‘O blest communion, fellowship divine! We feebly struggle, they in glory shine’

Christ and the Saints depicted in a dome in Saint Mark’s Basilica, Venice (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2018)

Patrick Comerford,

All Saints’ Day, 1 November 2019,

11 a.m.: The Eucharist (Holy Communion 2)

Saint Mary’s Church, Askeaton, Co Limerick

Readings: Daniel 7: 1-3, 15-18; Psalm 149; Ephesians 1: 11-23; Luke 6: 20-31.

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

All Saints’ Day is one of the 12 ‘Principal Holy Days’ of the Church. This is one of those days, according to the Book of Common Prayer, when ‘it is fitting that the Holy Communion be celebrated in every cathedral and every parish church or in a church within a parochial union or group of parishes.’

In our first reading (Daniel 7: 1-3, 15-18), Daniel’s visions include one in which he sees beyond persecutions to a time when God shall rescue his people, and ‘the Most High shall possess the kingdom for ever – for ever and ever.’

In the Psalm (Psalm 149), the worshippers, the saints, are invited not only to sing but to dance and to make music on the tambourine and the lyre, so I am going to say something, in a few moments, about one of our hymns this morning.

In the Epistle reading (Ephesians 1: 11-23), Saint Paul is writing ‘to the saints who are … faithful in Christ Jesus,’ and reminds them that Christ has made them heirs to the kingdom of God.

In the Gospel reading (Luke 6: 20-31), Saint Luke gives us his version of the beatitudes, with a different emphasis that the way Saint Matthew lists them (see Matthew 5: 3-12).

Christ now speaks of four blessings or beatitudes and four parallel woes or warnings of the age to come. Some people are ‘blessed’ or ‘happy’ (μακάριος, makários) by being included in the Kingdom, but they are paired with those who are warned of coming woes:

● those who are poor (verse 20) and those who are rich now (verse 24)
● those who are hungry now (verse 21) and those who are full now (verse 25)
● those who weep now (verse 21) and those who laugh now (verse 25)
● those who are persecuted, or hated, excluded, reviled and defamed (verse 22) and those who are popular now (verse 26)

Who are the poor, the hungry, those who weep and those who are persecuted today? And do we see them as saints?

Our offertory hymn, ‘For all the saints, who from their labours rest’ (459), was written by Bishop William Walsham How (1823-1897) as a processional hymn for All Saints’ Day.

The saints recalled in this hymn are ordinary people in their weaknesses and their failings. In its original form, it had 11 verses, although three are omitted from most versions – the verses extolling ‘the glorious company of the Apostles,’ ‘the godly fellowship of the prophets’ and ‘the noble army of martyrs’ were inspired by the 1662 Book of Common Prayer version of the canticle Te Deum.

The tune Sine Nomine (‘Without Name,’ referring to the great multitude of unknown saints) was written for this hymn by Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872-1958) while he was editing the English Hymnal (1906) with Percy Dearmer.

When he wrote this hymn, Walsh How was Rector of Whittington, Shropshire, a canon St Asaph Cathedral. He also spent time in Rome as chaplain of the Anglican Church there, All Saints’ Church, before returning to England.

While he was Bishop of Bedford, Walsham How became known as ‘the poor man’s bishop.’ He became the first Bishop of Wakefield, and died in Leenane, Co Mayo, in 1897 while he was on an Irish fishing holiday in Dulough.

The hymn vibrates with images from the Book of Revelation. The saints recalled by ‘the poor man’s bishop’ in this hymn are ordinary people who, in spite of their weaknesses and their failings, are able to respond in faith to Christ’s call to service and love, and who have endured the battle against the powers of evil and darkness.

In its original form, this hymn had 11 verses, although three are omitted from most versions: the verses extolling ‘the glorious company of the Apostles,’ ‘the godly fellowship of the prophets’ and ‘the noble army of martyrs’ were inspired by the 1662 Book of Common Prayer version of the canticle Te Deum.

But the heart of the hymn is in the stanza in which we sing about the unity of the Church in heaven and on earth, ‘knit together in one communion and fellowship, in the mystical body of … Christ our Lord.’ Despite our ‘feeble struggles’ we are united in Christ and with one another in one ‘blest communion’ and ‘fellowship divine.’

It is a hymn that celebrates that there among the saints are the ordinary people, the people who are blessed and happy in Saint Luke’s version of the Beatitudes this morning.

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

All Saints depicted in the window in Saint Columb’s Cathedral, Derry, in memory of Canon Richard Babington (1837-1893) of All Saints’ Church, Clooney, Derry (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2019)

Luke 6: 20-31 (NRSVA):

20 Jesus looked up at his disciples and said:
‘Blessed are you who are poor,
for yours is the kingdom of God.
21 ‘Blessed are you who are hungry now,
for you will be filled.
‘Blessed are you who weep now,
for you will laugh.
22 ‘Blessed are you when people hate you, and when they exclude you, revile you, and defame you on account of the Son of Man. 23 Rejoice on that day and leap for joy, for surely your reward is great in heaven; for that is what their ancestors did to the prophets.
24 ‘But woe to you who are rich,
for you have received your consolation.
25 ‘Woe to you who are full now,
for you will be hungry.
‘Woe to you who are laughing now,
for you will mourn and weep.
26 ‘Woe to you when all speak well of you, for that is what their ancestors did to the false prophets.

27 ‘But I say to you that listen, Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, 28 bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you. 29 If anyone strikes you on the cheek, offer the other also; and from anyone who takes away your coat do not withhold even your shirt. 30 Give to everyone who begs from you; and if anyone takes away your goods, do not ask for them again. 31 Do to others as you would have them do to you.’

Saints and Martyrs … the ten martyrs of the 20th century above the West Door of Westminster Abbey (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2019)

Liturgical colour: White

Penitential Kyries:

Lord, you are gracious and compassionate.
Lord, have mercy.
Lord, have mercy.

You are loving to all,
and your mercy is over all your creation.
Christ, have mercy.
Christ, have mercy.

Your faithful servants bless your name,
and speak of the glory of your kingdom.
Lord, have mercy.
Lord, have mercy.

