey says: “More luck to me. Cavan, Cootehill and Belturbet.”

Annagh parish church dominates the skyline of Belturbet, standing on the highest point in the town. The church was built between 1622 and 1634 on the site of an earlier church, but is also said to stand on the site of a former O’Reilly castle. The church has a fine tower and spire, and inside there is beautiful fan-vaulted ceiling, Victorian tiling and family monuments dating back to the 17th century.

In the churchyard, there are impressive vaults and mausoleums to local families. As we mark the centenary of World War I, it is worth seeking out the grave of James Somers, a local parishioner who was decorated with the Victoria Cross in World War I.

Below the churchyard, the River Erne wends its way through this border countryside. Back in 1967, on that small rowing boat in Lough Ramor, I had no idea where I was going. As I passed the shores of Lough Ramor late this afternoon, and later this evening as I watched the River Erne meander through the Cavan and Fermanagh countryside, I wondered whether we ever know where we are going, and whether we are ever open enough to how God is leading us where God is taking us.

An early morning start in the Hermitage in Lucan

The Hermitage Medical Clinic … overlooks the Liffey Valley (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2016)

Patrick Comerford

Over the last eight or ten years, I have been through the doors of most hospitals in Dublin, public and private.

I had an early morning start this morning with a visit to the Hermitage Medical Clinic, a 101-bed private hospital in Lucan, West Dublin. It is a teaching hospital of the Royal College of Surgeons, but my visit this morning was very different from my visit to the RCSI earlier this week for the ‘Surgeons and Insurgents’ exhibition on the Easter Rising of 1916.

Having taken a series of refresher courses last month on chaplaincy care, including the role of chaplains in hospitals, it was interesting to find myself as the patient instead today.

The clinic stands in the Liffey Valley, on grounds that slope down to the river, between the Hermitage Golf Club and the grounds of the King’s Hospital school.

The clinic and the golf club take their name Hermitage from folklore and the local story of the Five Knights and the beautiful maiden. The story tells of a knight and a maiden who eloped on horseback. The story says they were pursued by four gallant knights, also on horseback, who overtook the couple at the Hermit’s Cell.

A fight to the death ensued.

The maiden’s choice excelled as a swordsman, but the other four were equally brave. Four duels were fought in succession by the runaway knight. But at the end of the fourth encounter, five gallant knights lay dead on the emerald green sward. All five were buried nearby and from their graves sprang five lime trees that still cast their shadows over the waters of the River Liffey below.

The maiden was buried there too, but the lone slender whitethorn tree that marked her grave has long disappeared.

Another version of the story says the first knight was rejected by the maiden’s father and became a recluse in the cell at the Hermitage, but emerged in time to rescue her from an enforced and unhappy marriage.

In the chase, the suitor, rejected by the father, was pursued by five knights. Four were fell to the hermit’s sword-craft and the fifth failed in courage.

The only published version of this story is found in a rhyming ballad published in 1899. According to the ballad, the gallant hermit was revived in the hermit’s cell where he was nursed back to life by the maiden, who crossed to the Hermitage in a shepherd’s humble boat that “darts into a little creek”:

And ever in perpetual youth, they haunt the lovely dell,
All safe from foe or mortal ill, protected from a spell.
Nor doomed alone to human state, they various forms assume:
Perchance the cushat’s note is theirs, perchance with owlet’s plume
They flutter ’midst the noble limes, by Liffey’s gentle waves
Which daily shed a solemn gloom, upon the foemen’s graves.

Hermitage House was a large two-storey building over a basement with magnificent views of the surrounding wooded countryside and the banks of the River Liffey. It stands close to the site of the ruins of Ballyowen Castle. In 1650, a family named Nottingham lived there, but as Jacobites they lost their property about 1690.

It is said that Hermitage House was built 1700 for Major General Robert Napier. By 1740, the place was passed to the Hon Robert Butler (1759-1806), MP for Belturbet, Co Cavan, and later 3rd Earl of Lanesborough.

