A search for the site of Greyfriars and the heart of Franciscan intellectual life in mediaeval Oxford

‘The new religion is consumerism and massive malls are its cathedrals’ … Westgate Oxford was built on top of the extensive remains of the mediaeval Greyfriars friary (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Patrick Comerford

The large shopping centres throughout Britain represent the consumer-driven urban environment that thrived with Thatcherism. The new religion became consumerism and massive malls became its cathedrals, where people are found like sheep with a shepherd, shopping around for salvation.

As Brian Appleyard pointed out in the Independent back in 1993, we have turned many run-of-the-mill towns into cities by building cathedrals called malls: ‘The religious parallel is precise and detailed: these malls have naves, aisles, triforia, clerestories, cruciform plans and holy water features. Here, through shopping, we seek out ‘value’, apply the moral code of consumerism and aspire to a better life.’

Westgate Oxford, previously known as the Westgate Centre and built as Westgate Shopping Centre, is the main shopping centre in the centre of Oxford. It was first built in 1970-1972 to designs by Douglas Murray and it was extensively remodelled and extended in 2016-2017.

When the centre was first built in the 1970s, part of the work destroyed archaeological remains of part of mediaeval Oxford. During the redevelopment in 2015-2017, Oxford Archaeology carried out architectural investigations into the extensive remains of the mediaeval Greyfriars friary (1244-1538), and the discoveries included stone foundations, wooden and other artefacts, and part of a mediaeval tiled floor.

My search for the remains of the vast Greyfriars site in Oxford began at Friars Wharf (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

I had a brief view of the modern Greyfriars buildings in Oxford recently, including the Church of Saint Edmund and Saint Frideswide or Greyfriars on Iffley Road in East Oxford. So, when we were back in Oxford a few days ago, one of the ecclesiastical sites I went in search of was the original Greyfriars or Franciscan friary, founded by Saint Agnellus of Pisa in 1224.

After visiting two neighbouring churches, Holy Rood Church on Abingdon Road and Saint Matthew’s Church on Marlborough Road, last week, I crossed back over the River Thames at the Gasworks Pipe Bridge to the site of the former gasworks and Friars Wharf to begin a search for the once extensive site of the medieval friary that had been an influential establishment in Oxford for over 300 years.

A new interactive archaeological and history trail has been developed at Westgate, showcasing artefacts uncovered during the excavation of the site, the largest exposure of medieval buildings yet seen in the city. The trail has been created in partnership with Oxford Archaeology and involves several marker in and around Westgate.

Each marker includes information and items of significance uncovered in archaeological excavations, including:

• the vanished suburb of St Ebbe’s
• original pavement from the Franciscan Friary
• art inspired by the Franciscan theologian and philosopher Roger Bacon

Visitors and local people are invited to interact with the trail and to find out more about the dig by scanning the QR codes on the totems in the centre, or by visiting the Westgate Oxford website with their smartphones. Printed maps are also available.

The trail signposts other locations in Oxford, including the Weston Library, the Bates Collection at Saint Aldate’s Church, the Pitt Rivers Museum and Oxford Castle Quarter. The trail was the culmination of many years work alongside Oxford Archaeology.

Roger Bacon Lane … one of the street names remembering the Franciscans of Oxford (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

The Franciscans were founded by Saint Francis of Assisi in 1210. He sent nine friars to England in 1224 under Saint Agnellus of Pisa, who founded the Franciscan or Greyfriars Friary in Oxford between Saint Ebbe’s Church and the city wall.

The friary started in a single house between Saint Ebbe’s Church and the mediaeval city wall. The popularity of the Franciscan friars as teachers in the University of Oxford meant they soon outgrew their original site. In 1244, Henry III granted the Greyfriars land and water south of the city wall and they received royal permission to demolish part of the wall to build their new church. The Franciscans were given permission to make a ‘little gate’ in the city wall to give them access to the city, and this is reserved in the name of Littlegate Street.

The T-shaped plan of the friary church provided the largest possible preaching area. Pieces of stained and painted glass, decorated floor tiles and a small statue, probably of a saint, were among the archaeological finds and give a glimpse of what the church might have looked like. Burials were found under the floor of the church, but the body of Saint Agnellus was not identified. Other burials were excavated from the graveyard.

The cloisters were to the south of the church and a complex of other buildings south of that probably included the monks’ sleeping quarters or dormitory, their washhouse or reredorter, the chapter house, the sacristy, and possibly a watermill.

More friars minor moved to Oxford when the University of Paris was dispersed in 1229-1230. The Franciscan friars of Oxford quickly earned their international academic and intellectual reputations, they had the ear of kings and popes, and they put Oxford more prominently on the map. They were politically influential and that in turn helped to give the university greater status, attracting more top teachers and students.