The Collect of the Day:

Almighty God,
you have knit together your elect
in one communion and fellowship
in the mystical body of your Son Christ our Lord:
Grant us grace so to follow your blessed saints
in all virtuous and godly living
that we may come to those inexpressible joys
that you have prepared for those who truly love you;
through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Introduction to the Peace:

We are fellow citizens with the saints
and the household of God,
through Christ our Lord,
who came and preached peace to those who were far off
and those who were near (Ephesians 2: 19, 17).

The Preface:

In the saints
you have given us an example of godly living,
that rejoicing in their fellowship,
we may run with perseverance the race that is set before us,
and with them receive the unfading crown of glory …

Post-Communion Prayer:

God, the source of all holiness
and giver of all good things:
May we who have shared at this table
as strangers and pilgrims here on earth
be welcomed with all your saints
to the heavenly feast on the day of your kingdom;
through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Blessing:

God give you grace
to share the inheritance of all his saints in glory …

The Berliner Dom in Berlin, popularly known as Berlin Cathedral … the images inside the dome illustrate the Beatitudes (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2018)

Hymns:

459: ‘For all the saints, who from their labours rest’ (CD 27)
468: ‘How shall I sing that majesty’ (CD 2, Church Hymnal discs)

All Saints’ Church, Rome … the Anglican church where the hymn writer Bishop William Walsham How was chaplain (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Scripture quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicised Edition copyright © 1989, 1995, National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide. http://nrsvbibles.org

Material from the Book of Common Prayer is copyright © 2004, Representative Body of the Church of Ireland.

Ten synagogues I have visited in 2018

Inside the Scuola Spagnola in Venice, founded around 1580 by Spanish and Portuguese speaking Jews (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2018; click on images for full-screen resolution)

Patrick Comerford

In previous years, in my end-of-year reviews at the end of December, I have often summarised the year’s events in my life, as well providing my own commentary on the year in news, sport, and church life.

However, newspapers and television stations provide substantial summaries of the past year at this time of the year, and the consequences of ‘Brexit’ and the Trump presidency have been devastating and depressing at one and the same time throughout 2018.

Instead, I have decided to end the year on note of celebration over the next few days, looking back at ten countries I have visited this year, ten cathedrals I have visited in Ireland, ten synagogues I have visited, and ten places I have visited in Ireland this year.

The façade of the New Synagogue on Oranienburger strasse in Berlin survived Kristallnacht and World War II (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2018)

1, The new Synagogue, Berlin:

This year marked the 80th anniversary of Kristallnacht or the ‘Night of Broken Glass.’ On the night of 9/10 November 1938, Nazi Party members, the Hitler Youth and other people went on a government-sanctioned rampage against Jews throughout Germany and Austria. That night 80 years ago is remembered as Kristallnacht or the ‘Night of Broken Glass,’ and many say it marks the unofficial beginning of the Holocaust.

The New Synagogue on Oranienburger strasse narrowly escaped being destroyed that night through the brave intervention of a district police chief, Wilhelm Krützfeld. It is around the corner from Tucholsky strasse, where I was staying in Berlin.

When the Neue Synagoge or New Synagogue opened in 1866, it was seen as an architectural masterpiece. The opening was such an important event that the attendance included Count Otto von Bismarck, soon to be the first chancellor of the German Empire.

The name ‘new’ refers to the reformed, modern rites and practices. The building was designed by Eduard Knoblauch and completed after his death by Friedrich August Stüller. It was designed in the Moorish style to resemble the Alhambra in Spain, and could hold 3,200 people.

The heavily damaged New Synagogue was essentially demolished in 1958, except for the front façade and entrance. The Centrum Judaicum Foundation opened here in 1988 and the rebuilt New Synagogue opened in 1995 as a museum, cultural centre and community offices.

The congregation in the New Synagogue today is Berlin’s only Masorti synagogue. Gesa Ederberg became the first female pulpit rabbi in Berlin in 2007 when she became the rabbi of the New Synagogue.

The site of Berlin’s first synagogue at Heidereutergasse, dedicated in 1714 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2018)

2, The Alten (Old) Synagogue, Berlin:

Berlin’s first major Jewish house of worship, the Alten (Old) Synagogue on the Heidereutergasse, was dedicated in 1714, almost 420 years after the first documented mentioning of Jews in Berlin in 1295. By 1354, six Jewish families were living in the Kleinen Judenhof or ‘small Jewish court’ settlement. Jews were first expelled from Brandenburg in 1446, but they were allowed to return to Berlin in 1447.

A site for the first Jewish cemetery was bought in 1672 on Grosse Hamburger Strasse, and Berlin’s first synagogue, on Heidereutergasse, was consecrated in 1714. The synagogue was then called the Great Synagogue and was rebuilt in 1854-1855 by Eduard Knoblauch (1801-1865).

The Alten (Old) Synagogue remained unscathed in the Kristallnacht. The last service there took place on 20 November 1942, and it was destroyed by bombing in 1945. Today, there are 19 or so synagogues or Jewish houses of prayer in Berlin, compared with 94 synagogues in 1932.

The Synagogue Rebbi Akiva on Rue Synagogue was originally built in the mid-19th century (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2018)

3, The Synagogue Rebbi Akiva, Tangier:

At one time Tangier had over 20 synagogues. Many of these synagogues are now closed, but I found signs on Rue des Synagogues, a twisting and turning street in Tangier, pointing to two of them.

The Synagogue Rebbi Akiva on Rue Synagogue was originally built in the mid-19th century. It was restored by Rabbi Moshe Laredo in1902, and was rebuilt in 1912. More recently it has been converted into a museum of Tangier’s Jewish community.

The Moshe Nahon Synagogue, the last surviving functioning synagogue in the old city, was built in 1878 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2018)

4, The Moshe Nahon Synagogue, Tangier:

At the very end of Rue Synagogue, behind a nondescript door, I found myself at the Moshe Nahon Synagogue, the last surviving functioning synagogue in the old city. From the street, appearances are deceptive, but inside this is a monumental and lavish building, and one of the most beautiful synagogues in Morocco.

This synagogue was built in 1878 and was a working synagogue until it fell into despair in the late 20th century. But it was renovated in 1994, revealing intricately covered carvings that are illuminated by hanging lamps and many Jewish artefacts.