Sir Lucius O’Brien (1731-1795) became the owner about 1780. His country seat was at Dromoland Castle, Co Clare, and he had two famous grandsons and a famous granddaughter: Lucius O’Brien (1800-1872) succeeded was MP for Co Clare and later inherited a family title as the 13th Lord Inchiquin; William Smith O’Brien (1803-1864), was a leader of the Young Ireland revolution in 1848, was tried for treason, deported to Tasmania, but later returned to live in Co Limerick; and Harriet O’Brien (1811-1883) married Canon Charles Henry Monsell (1815-1850) of Saint Mary’s Cathedral, Limerick, and as the widowed Harriet Monsell she founded the order of Anglican nuns, the Community of Saint John Baptist, in Clewer, Windsor, in 1851.

Sir Lucius O’Brien was followed at Hermitage in 1798 by James Fitzgerald (1742-1835), who like O’Brien was also an MP for Ennis. He married into the Vesey or de Vesci family, who owned a large estate in Lucan. His wife Catherine later became the 1st Baroness FitzGerald and Vesey in 1826.

Meanwhile, what remains of the original Hermitage House within the present golf-club building suggests a villa that was built around 1800. Perhaps it superseded or incorporated an earlier house.

James Naper Dutton (1744-1820), 1st Lord Sherborne, later owned Hermitage. In 1818, he sold the house to his tenant, Robert Brennan, for £8,400, along with 139 acres of land on the banks of the River Liffey. By 1841, the Hermitage estate was the property of Sir John Kingsmill, a retired army colonel and a Governor of the Royal Hospital, Kilmainham.

A golf club was founded in 1905 on part of the land. The golf club was formed as the County Dublin Golf Club, but was forced to change its name to the Hermitage Golf Club in 1907, following objections from the Royal Dublin Golf Club, which was already registered with the Golfing Union of Ireland.

The Hermitage Medical Clinic is a teaching hospital of the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2016)

During World War I, a military hospital was established at the Hermitage in 1917. This was a convalescent and nursing home for wounded soldiers. The old wooden clubhouse was leased by the owner, a Mr Crozier, to be used as a place of rest for war-wounded and traumatised soldiers, and it was described as ‘the only shell-shock hospital in the country.’

Reading this part of the story of the Heritage area also brought me back to last Monday night’s exhibition in the Royal College of Surgeons on ‘Surgeons and Insurgents.’

The old clubhouse continued as a military hospital for some years after World War I until all the soldiers had left. This particular building was demolished in the 1930s, while Hermitage House also served as the Hermitage Hotel for a short time after World War I.

In the 1930s the club leased Hermitage House from Mr Crozier, who was then the owner. The most distinguished of the founding members was Tim Healy, who was the first Governor-General of the Irish Free State in 1922.

A later member was Dr Douglas Hyde, a brilliant linguist and founder of the Gaelic League. He became the first President of Ireland, was remained in office until 1949. But his interest in sport is also an interesting one. He was a long-standing patron of the GAA but when he attended a soccer international at Dalymount Park the GAA was incensed.

Douglas Hyde was expelled from the GAA and never sought reinstatement. It was an act of bigotry that makes me question the values of those who claimed to be the early heirs of the insurgent of 1916.

Coming down the stairs in the Hermitage … but what about driving afterwards? (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2016)

I was in the Hermitage Clinic, beside the golf club, this morning to have two growths removed from my head, one on my left temple and the other on the back of my head.

A similar mark on my nose is causing no problems, and is not even infringing on my vanity. But I was worried about these two. I wondered that perhaps they were growths related to my sarcoidosis, but I hope it has not spread from my lungs.

The results should be back soon.

I was told a few weeks ago that despite the anaesthetic I was not to worry and that I would be able to drive later.

Wonderful. I failed abysmally at my efforts to learn to drive over 35 years ago … failing to take a car from Dorset Street to Terenure, even after 20 driving lessons.

It reminded me of the popular piano joke that dates back to at least 1909.

Patient: “Will I be able to play the piano after the operation?”

Doctor: “Certainly.”

Patient: “That’s great! I was not able to play the piano before.”