The friary became one of the greatest mediaeval teaching institutions in Oxford and it had a pivotal importance in the history of Oxford University. Along with the Dominicans of Oxford, the Franciscans were a major force in transforming the university, focusing on intellectually rigorous and challenging subjects.

Oxford University claims to have been founded in 1096, and it grew rapidly from 1167, when Henry II prohibited English students from attending the University of Paris. Before the Franciscans arrived in Oxford, it was already specialised in teaching practical vocationally oriented courses like letter writing, Latin grammar, classical speech-making, basic maths and practical law.

However, the Franciscans and their Dominican contemporaries and rivals introduced a new emphasis on theology in the curriculum that in turn led to teaching advanced philosophy, physics, natural history, geology and even optics. At that stage, theology was regarded as the cutting-edge intellectual discipline, and was known as the ‘Queen of the Sciences’.

The friars used theology and the Bible as ways to approach all other intellectual disciplines, and these mediaeval friars made Oxford the international centre of scholarship it remains to this day.

A plaque remembering Roger Bacon, the Franciscan philosopher known as Doctor Mirabilis (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Among the eminent mediaeval scholars who taught at Greyfriars were:

• Robert Grosseteste, one of mediaeval Europe’s first great mathematicians and physicists was also Bishop of Lincoln and the first Chancellor of the University of Oxford;

• Roger Bacon, a philosopher, linguist and pioneer of empirical science whose work included research into light, lenses and gunpowder;

• Haymo of Faversham, a diplomat who taught in Paris, Tours, Bologna and Padua, as well as Oxford;

• John of Peckham, who became Archbishop of Canterbury;

• John Duns Scotus, considered among the most important philosopher-theologians in Western Christendom during the late medieval period, alongside Thomas Aquinas, Bonaventure and William of Ockham;

• Alexander of Hales, a theologian and philosopher instrumental to the development of scholasticism;

• William of Ockham, a philosopher and radical political theorist who gives his name to the problem-solving principle known as ‘Ockham’s Razor’;

• the Italian friar Peter Phillarges, who was born in Neapoli in Crete and was later widely recognised as Pope Alexander V during the schism in the early 14th century, although he is now generally listed as an antipope.

Four of these great intellectual friars had interesting Latin monikers: Alexander of Hales, Doctor Irrefragabilis; Roger Bacon, Doctor Mirabilis; John Duns Scotus, Doctor Subtilis, and William of Ockham, Doctor Invincibilis.

The Castle on Paradise Street … the names of Paradise Square and Paradise Street are reminders of the ‘Paradise’ orchard at Greyfriars (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

The Franciscan order divided into two branches in 1517: the friars who had been living in city-convents and teaching in universities became known as Conventuals, while the friars who lived a more eremitical life became known as Observants; the Capuchins developed in 1528.

Greyfriars continued as an educational and religious centre until it was dissolved at the Tudor Reformations in 1538. After the dissolution of the monastic houses, the Greyfriars buildings were pulled down and many of the foundations were removed to provide building materials. The Capuchins did not return to Oxford until 1905.

The site of the Greyfriars gardens, known as Paradise, was turned into famous market gardens. By the end of the 19th century, the whole site of the Greyfriars had been was built over with streets of terraced housing, known as ‘The Friars’.

The footprint of the mediaeval friary at the south-west corner of the city walls was extensive, running between the present-day Paradise Street and the Westgate Oxford Shopping Centre.

The archaeological investigations are uncovering what life in Oxford was like during that crucial transition. The archaeological investigations are also important because the Franciscan Friary or Greyfriars was home to some of the most important scholars in mediaeval Oxford and in wider European academic life.

The first archaeological excavations of the Greyfriars were carried out in 1967-1972, before Westgate Shopping Centre was built. These uncovered the T-shaped plan of the friary church and the different phases of its construction over almost 300 years, from the 1240s until the Reformation.

Only a small part of these buildings were identified in the 1970s, but much more was discovered with further excavations in 2015-2016, revealing many more stone buildings south of the friary church. Combined, these excavations constitute some of the most extensive plans of any mediaeval urban friary in England.

Paradise Garden (2017) is a sculpture by William Cobbing (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Paradise Garden (2017) is a sculpture by William Cobbing that consists of seven quarried stone boulder forms inlaid with glazed ceramic tiles. They reference the archaeology, history and flora of the place, and the constellation of sculptures complements the landscaping design of Greyfriars Place, inviting the viewer to reflect on the history of the site.

Many of the street names and placenames in the area recall the presence of the Franciscan friars and the Dominicans in the area until the 16th century, including Old Greyfriars Street, Blackfriars Road, Friars Wharf, Preachers Lane, Trinity Street.