The Scuola Spagnola was founded around 1580 by Spanish and Portuguese speaking Jews (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2018)

5, The Scuola Spagnola, Venice:

The Scuola Spagnola or Spanish Synagogue in the Ghetto in Venice was founded by Spanish and Portuguese-speaking Jews around 1580. This is one of the two functioning synagogues in the Ghetto, and it is open for services from Passover until the end of the High Holiday season.

The synagogue was founded by Jews whose families had been expelled from the Iberian peninsula in the 1490s. They reached Venice usually via Amsterdam, Livorno or Ferrara, in the 1550s. This four-storey yellow stone building, designed by the architect Baldassarre Longhena, was built in 1580 and was restored in 1635.

It is a clandestine synagogue, tolerated on condition that it was concealed within a building that gives no appearance of being a house of worship outside. Inside, however, it is elaborately decorated, with three large chandeliers and a dozen smaller ones, as well as a huge sculpted wooden ceiling.

The Scuola Grande Tedesca or German Grand Synagogue in Venice was founded in 1528 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2018)

6, The Scuola Grande Tedesca, Venice:

The Scuola Grande Tedesca or German Grand Synagogue in Venice was founded in 1528 by the Askhenazi Community and is the oldest synagogue in Venice. The unknown architect had to overcome considerable difficulties to give the appearance of regularity to the asymmetric area of the main hall. He achieved this by building an elliptical women’s gallery and repeating the same motif in the banisters of the lantern-like opening in the centre of the ceiling, giving a feeling of unexpected depth.

This Synagogue was restored often over the centuries. The area with the Ark juts out on the outside over the Rio di Ghetto Novo, with a niche which is also to be seen in the Schola Canton, the Schola Italiana and the Schola Levantina.

The Scola Levantina … founded by Levantine Jews who brought different customs of worship and dress (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2018)

7, The Scola Levantina, Venice:

The Scola Levantina in Venice was founded in 1541 by the Levantine Sephardi Jews who came from the Eastern Mediterranean between 1538 and 1561. It is probably the only synagogue in Venice that has kept nearly all its original features and has the only noteworthy exterior, with its two simple and severe facades interrupted by three orders of windows and the polygonal niche (diagò or liagò) found in the other synagogues in the Ghetto.

The Prayer Hall was chosen in 1950 to honour the martyrs of Nazism and Fascism. The inscription over the portal reads: ‘Blessed be he who enters, blessed be he who goes out.’

A tablet in the entrance hall reads: ‘If you understand, oh, man, what your end in the world will be, and if you show charity discreetly, then when you depart this life your place will be assured: then your chalice will be full of goodness and on your head will be placed a crown.’ Another tablet, dated 1884, commemorates a visit to Venice by Sir Moses Montefiore in 1875.

The Monasterioton Synagogue is the only surviving, pre-war working synagogue in Thessaloniki (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2018)

8, The Monasterioton Synagogue, Thessaloniki:

The Monasterioton Synagogue at the top of Syngrou Street is the only surviving, pre-war working synagogue in Thessaloniki. It was built in 1927 by Jews from Monastir in the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia. The synagogue was saved during World War II because it had been requisitioned by the Red Cross as a warehouse. The building was structurally damaged by the earthquake in 1978, but it was restored by the Greek government and is one of the three functioning synagogues in Thessaloniki.

In all, there are three surviving synagogues, some surviving Jewish mansions on Vassilisis Olgas Avenue, the Modiano Market, and a new Jewish Cemetery in Stavroupoli. The Jewish Holocaust Memorial at the south-east corner of Plateia Eleftherias (Liberty Square) recalls the 50,000 Greek Jews exterminated in the Holocaust. The memorial is a bronze sculpture by Nandor Glid of a seven-branch menorah whose flames are wrapped around human bodies in death.

The bimah in the Etz Hayyim Synagogue in Chania (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2018)

9, The Etz Hayyim Synagogue, Chania:

Etz Hayyim synagogue stands in a small alley off Kondhilaki Streer in Evraiki or the former Jewish quarter in the old town of Chania in Crete. There has been a synagogue here since the Middle Ages, and it is in the heart of the walled maze of alleyways and narrow streets that spread out from the harbour with its mediaeval lighthouse and the port’s surviving mosque.

There had been Romaniote or Greek-speaking Jews in Crete for more than 2,300 years, and they survived wave-after-wave of invaders, including Romans, Byzantines, Saracen pirates, Venetians and Ottomans. They were strongly influenced by Sephardic intellectual traditions with the Spanish Jews in Crete in the late 14th century, and the two Jewish communities intermarried and accommodated one another.

After World War II, the Etz Hayyim synagogue stood empty. The sleeping building was desecrated, and was used as a dump, a urinal, and kennel, damaged by earthquakes and filled with dead animals and broken glass, its mikvah or ritual bath oozing mud and muck.

The revival of the synagogue is due to the vision and hard work of Nicholas Stavroulakis who grew up in Britain, the son of a Turkish Jewish mother and a Greek Orthodox father from Crete. He first learned about Crete’s lost Jews when he was a young man, and his family ties inspired many visits to this island. He returned to Crete in 1995, set about restoring the synagogue, and Etz Hayyim reopened in 1999.

The synagogue’s floor plan is in the Romaniote, or Greek tradition. The ark faces the eastern wall, while the bimah faces the western one. The rebuilt mikvah is fed by a spring. The scattered remains of the tombs of past rabbis have been recovered and they have been reburied.

In a hallway, a simple plaque bears the names of the Jews of Chania who drowned in 1944 while they were being shipped to Athens and on to Auschwitz.

Etz Hayyim suffered two arson attacks in the same month in 2010. But there was international outage, and donations poured in for the restoration of Etz Hayyim. Today, barely more than a dozen Jews live in Crete, and Evraiki, the former Jewish quarter, is now crammed with tavernas, cafés and souvenir shops. Etz Hayyim holds weekly Shabbat services in Hebrew, Greek, and English, and is home to a research library with 4,000 volumes. Rabbi Gabriel Negrin, who was once a student in Crete, regularly comes to Chania from Athens to help with the Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur services. I was both privileged and humbled to be a guest of Rabbi Gabriel Negrin and the community at a memorial service in Etz Hayyim on 17 June to mark the anniversary of the destruction of the Jewish community of Crete.