Meanwhile, I have found another interesting place for riverside walks. And, while I have sarcoidosis, sarcoidosis does not have me.

Late autumn sunshine by the shores of Lough Ramor in Virginia, Co Cavan

Afternoon sunshine on the lake waters of Lough Ramor outside Virginia, Co Cavan this afternoon (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2014)

Patrick Comerford

In the middle of a busy working week that continues into the weekend, I took a short break this afternoon to attend the wedding of Lesley Trenier and Alexander Smyth in Saint Fethlimidh’s Cathedral, Kilmore, Co Cavan.

The wedding was conducted by the recently retired Dean of Kilmore, the Very Revd Raymond Ferguson, who was assisted by the Revd Ivan Dinsmore.

The cathedral was packed, with all the pews filled. Without the screens, it would have been impossible for those squeezed into the side aisles to see the ceremony in the sanctuary.

Inside Saint Fethlimidh’s Cathedral, Kilmore, this afternoon (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2014)

It is amazing how the theory of “six degrees of separation” hardly applies in the Church of Ireland. There were a number of clerical colleagues there this afternoon, including the Revd Tanya Woods, who invited me just a year ago [Sunday 13 October 2013] to preach at her Harvest Thanksgiving in Annagh Church, Belturbet.

And there too was Dr David Hutchinson-Edgar, a colleague in Irish CND and former lecturer in the Church of Ireland Theological Institute, who is a brother of the mother of the bride.

Bishop William Bedell remembered in an inscription above the west door of Kilmore Cathedral (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2014)

Kilmore Cathedral, with its 12th century Romanesque doorway, is about 5.6 km (3.5 miles) outside Cavan, and it took just over an hour and a half hours to get there for the wedding at 1 p.m.

For me, the cathedral will always be associated with the saintly William Bedell, Bishop of Kilmore (1629-1642), and the cathedral holds an original copy of the first translation of the Old Testament into Irish by Bedell. The 1860 organ is one of the earliest organs built by Charles Brindley of Sheffield and was restored in 2011.

Kilmore Cathedral stands on an elevated wooded site next to the Radisson Blu Farnham Estate Hotel, and close to Lough Oughter. However, we stopped for lunch on the way back in the Mason’s Apron in Virginia, one of the prettiest towns not only in Co Cavan but in all of Ireland.

Later, on the southern edges of Virginia, we stopped at the Lakeside Manor Hotel on the shores of Lough Ramor to enjoy the seasonally exceptional sunshine and the shadows in the clouds as the sun cast shimmering, silver rays across the waters of the lake.

Despite the storms earlier this week, the temperature this afternoon was still at 15, and as we returned to Dublin, the golden, green and brown fields of Co Cavan and Co Meath made the counrtyside look more like late summer than mid or late autumn.

On the way home tonight there was a beautiful golden harvest moon was beginning to rise in the night sky.

By the shores of Lough Ramor in Virginia in this afternoon’s autumn sunshine (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2014)

‘I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry ...’

‘I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty’ (John 6: 35) ... bread in a Greek baker’s window in Thessaloniki (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

Sunday 13 October 2013,

8 p.m., Annagh Church, Belturbet, Co Cavan,

Harvest Thanksgiving Service.

Philippians 4: 4-9; John 6: 25-35

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

‘I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty’ (John 6: 35).

It’s wonderful to be back in Belturbet once again. I was last here two years ago for the ordination as deacon of one of my students, the Revd Naomi Quinn.

Now it is a pleasure to be invited back by the Revd Tanya Woods. Tanya and I were students together; then Tanya was back as a student in the Theological Institute for the past year; now we are colleagues once again.

It is wonderful to see a friend grow and blossom in ministry and mission, growing as a labourer in the harvest.

Coming here, I am enchanted not just by the 400-year history of this beautiful town, but by the landscape, the hills and the lakes.

Many, many years ago, when I was in my teens – I remember the year, it was 1967 – my father took me out rowing on Lough Ramor, trying to convince of the need to focus on what lay ahead of me in my adult life, and to prepare for a future career.

Little did he know, little did I imagine then, where my life was going, and where my priorities in life would eventually be focussed.