Roger Bacon gives his name to Roger Bacon Lane, where Saint Ebbe’s Church has its offices. The names of Paradise Square and Paradise Street are reminders of the ‘Paradise’ orchard at Greyfriars.

Old Greyfriars Street at Westgate is a reminder of the presence of the Franciscans in Oxford for over 300 years (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Greyfriars in East Oxford, a convent with a publishing house, and two other religious sites in Oxford

The Church of Saint Edmund and Saint Frideswide or Greyfriars on Iffley Road in East Oxford (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Patrick Comerford

During my walkabout in Oxford last week, by the river, through Iffley in East Oxford, and in the city centre, I had opportunities to see from the outside four religious houses that have interesting places in the story of religious communities and community life in Oxford.

Greyfriars has one of the most distinctive buildings in Oxford; it is the only flint-stone Norman-style building in the city, and its green spire is prominent along the Iffley Road in East Oxford. Greyfriars is a Catholic parish and a Franciscan friary, and until 2008 it was also a permanent private hall of the University of Oxford.

The original Greyfriars church and friary in Oxford was founded by the Franciscans in the marshy St Ebbe’s area of the city in 1224. The mediaeval friars in Oxford included the theologian Robert Grosseteste, also Bishop of Lincoln and the first Chancellor of the University of Oxford. Other early Franciscans in mediaeval Greyfriars in Oxford included Roger Bacon, John Duns Scotus, William of Ockham, and the Antipope Alexander V, who was from Neapolis in Crete.

The mediaeval friary was in the south-west corner of the city walls. Its footprint was extensive, running between the present-day Paradise Street and the Westgate Oxford Shopping Centre. The Franciscan order divided into two branches in 1517: the friars who had been living in city-convents and teaching in universities became known as Conventuals, while the friars who lived a more eremitical life became known as Observants; the Capuchins developed in 1528.

The original Greyfriars in Oxford continued as an educational and religious centre in the Middle Ages before being dissolved at the Tudor Reformations in 1538, and the Capuchins did not return to Oxford until 1905.

Greyfriars Church or the Church of Saint Edmund and Saint Frideswide on Iffley Road was built in 1910-1911 as a chapel of ease to the Jesuits of the Church of Saint Aloysius, Woodstock Road. The dedication recalls Saint Edmund of Abingdon, Archbishop of Canterbury, who gives his name to St Edmund Hall, Oxford, and Saint Frideswide, the patron of Oxford. It succeeded Saint Ignatius chapel in St Clement’s (1793) as the principal site of Roman Catholic worship in east Oxford.

The church was designed by the priest-architect William Edward (Father Benedict) Williamson (1868-1948). The builders were Hunt & Sons of High Wycombe. Williamson’s other works include the Jesuit church of Saint Ignatius in Stamford Hill, north London, and a range of monastic buildings at Farnborough Abbey in Hampshire – both, like his church in Oxford, in a neo-Romanesque style.

The church is listed Grade II for its architectural interest as an austerely dignified neo-Romanesque church by an accomplished architect, with a particularly serene and well-proportioned interior. The church is at the north end of the long range of buildings at Greyfriars on the west side of Iffley Road and is aligned north-south. The church is built in a plain neo-Norman style. The main entrance is through the tower, with an organ gallery above.

Meanwhile, the Capuchin Franciscans had returned to Oxford in 1905 when they founded Saint Anselm’s Friary, and it was recognised by the university as a house of studies in 1910. The Jesuits transferred responsibility for the Church of Saint Edmund and Saint Frideswide on Iffley Road in 1928 to the Capuchins who already ran a student hostel at Grosseteste House in a pair of nearby houses on Iffley Road. The present friary buildings, designed by the Oxford architect Gilbert Gardner under the supervision of Father Cuthbert Hess, were built in 1930-1931 to the south of the church.

The Capuchins first named the house Grosseteste House after the first head of the original Greyfriars. When the present building was completed in 1930, the name of Greyfriars was adopted once more.

Greyfriars became a private hall in the university in 1957. Greyfriars had an unusual position in Oxford, and the university hall and Franciscan friary were part of the same institution and coexisted on the same site. The friars and the students mingled on the site and shared mealtimes. The hall had a tradition of noted theology academics, but students were in a range of disciplines, including English, history, theology, geography and law. Greyfriars was closely linked with Balliol College, with a long-standing tradition of sporting links.