Kehillas Ya’akov was the first Mizrachi Synagogue in Britain (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2018)

10, Kehillas Ya’akov, London:

The East End of London is the cradle of Jewish life in England. At the beginning of the 20th century, it was said there were as many Jews living in one square mile of the East End of as there are throughout Britain today – over 250,000 people.

Today, estimates say, about 2,000 Jewish people live in the East End. Many of them are elderly, and there are just three synagogues still functioning in the East End. After the two-day residential meeting of the trustees of USPG in Limehouse, in January, I strolled through the East End of London, and photographed the Kehillas Ya’akov was the first Mizrachi Synagogue in Britain.

An English Heritage report said Kehillas Ya’akov or the Synagogue of the Congregation of Jacob at 351-353 Commercial Road ‘is a remarkable survival ... and is all the more exceptional for continuing in use as a synagogue.’

This is no ordinary synagogue. From the outside, it looks unremarkable, sandwiched in the middle of a parade of shops on the Commercial Road in Stepney. But inside, there is a fusion of two worlds: one that has disappeared, and another that may be fast disappearing. Here East European Jewry meets the Jewish East End of London, and it is here that hope springs eternal.

Despite the date 1921 on the façade, the synagogue was founded in 1903 and is one of the last three synagogues still functioning in the East End.

The cupola of the Neue Synagoge or New Synagogue in the Spandau area of Berlin (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2018)

Ten countries I have visited in 2018

Gondolas tied up and waiting for the tides to fall at Rialto Bridge, just a five minute walk from the Palazzetto San Lio in Venice (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2018; click on image for full-screen view)

Patrick Comerford

In previous years, in my end-of-year reviews at the end of December, I have often summarised the year’s events in my life, as well providing my own commentary on the year in news, sport, and church life.

However, newspapers and television stations provide substantial summaries of the past year at this time of the year, and the consequences of ‘Brexit’ and the Trump presidency have been devastating and depressing at one and the same time throughout 2018.

Instead, I have decided to end the year on note of celebration over the next few days, looking back at ten countries I have visited this year, ten cathedrals I have visited in Ireland, ten synagogues I have visited across Europe, and ten places I have visited in Ireland this year.

The wisteria was already fading in Hall Court in Sidney Sussex College when I visited Cambridge this summer (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2018)

1, England:

As with every year, I have visited England throughout the year. I have stayed twice in London during two-day residential meetings of the trustees of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel): at the Royal Foundation of Saint Katharine in Limehouse in the East End in January, and in November in the Kairos Centre in south-west London, close to the campuses of Roehampton University and overlooking Richmond Park.

I was also in London for meetings of USPG’s trustees in May and September, and at the meetings of USPG trustees and council and the annual USPG conference at the High Leigh Conference Centre near Hoddesdon in July, and a regional meeting of USPG volunteers and supporters in Birmingham at the end of November.

I also visited Lichfield three times this year: for two days of retreat and reflection and to celebrate my birthday in January, to lecture on the Wyatt architectural dynasty in April at the invitation of Lichfield Civic Society, and again in November, for a short visit to Lichfield Cathedral and the Chapel of Saint John’s Hospital.

I missed the annual summer school organised in Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge, organised by the Institute for Orthodox Christian Studies, but I had a short visit to Cambridge in early July, while some of the fading wisteria could still be seen in the courts of Sidney Sussex College.

The arcades around the bailey seen from the Chapel of Saint Sebastian in the Fort de Salses, near Perpignan (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2018)

2, France:

In May, I spent a few days in the south of France, staying in Sainte-Marie-la-Mer, a coastal town near Perpignan. Although I had been to Paris half-a-dozen times or more in the past, this was my first time back in France since 2006, and my first time to visit the South of France.

In Perpignan, I visited the Palace of the Kings of Majorca (Palais des Rois de Majorque), the Cathédrale St-Jean, with its Gothic architecture, its wrought-iron bell tower and its cloistered cemetery, and the statue of the Spanish surrealist artist Salvador Dalí facing la Gare de Perpignan, which Dalí proclaimed it to be the ‘Centre of the Universe’ after he experienced a vision of cosmogonic ecstasy there in 1963.

Beyond Perpignan, I visited Collioure on the Côte Vermeille, close to the French border with Spain at the Pyrénées. Collioure, with its typical Mediterranean bay, attracted several Fauvist artists who made it their centre in the early 20th century. They were inspired by the colours of Collioure, its castle, mediaeval streets, and the lighthouse converted into the church of Notre-Dame-des-Anges. Almost 100 reproductions of works by Matisse and Derain are exhibited around the port and harbour in the very same place where they painted the originals in the early 20th century.

I also visited the hills and narrow streets of Elne, including the Cathedral of Sainte-Eulalie-et-Sainte-Julie, and the Fort de Salses, also known as the Forteresse de Salses, an impressive and massive Catalan fortress 20 minutes from Perpignan, off the road to Narbonne.

Tucholskystraße is close to the New Synagogue in Berlin (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2018)

3, Germany:

I passed through Frankfurt Airport twice (4 and 9 April), on my way to and from Thessaloniki to experience the celebrations of Orthodox Easter in the northern Greek city.

Both stopovers allowed time to eat, but I was back in Germany later in the year (11 to 14 September), when I spent three or four days in Berlin. I stayed on a corner of Tucholskystraße, around the corner from Oranienburger Straße and the Neue Synagoge or New Synagogue, built in 1859-1866 as the main synagogue of Berlin’s Jewish community.

The visit included a day at the former concentration camp in Sachsenhausen and a four-hour walking tour of Jewish Berlin’s destruction and rebirth.

I also visited the Pergamon Museum, the Brandenburg Gate, Checkpoint Charlie and the site of the Berlin Wall, Berlin Cathedral (Berliner Dom) and a number of historic churches, including the Marienkirche and Sophienkirche, and strolled along Unter den Linden.