Our Gospel reading this evening is set on the shores of the Lake of Galilee, and after many accounts of rowing on the lake, this evening’s reading opens with an interesting question from the crowd on the lake shore:

‘Rabbi, when did you come here?’ (verse 25)

In between all the rowing backwards and forwards, between Tiberias and Capernaum, the crowd were so busy with eating their fill, with their own small world, that they have missed the bigger picture – they have taken their eyes off Jesus.

And the question they put to him here is very similar in its thrust, in its phrasing, in its direction to another set of questions in another Gospel story. In the parable of the Goats and Sheep, or the Judgment of the Nations, in Saint Matthew’s Gospel (Matthew 25: 31-46), the righteous ask:

“Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry, and gave you food, or thirsty and gave you to drink. And when was it that we saw you a stranger and welcomed you, or naked and gave you clothing? And when was it that we saw you sick or in prison and visited you?” (Matthew 25: 44).

And again, the condemned ask:

“Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not take care of you?” (Matthew 25: 37-39).

Sometimes, not just in parishes or dioceses, but in theological colleges too, we can be so focussed on our own agenda, our own practices of religion, that we can be in danger of losing sight of who Jesus should be for us.

Those questions in our Harvest Gospel this evening and that parable of the Goats and Sheep are very disturbing.

‘Rabbi, when did you come here?’

When did I last see Christ among the strangers and the unwelcome, among the ragged children and refugees, among the sick who have their medical cards taken from them, among those isolated in rural poverty and loneliness, prisoners in their own homes? When did I last see you drowining in the sea off the coast of Lampedusa or Malta?

‘Rabbi, when did you come here?’

When did I see to it that they not only received the crumbs from my table, but the Bread of Life? When did I moan about Europe being “swamped” by refugees, while I hoped America and Australia would give more visas to young Irish people squeezed out of the failing Irish economy?

‘The bread of God ... gives life to the world’ (John 6: 33) ... fresh bread in Hindley’s Bakery in Tamworth Street, Lichfield (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

We find Harvest a very comforting time, and I do not want to take away from that at all.

There is a lot to be thankful for, and the words of our opening hymn, ‘Come ye thankful people come’ (Hymn 37, Irish Church Hymnal), are particularly appropriate this year, given the wonderful summer, the beautiful autumn and the rich harvest many farmers have been blessed with.

Yes we should be, we must be, thankful.

But just for a moment imagine how difficult those words are to sing for many people living in our midst today. If you are an asylum seeker living on what is cruelly called “direct provision” and facing the winter storms in a mobile home, told without choice what food you and your children must eat, it may be difficult to “raise the song of harvest-home” with the same joy and enthusiasm that we are sharing here this evening.

And yet that hymn goes on to implore God that all will be free from sorrow, goes on to trust that God will provide.

In our Gospel reading, we hear how God still wants to provide for us, no matter how we behave, no matter what our circumstances.

And Christ’s words are addressed not to the Disciples, who later are going to find his teachings difficult (see John 6: 60), but to the crowds, the multitude, the many, those who are on the margins and the outside, the very people the disciples first thought of sending away.

First, Christ feeds the many, the crowds, the 5,000, with bread on the mountainside that is multiplied for the multitude. And then in this passage, even though they took their eyes off him, Christ now continues to promise them real food, he promises them “the true bread from heaven” (verse 33) and tells them:

‘I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty’ (verse 35).

Care for the body and care for the soul go together to the point that they are inseparable.

The Samaritan Woman at the Well ... a modern Greek icon in an exhibition in the Fortezza in Rethymnon, Crete, last month (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2013)

The promise Christ gives the crowds on the shores of the lake re-echo the promises he gives earlier in this Gospel to the Samaritan woman at the well (see John 4: 5-42).

The promise of the “the true bread from heaven,” the promise of the “Bread of Life,” come immediately after the promise to the Samaritan woman of “Living Water” (see John 4: 10, 11, 14). We can even link those promises with the promise of the banquet of life in the Miracle at the wedding in Cana (see John 2: 1-11).