Travelling over the Alps, somewhere above Austria, on my way between Dublin and Thessaloniki (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2018)

4, Austria:

After experiencing Easter in Thessaloniki, it took three flights to get back to Dublin in April: a flight to Vienna, a flight to Frankfurt, and from there to Dublin. For the travel weary, some say you cannot count being in a country if you have not stayed overnight. Most agree that it does not count if you only touch down for a refuelling or to change flights. But for me, the safe definition is if you have to pass through passport control and have at least a cup of coffee.

In the past, I have stayed in Vienna in 2002, when I was on a panel at a seminar organised by the Diplomatic Academy of Vienna, and stayed over twice in 2005 on way to and from China for Church visits.

This time there was time for no more than a cup of coffee in the airport … but I suppose that still counts.

On one of the many daily walks on the beaches of Georgioupoli in Crete (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2018)

5, Greece:

I was in Greece twice this year, and stayed in three places. I stayed in Thessaloniki from 4 to 9 April, experiencing Orthodox Easter, but also visiting the city’s only surviving synagogues, the old Jewish quarter, the Jewish Museum, some surviving Jewish mansions on Vassilisis Olgas Avenue, and the Jewish Holocaust Memorial at Liberty Square, a bronze sculpture by Nandor Glid that has been desecrated a few times this year.

In Thessaloniki, there was time for meals with friends, walks along the seafront, visits to churches, cathedrals and a few quiet hours in the Monastery of Vlatadon which is perched like a balcony above the city and the harbour, as well as a full-day visiting Mount Athos.

Later, I spent two summer weeks (6 to 20 June) back in Crete, with one week in Rethymnon, staying at Varvaras Diamond Hotel near the beach in Platanes, and a week at the Corissia Princess Hotel in Georgioupoli.

There were days strolling through the labyrinthine back streets of Rethymnon, long lingering dinners with friends, and days on the beaches in Platanes and Georgioupoli, visits to cathedrals, churches and icon workshops, visits to Chania in the west of Crete, to mountain villages, through gorges and across the White Mountains, to Hora Sfakíon and Frangokastello on the south coast, to the Monastery of Saint George in Karydi, and to villages and olive groves in the mountains.

Las Casas de la Judería, a Seville hotel that is worth visiting … just for itself (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2018)

6, Spain:

With a new passport in my hands from August, I visited Spain at the end of October, and spent four nights in Seville (23 to 27 October. I stayed in the Hotel Las Casas de la Judería de Sevilla, an unusual hotel complex made up of 27 traditional houses, where the 134 different rooms are linked through 40 patios, courtyards, gardens and a labyrinth of small passageways, balconies and Roman-style tunnels.

The hotel takes its name from its location in the heart of the old Jewish quarter of Seville, just minutes away from the main landmarks in the city.

As well as visiting the Cathedral, the Real Alcazar and the other sites every tourist tries to visit in Seville, I also visited places in Seville and Tarifa associated with the extraordinary life of Josefina de Comerford, Doña Josefa Eugenia Maria Francisca Comerford MacCrohon de Sales (1794-1865), who was involved in Spanish political intrigues in the early 19th century.

These include the Convento de la Encarnación, where she was confined after her death sentence was commuted to life in a convent, and the Corral del Conde (the Count’s Yard), where she lived out most of her later years.

In a side street in Tangier, once known as a city of spies and smugglers (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2018)

7, Morocco:

My visit to Seville also offered the opportunity to visit Tangier in Northern Morocco (25 October). Tangier once had a reputation as a safe haven for spies and their spying activities. It played host nests of spies throughout the Cold War and before that during World War II, and the association of Tangier with spies and their secretive lifestyles has made the city a location for many books and films.

Gondolas at the Palazzo Ducale, with San Giorgio Maggiore on the other side of the canal (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2018)

8, Italy:

Some important dates in the family calendar were marked with a few days in Venice near the end of the year (5 to 9 November 2018). I stayed at the Palazzetto San Lio in the heart of Venice, between the Rialto Bridge and Saint Mark’s Square. It is at the end Calle del Frutariol in the sestiere or district of Castello, and just a stone’s throw from Rialto and the Grand Canal.

I had visited Venice in the past while staying in other p;aces in northern Italy. But this was my first time to stay in Venice itself. Palazzetto San Lio is a Venetian palace built in the 17th and 18th centuries, and has been owned by an old Venetian family for generations.

During those few days, there were visits to Saint Mark’s Basilica and Saint Mark’s Square, many of the great churches of Venice, the Ghetto and its memorials and synagogues, boat trips along the Grand Canal, and visits to islands in the lagoon, including Murano, Burano and Torcello.

The railway station at the Slovenian side of Europa Square, the crossing point between Italy and Slovenia (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2018)

9, Slovenia:

While I was staying in Venice, I visited the divided town of Gorizia, both Gorizia and Nova Gorica, crossing the border between Italy and Slovenia a number of times, arriving and leaving from one railway station in Italy, and having lunch in another railway station in Slovenia.

The frontier dividing Gorizia remained in place until Slovenia became part of the Schengen Agreement on 21 December 2007.

Today, the border between Italy and Slovenia is almost invisible, an artificial line that runs between Gorizia in Italy and Nova Gorica in Slovenia. The most celebrated border crossing is at Europa Square, an open pedestrian square in front of the Transalpina railway station. But there are other border crossings between Gorizia and Nova Gorica, for the border is a straight line that ignores the natural contours and bends in the streets and buildings, still seen in the remains of a fence that once ran across streets and even divided gardens.

Today, the two towns form one conurbation that also includes the Slovenian municipality of Šempeter-Vrtojba. Since May 2011, these three towns are joined in a common trans-border metropolitan zone, administered by a joint administration board. As I stepped between three towns and two countries, no-one asked me for a passport, no one asked me to take my place in a queue, asking for identity, or my opinion on who should be in the European Union and who should be out.

Cherry blossoms at the City of Armagh Hotel during a break at the General Synod this afternoon (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2018)

10, Ireland:

Of course, most of the year was spent in Ireland, but I visited all four provinces, stayed in places in both the Republic of Ireland and in Northern Ireland – in Armagh during the General Synod – and visited each of the cathedrals in the Diocese of Limerick and Killaloe.

This year, 2018, was a year that I was blessed with opportunities to take part in baptisms, weddings and funerals, ecumenical services, and the ordinary, every-day life of a parish that brings me many blessings. There was community engagement too, and I was invited to lift two All-Ireland cups this year: the Sam Maguire Football Cup when it visited Ardagh, Co Limerick, as part of the celebrations of the 150th anniversary of the discovery of the Ardagh Chalice; and the Liam McCarthy Hurling Cup, when the Limerick Hurling Champions visited Askeaton.

But, most of all, I was blessed this year by the people I love and the people who love me.

Hands across the border at Europa Square, at the border between Slovenia and Italy (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2018)

This Evening: Ten places I have visited in Ireland in 2018.

Singing a version of ‘Silent Night’ that has interesting Irish links

The Revd Stopford Augustus Brooke (1832-1916) … the Irish-born translator of another version of ‘Silent Night’

Patrick Comerford

Over the past few days, I have written about the popular carol ‘Silent Night’ [see here and here, its author Father Joseph Mohr, and its translator, Bishop John Freeman Young. This ever-popular carol, as written by Joseph Mohr, was first sung in German in Mohr’s church in an Austrian village 200 years ago, on Christmas Eve 1818.

But yesterday, at the school assembly in Rathkeale, we sang another, once popular translation of Stille Nacht by the Irish poet and one-time Anglican priest, the Revd Stopford Augustus Brooke (1832-1916).

Stopford Augustus Brooke was born on 14 November 1832 in the rectory near Letterkenny, Co Donegal, where his father was the curate and his maternal grandfather, the Revd Joseph Stopford, was then the rector. He was the eldest son of the Revd Dr Richard Sinclair Brooke (1802-1882), curate of Kinnity in the Diocese of Killaloe (1829-11832), curate of Conwal (Letterkenny), Co Donegal (1832-1835), curate of Abbeylexi (1835), and later the first incumbent of the Mariners’ Church, Dún Laoghaire, then Kingstown (1836-1862). His mother, Anna (1812-1903), a daughter of the Revd Joseph Stopford of Courtown, Co Wexford, and Rector of Conwal (1810-1833).

Stopford Brooke was educated at Trinity College Dublin (BA 1856, MA 1862), where he won the Downes Prize and the Vice Chancellor’s Prize for English verse. He was ordained in the Church of England in 1857, and his first appointments were in London as curate of Saint Matthew’s, Marylebone (1857-1859), and Kensington (1860-1863). He then became Chaplain to the British Embassy in Berlin (1863-1865) and chaplain to Queen Victoria’s daughter, Princess Victoria, wife of the Emperor Frederick III and mother of Kaiser Wilhelm II.

With his brother Edward he made long tours of Donegal and Sligo in 1869, and spent much time at Kells, Co Meath, studying Irish antiquities. By then, he was the minister at Saint James’s Chapel (1866-1875), an Anglican proprietary chapel in York Street, later Duke of York Street, London, where he attracted ‘a large and fashionable congregation.’

In February 1867, Brooke wrote, ‘These Tories haunt me. They take pews, they write me letters, they put their daughters under me, and all my radicalism goes down their thrapple without a wry face.’ Here in 1872, Brooke preached a course of sermons on ‘Theology in the English Poets.’

While he was there, despite his radical political and theological views, Brooke was appointed a Chaplain in Ordinary to Queen Victoria in 1872.

After the chapel closed in 1875, Brooke took services and preached at the Bedford Chapel in Bloomsbury, where he continued to attract large congregations. In 1875, he became chaplain in ordinary to Queen Victoria. But in 1880, he seceded from the Church, saying he could no longer able to accept the doctrines and teachings of the Church of England. He continued as an independent preacher for some years at the Bedford Chapel, until it was demolished by the Bedford Estate in 1896.

From then on, Brooke had no church of his own, but his eloquence and powerful personality continued to have an impact on a wide circle.

Brooke had a keen interest in literature and art and was known as a critic. In 1890-1891, he took a leading role in raising the funds to buy Dove Cottage, once William Wordsworth’s home in Grasmere. Dove Cottage is now run by the Wordsworth Trust.

Brooke delivered the inaugural lecture at the Irish Literary Society in London in 1893 on ‘The Need and Use of Getting Irish Literature into the English Tongue.’ In his lecture, he argued that an Irish national poetry would ‘become not only Irish, but also alive to the interests and passions of universal humanity.’

Brooke married Emma Wentworth-Beaumont (1830-1874) in 1858, and they were the parents of six daughters and two sons. Their eldest daughter was the social reformer Honor Brooke. Their sons included the Revd Stopford Brooke (1859-1938), a Unitarian minister and Liberal MP for Bow and Bromley (1906-1910). Another daughter, Maud, married the Irish writer TW Rolleston (1857-1920), from Shinrone, Co Offaly; Brooke and Rolleston edited A Treasury of Irish Poetry in the English Tongue (1900).

Brooke was strongly influenced by John Ruskin, who introduced him to the art of Florence and Venice, and he agreed with many of Ruskin’s social theories. Brooke’s letters also point to his friendships in the literary and artistic circles of his day, including Alfred Lord Tennyson, Edward Burne-Jones, William Morris, James Martineau and Matthew Arnold, and the Belfast-born statesman James Bryce.

Brooke’s father died at Herbert Street, Dublin, in 1882. Brooke was a brother-in-law of Thomas Welland, Bishop of Down and Connor (1892-1907), and also an elder cousin of the Irish historian and nationalist Senator Alice Stopford Green (1847-1929).

He died on 18 March 1916, and was buried at Saint John-at-Hampstead Churchyard in Hampstead, London.

On leaving the Church of England, Brooke published for the use of his congregation Christian Hymns, a collection of 269 hymns. This includes his ‘Still the night, holy the night,’ Christmas Carol No 55 in three stanzas of eight lines, a translation from the German carol by Joseph Mohr. This translation, which we sang yesterday, was included in two earlier editions of the Church Hymnal of the Church of Ireland.