Jesus is the Bread of Life, the Living Water, the best wine, the true vine.

So often he talks about himself in Saint John’s Gospel in terms of food and drink, bread and water and wine. We are invited to the banquet that follows the harvest, we are invited to the wedding with the Bridegroom.

But so often too he emphasises that his invitation is to the outsider too: those in the highways and byways who are invited to the wedding banquet (see Matthew 22: 1-14; Luke 14: 15-24).

The Gospel message is especially for those in the wilderness. Where do you think the wilderness places are today in our society, on our island, in the world? For it is there that God seeks to provide the blessings that come with his manna from heaven, and seeks to give life, not just to us but to the world:

“For the bread of God is that which comes down from heaven and gives life to the world” (verse 33).

The Gospel reading in the Lectionary for this morning (Luke 17: 11-19) is the story not just of ten lepers who are healed, but a Samaritan – marginalised because of his religion, his ethnicity, and his health – who is healed. And in being healed in that wilderness area between Galilee and Samaria, in having his physical and social needs met, he comes to worship Christ as the Lord God Incarnate.

The Samaritan woman at the well – marginalised because of her religion, her ethnicity and prejudices about her marital or sexual status – is brought to a wholeness of life. And as a consequence she becomes one of the most effective missionaries in the New Testament, bringing the Good News of Christ to her town.

Saint Paul tells us in our Epistle reading this evening:

“Keep on doing the things that you have learned and received and heard and seen in me, and the God of peace will be with you” (Philippians 4: 9).

When you rejoice in the harvest, remember those who are the margins, but who are invited by Christ to rejoice in the harvest too, to experience him as the Bread of Life, as Living Water, as the True Vine, who seeks to feed them in the wilderness, wherever the wilderness places are in our world today ... it may not make you prosperous or popular, but “the God of peace will be with you.”

And so, may all praise, honour and glory be to God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, Amen.

The Parish Church of Annagh stands on a prominent hilltop in Belturbet, Co Cavan (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Canon Patrick Comerford is Lecturer in Anglicanism, Liturgy and Church History, the Church of Ireland Theological Institute, and an Adjunct Assistant Professor, Trinity College Dublin. This sermon was preached at the Harvest Thanksgiving Service in Annagh Church, Belturbet, Co Cavan, on 13 September 2013.

On the border and dreaming of flowers in my hair.

The Parish Church of Annagh stands on a prominent hilltop in Belturbet, Co Cavan (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2011)

Patrick Comerford

I was in Belturbet, Co Cavan, last night for the ordination of the Revd Naomi Quinn. There was a good turnout of family members, local parishioners, clergy and student staff members from the Church of Ireland Theological Institute for this ordination – for this was the last of 17 ordination in the first cycle of deacon-interns this year.

Naomi was ordained by the Bishop of Kilmore, Elphin and Ardagh, the Right Revd Kenneth Clarke. The preacher was an old family friend, the Revd Robert Kingston, Rector of Carrickmacross, Co Monaghan, and there was a warm welcome from the Rector of Belturbet, Canon Steve Clark, from Archdeacon Craig McCauley of Virginia, and from the churchwardens and the local parishioners.

As Naomi signed the declarations in the vestry, Craig, Robert and I mused that the last time we had been together in a vestry together was in Saint Maelruain’s in Tallaght while Craig was a student reader prior to his ordination in 1999.

With the Revd Naomi Quinn outside Annagh Church, Belturbet, Co Cavan, last night (Photograph: Elizabeth Hanna, 2011)

The Church of Ireland parish church, known as Annagh, stands on a prominent hill at the top of Belturbet (Béal Tairbirt, “mouth of the isthmus”), is a border town, just 4 km from the border between Co Cavan and Co Fermanagh, 36 km south of Enniskillen and 14 km from Cavan town. This is one of best places for crossing the River Erne, which meanders through the fields and meadows immediately below the hilltop on which the church stands.

When the Anglo-Normans arrived in Co Cavan in the early 13th century, Walter de Lacy built a motte-and-bailey on Turbot Island. The fort was probably made of wood and has not survived, although the steep mound of earth where it was built is still to be seen.