Still the night, holy the night by Stopford Augustus Brooke:

Still the night, holy the night
Still the night, holy the night!
Sleeps the world; hid from sight,
Mary and Joseph in stable bare
watch o’er the child belovèd and fair,
sleeping in heavenly rest,
sleeping in heavenly rest.

Still the night, holy the night!
Shepherds first saw the light,
heard resounding clear and long,
far and near, the angel-song,
‘Christ the Redeemer is here!’
‘Christ the Redeemer is here!’

Still the night, holy the night!
Son of God, O how bright
love is smiling from thy face!
Strikes for us now the hour of grace,
Saviour, since thou art born!
Saviour, since thou art born!

A Christmas crib in a Rathkeale shop window (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Remembering the Holocaust 80 years after ‘Kristallnacht’

The cupola of the Neue Synagoge or New Synagogue dominates the streets in Spandau (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2018)

Patrick Comerford

On the night of 9/10 November 1938, Nazi Party members, the Hitler Youth and other people went on a government-sanctioned rampage against Jews throughout Germany and Austria.

That night 80 years ago is remembered as Kristallnacht or the ‘Night of Broken Glass,’ and many say it marks the unofficial beginning of the Holocaust.

Jewish-owned businesses, schools, hospitals and synagogues were set on fire, were ransacked and had their windows smashed. Within two days, over 7,000 Jewish businesses were destroyed or damaged and 1,000 synagogues throughout Germany and Austria were burned down. Up to 100 Jews were killed that night, and 30,000 Jews were arrested and deported to ‘work camps’ that soon became death camps.

The façade of the New Synagogue survived Kristallnacht and World War II (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2018)

The New Synagogue on Oranienburger strasse narrowly escaped being destroyed that night through the brave intervention of a district police chief, Wilhelm Krützfeld. It is around the corner from Tucholsky strasse, where I was staying in Berlin. I was visiting synagogues, museums, houses, factories and hiding places, and the former concentration camp at Sachsenhausen.

Centuries-long presence

A plaque commemorates the centenary of the New Synagogue and recalls Kristallnacht (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2018)

The Jewish community had an oft-interrupted presence in Berlin since the 13th century. For centuries, Berlin had a vibrant Jewish culture, and was the birthplace of important Jewish movements including the Jewish Enlightenment in the 17th century and the Reform and modern Orthodox movements.

When the Neue Synagoge or New Synagogue opened in 1866, it was seen as an architectural masterpiece. The opening was such an important event that the attendance included Count Otto von Bismarck, soon to be the first chancellor of the German Empire.

The name ‘new’ refers to the reformed, modern rites and practices. The building was designed by Eduard Knoblauch and completed after his death by Friedrich August Stüller. It was designed in the Moorish style to resemble the Alhambra in Spain, and could hold 3,200 people.

The Jewish community continued to thrive in Berlin until the rise of the Weimar Republic: 160,000 Jews were living in Berlin in 1933. But over the next 12 years, the Holocaust reduced the Jewish population of Berlin to 8,000.

Many of Berlin’s Jewish institutions, including synagogues, schools and cultural sites, were destroyed during World War II. In the end, even the New Synagogue was damaged severely in the allied bombing of Berlin in 1943.

Remembering the Holocaust

The Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, or Holocaust Memorial, is made up of 2,711 unmarked grey stone slabs (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2018)

Nine million people, including six million Jews, were systematically murdered during the Holocaust. A room in the Memorial Information Centre and Museum on Cora-Berliner-Strasse has a continuous audio-loop reciting the names of every known Holocaust victim. It takes six years for the audio loop to complete one cycle.

Since the reunification of Berlin and Germany, the German government has worked to make Berlin a city that once again welcomes Jews, and the city and other foundations have created sites and memorials throughout the city to honour the six million Jews murdered by Hitler’s Germany.

The Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, or Holocaust Memorial, is near the Brandenburg Gate in the city centre. It was designed by the US architect Peter Eisenman and unveiled in 2005, to mark the 60th anniversary of the end of World War II. It was built on land once known as the ‘death strip,’ between East and West Berlin.

This memorial, covering 205,000 sq ft of unevenly sloping ground, is filled with 2,711 unmarked grey stone slabs arranged in a grid pattern, each with a unique shape and size and some as tall as 13 ft. The number 2,711 also corresponds to the number of pages in the Talmud.

Wandering among the slabs – did they remind me of tombstones? – is unnerving and claustrophobic, and a reminder of the mass scale of death in the Holocaust.

The courtyard off Rosenthaler strasse includes three small museums (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2018)

The ‘Empty Library’ at the Bebelplatz, near Humboldt University, was designed by Micha Ullman to recall the events on the night of 10 May 1933. This underground installation in the middle of the square is a sunken glass plate that provides a view into a room full of empty bookshelves that could accommodate about 20,000 books.

The Nazi Propaganda Minister, Joseph Goebbels, organised a nationwide book burning that night, when more than 20,000 books were thrown onto a massive bonfire in the middle of the Bebelplatz. The books included works by journalists, writers, scientists and philosophers, as well as works by Jewish writers, including Sigmund Freud and Karl Marx.

Otto Weidt (1883-1947) depicted in a mural at his former broom and brush factory (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2018)

In the middle of busy Hackescher Markt, a courtyard off Rosenthaler strasse has an independent cinema, a café-bar, an art and book shop, artists’ studios and three small museums.

The Otto Weidt Workshop for the Blind was once a small broom and brush factory. Otto Weidt is known as the ‘Schindler of Berlin.’ Before the war, he employed Jewish workers, many of them blind. Weidt was blind himself and used his profits to buy luxury goods to bribe Gestapo officers and save many of his workers.

Inside the former hiding room in Otto Weidt’s former broom and brush factory (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2018)

When the Gestapo arrested his Jewish workers in 1942, Weidt convinced the authorities to release some of them. He then hid these Jews in a back room until the end of the war, risking his own life to save theirs.

The Anne Frank Centre hosts a permanent exhibition on the Jewish girl who hid in a house in Amsterdam. The Silent Heroes Memorial Centre honours non-Jewish people who risked their lives to aid and rescue Jews.