Remembering the Butlers of Belturbet, Newtownbutler and Lanesborough in Annagh Parish Church in Belturbet (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2011)

Belturbet celebrated its 400th anniversary as a planned town last year. The town was first was developed around 1610 by Stephen Butler. The Butlers also gave their name to nearby Newtownbutler and held the title of Earl of Lanesborough in the Irish peerage. The titles, which date back to Theophilus Butler (1669-1723) and his brother, Brinsley Butler (1670-1735), who were MPs for Belturbet, Kells and Cavan at different times in the early 18th century, became extinct in 1998 at the death of Denis Anthony Brian Butler, 9th Earl of Lanesborough (1918–1998).

Belturbet retains much of its original layout. The road from neighbouring Butler’s Bridge leads into Butler Street and the Main Street leads to the square or the Diamond, where all the town’s important buildings cluster together.

In 1760, John Wesley passed through Belturbet and said it was “a town in which there is neither Papist nor Presbyterian; but, to supply that defect, there are Sabbath-breakers, drunkards, and common swearers in abundance.”

Belturbet is mentioned by James Joyce in Ulysses in the fifteenth episode, Circe, where Cissy Caffrey says: “More luck to me. Cavan, Cootehill and Belturbet.”

Today, the census returns show, Belturbet has a population of 1,411 (2006).

Annagh parish church dominates the skyline of Belturbet, standing on the highest point in the town. The church was built between 1622 and 1634 on the site of an earlier church, but is also said to stand on the site of a former O’Reilly castle. The church has a fine tower and spire, and inside there is beautiful fan-vaulted ceiling, Victorian tiling and family monuments dating back to the 17th century.

In the churchyard, there are impressive vaults and mausoleums to local families. Hidden in among the graves is the grave of James Somers, a local parishioner who was decorated with the Victoria Cross in World War I. Below, there are spectacular views of the River Erne as it wends its way through this border countryside.

Belturbet is 123 km (76 miles) from Dublin, on the N3 road, and two of us set off yesterday afternoon from Portrane, where the sea was choppy and the view from the Quay across to the Burrow and Rush was covered in rain-filled clouds and mist.

The Park Hotel, Virginia ... the summer house and former hunting lodge of the Headfort Taylors (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2011)

We stopped off for half an hour at the Park Hotel in Virginia, on the Meath/Cavan border. Virginia is a colourful, picturesque lake-side town, 40 km from Dublin. The Park Hotel is the former summer residence and hunting lodge built in 1750 by the Taylor family of Kells, Co Meath, who held the titles of Marquis of Headfort, Earl of Bective. The same family also built Ardgillan Castle, between Skerries and Balbriggan.

The hotel is set in a charming 18th-century country estate, sprawling across 100 acres, with a nine-hole golf course, sunken gardens with Victorian geometric designs, and 20 km of walking trails, many leading down to the shores of Lough Ramor. On the shores of the lake there are three boathouses, the oldest of which – the Fairy Boathouse – is built like a miniature castle.

Looking out across the parklands at the Park Hotel towards Lough Ramor in the autumn mists (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2011)

I have happy memories of holidays here on the shores of Lough Ramor as a 15-year-old schoolboy in 1967. I had finished my Intermediate Certificate exams, and I was about to face into the two-year cycle for the Leaving Certificate exams in Gormanston.

This was the summer of the Six-Day War in the Middle East, but it was also the year of Scott McKenzie and The Streets of San Francisco. My father tried to teach me how to play golf and took me out rowing on Lough Ramor, hoping to persuade me of sensible, solid career choices. But my mind was changing, my values were about to mature and I had no idea where I was going.

On the way back from Belturbet last night, the heavy rain had eased off, although it would return later. As we passed back through Virginia again, Friday had turned to Saturday and they were playing Scott McKenzie’s San Francisco (Be Sure to Wear Flowers in Your Hair) on RTÉ Radio 1, and recalled how back in 1967, we thought we were going to change the world. But then I had hair. And there were flowers on the shores of Lough Ramor.