Anne Frank depicted in a mural in the courtyard off Rosenthaler strasse (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2018)

Oldest Jewish cemetery

The gate into the former Jewish cemetery on Grosse Hamburger strasse, the oldest in Berlin, which opened in 1671 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2018)

Grosse Hamburger strasse, linking August strasse and Oranienburger strasse, was once a tolerant street, with Jewish sites shoulder-to-shoulder with other religious institutions, including Saint Hedwig’s Catholic Hospital and the Protestant cemetery of the Sophien Church.

The former Jewish cemetery on Grosse Hamburger strasse, the oldest in Berlin, opened in 1671 and closed in 1827. For more than a century and a half, it was Berlin’s only Jewish cemetery, and almost 3,000 people were buried there. The Gestapo ordered the destruction of the graves in 1943 and used the gravestones to shore up trenches dug on the site.

A surviving gravestone in the former Jewish cemetery on Grosse Hamburger strasse (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2018)

Among the few gravestones standing today is a reconstruction of the original grave of the philosopher Moses Mendelssohn (1729-1786), the leader of the Jewish enlightenment movement.

The memorial sculpture of 13 figures representing the women of Ravensbruck was designed by Will Lammert (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2018)

In front of the cemetery, a memorial sculpture of 13 figures representing the women of Ravensbruck was designed by Will Lammert and a memorial stone honours the deported Jews of Berlin.

Stones on the cemetery wall and a Star of David remember the dead (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2018)

Further along the street, the Jewish Old People’s Home opened in 1844 and the former Jewish School for Boys was founded in 1862. Both were shut in 1942 and used as holding centres. From these two buildings, more than 55,000 Jews were held and then sent to their deaths in concentration camps.

The Old People’s Home was destroyed, but the school reopened in 1993 as the Gymnasium Moses Mendelsohn and is now a co-educational school for Jewish and non-Jewish children.

At first, Jews in Berlin who had married non-Jews were exempted from deportation to concentration camps. But this policy changed in early 1943 when the Nazis began ‘Operation Factory,’ targeting Jewish men in mixed-marriages. On 28 February 1943, between 1,500 and 2,500 Jewish men were taken to the Jewish Community Welfare Office on Rosenstrasse, near Berlin’s first synagogue at Heidereutergasse, dedicated in 1714.

Fearing that the next step was deportation, the non-Jewish wives and relatives protested at the site. After five days of protests by the women, the men were released. The building where the men were held was destroyed, but a haunting memorial in a nearby park recalls these events.

Ingeborg Hunzinger’s ‘Women’s Block’ commemorates the women’s protest on Rosenstrasse in 1943 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2018)

The sculpture Block der Frauen (‘Women’s Block’) was carved by Ingeborg Hunzinger and dedicated in 1995. The symbols include the Menorah, the Lion of Judah, a bunch of grapes, and hands raised in the Jewish priestly blessing.

Throughout Berlin, brass tiles no bigger than the palm of my hand are embedded in the footpaths. These Stolpersteine – ‘Stumbling Stones’ – are part of a project started in 1996 by the artist Gunther Demnig.

They bear the name, birthdate, deportation date and year and place of death of Jews killed in the Holocaust and are placed in front of the victims’ homes. There are now over 5,000 Stolpersteine in Berlin, and 38,000 throughout Europe.

Irish diplomat’s warning

The site of Berlin’s first synagogue at Heidereutergasse, dedicated in 1714 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2018)

I was staying in the Spandau area in an old Jewish quarter that did not become part of Berlin officially until 1920. It still has its small-town charm, with sedate 19th century apartment buildings, lively side-streets, art galleries and cafés.

The view on every street and in every courtyard in this area seems to be dominated by the gilded cupola, domes and towers of New Synagogue. The heavily damaged New Synagogue was essentially demolished in 1958, except for the front façade and entrance. The Centrum Judaicum Foundation opened here in 1988 and the rebuilt New Synagogue opened in 1995 as a museum, cultural centre and community offices.

The congregation in the New Synagogue today is Berlin’s only Masorti synagogue. Gesa Ederberg became the first female pulpit rabbi in Berlin in 2007 when she became the rabbi of the New Synagogue.

A Menorah on the ‘Women’s Block’ carved by Ingeborg Hunzinger in 1995 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2018)

Today, there are 19 or so synagogues or Jewish houses of prayer in Berlin, compared with 94 synagogues in 1932. Most adhere to the Liberal rite, with a few Orthodox and reform synagogues. Synagogues outside the organised community including the Addass Yisroel Orthodox synagogue a few doors from where I was staying.

The Rykestrasse Synagogue, which opened in 1904, is the largest synagogue in Germany. It too survived Kristallnacht and reopened in July 1945 immediately after the war. The synagogue was fully restored in 2004 to mark its centenary.

Berlin is home to the world’s fastest growing Jewish community, believed to number about 45,000 people. Initially, Berlin attracted Jews from the former Soviet Union. The community kept growing with the arrival of thousands of Israelis and smaller numbers of young immigrants from Australia, France, the US and elsewhere. This is a diverse and sometimes divided community, from ultra-Orthodox to various reform branches to non-believers.

Since 2009, the Irish Embassy in Berlin has been located at 51 Jägerstrasse. The house was built in 1789 and once belonged to the Mendelssohn family, serving as their home and business premises.

Daniel Anthony Binchy (1899-1989), who was the Irish minister (ambassador) in Germany in 1929-1932, wrote a paper for the Jesuit journal Studies in March 1933, warning of Hitler’s imminent rise to power and the threat he posed to Germany’s Jews and to peace in Europe. It was a prescient warning, and although it was largely ignored, his sharp analysis shows Europe knew the dangers Hitler posed six years before World War II.

My generation may be the last to say we met and knew survivors of the Holocaust. The anniversary of Kristallnacht this month is one opportunity to ensure their stories continue to be told and the memories are handed on to the generations that follow.

This feature was first published in November 2018 in the ‘Church Review’ (Dublin and Glendalough) and the ‘Diocesan Magazine’ (Cashel, Ferns and Ossory)

Four ‘Stolpersteine’ or ‘Stumbling Stones’ on Rosenthaler strasse by Gunther Demnig commemorate the Salinger family (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2018)