In October 2007, the Capuchins announced they planned to close Greyfriars as a permanent private hall, for financial and personnel reasons. All students and prospective applicants were transferred to Regent’s Park College, and the hall closed in June 2008, despite a last-minute attempt by the Holy See to save the hall. At the time Greyfriars closed, the fellows included Aidan Nichols and honorary fellows included Archbishop Vincent Nichols of Birmingham. There was surprise in some circles that the Greyfriars students did not migrate to Saint Benet’s Hall, the Benedictine PPH, or Blackfriars Hall, the Dominican PPH; Saint Benet’s Hall closed in 2022. The buildings continue to house the friary.

The Fairacres Road entrance to the Convent of the Incarnation off Iffley Road, Oxford (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

As I was walking back from the River and Donnington Bridge towards Iffley Road, I found myself at the back gate of the Convent of the Incarnation on Fairacres Road, although the main convent entrance is at Daubeny Road. The Convent of the Incarnation – known as Fairacres – is home to around 15 sisters, and their work includes prayer, hospitality, study. And publishing.

The Sisters of the Love of God began in 1906, and their first convent was a small house in East Oxford. They moved a little further from the centre of Oxford in 1911, the present chapel was built in 1923.

As the community numbers grew from 1928 into the 1970s, new houses opened in Hemel Hampstead, at Burwash in Sussex and near Staplehurst in Kent, and a house opened in New Zealand in 1995. By 2005, falling numbers and increasing age led to closing the other houses, and community life since then has been centred in Oxford, where their story began.

Later this week, on the Feast of the Birth of Saint John the Baptist (Wednesday 24 June 2026), Sister Christine (South) will be blessed and installed as the new Reverend Mother of the Fairacres Convent.

The community established a small publishing house, SLG Press, in 1967 and produces a journal with short theological papers twice a year, the Fairacres Chronicle. The main publishing activity is a list of over 200 short books on prayer and the spiritual life, including a significant collection of Syriac patristics works and a series of contemplative poetry. The authors include AM Allchin, Professor Sebastian Brock, Father John Chryssavgis, Professor Andrew Louth, Professor John McGuckin, Archbishop Michael Ramsey, Sister Benedicta Ward, Metropolitan Kallistos Ware and Archbishop Rowan Williams.

The Convent of the Incarnation off Iffley Road is home to the Sisters of the Love of God and SLG Press (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

At the corner of Holywell Street, St Cross Road and Longwall Street, a plaque to four Catholic Martyrs was erected at 100 Holywell Street in October 2008 and reads: ‘Near this spot George Nichols, Richard Yaxley, Thomas Belson, Humphrey Pritchard, were executed for their Catholic Faith, 5 July 1589.

The plaque was organised by Dr Joseph Shaw of Saint Benet's Hall, with permission from Merton College, the owner of the house. The four men are also remembered on the plaque commemorating all the martyrs of the Reformation, both Roman Catholic and Protestant, erected in the University Church of Saint Mary the Virgin on 19 June 2008.

All four men were hanged at Holywell Gallows in Oxford in 1589 were Roman Catholics living in Oxford. The first two were priests, and the second two were laymen.

Father George Nichols was born in Oxford in 1550 and studied at Brasenose College. He was ordained in Reims in France in 1583, before being sent back to Oxford. Father Richard Yaxley (alias Tankard) Yaxley was born in Boston, Lincolnshire. He was ordained in Reims In 1585 and returned to England in 1586.

Thomas Belson was born at Brill in Buckinghamshire and studied at Saint Mary Hall, Oxford, and at the English College in Reims in 1584. He was a prisoner in the Tower of London for a while, before returning to Oxford, where George Nichols was his confessor.

Humphrey Pritchard, or Prichard or ap Richard, or ap Richard ap Gruffydd or Griffin or Griffith, was a Welsh servant at the Catherine Wheel Inn in Oxford, and a tailor. He was said to have served the Catholics who came to the inn in every way possible during the 12 or 14 years before his execution. Some Catholic priests in Oxford were hunted down at the Catherine Wheel Inn in Magdalen Street, which was owned by a Catholic widow.

All four men named on the plaque were arrested at the Catherine Wheel Inn. The priests were held in Bocardo in Cornmarket Street, then the city gaol, and the two laymen in Oxford Castle, then the county gaol, before being sent to London, where they were questioned and tortured in the Bridewell and in the Tower of London.

The four were returned to Oxford on 30 June 1589. The two priests were convicted of high treason and hanged, drawn, and quartered at Holywell Gallows, and their parts parboiled in a cauldron before being fixed to the wall of Oxford Castle, where they were mutilated by Protestants. Two days later the heads and quarters were removed by the authorities and placed on high poles over the four town gates of Oxford. The two laymen who had been convicted of felony were simply hanged. All four martyrs were beatified by Pope John Paul II in 1987.

A plaque to four Catholic Martyrs at 100 Holywell Street, at the corner with St Cross Road and Longwall Street (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Grandpont House, near Folly Bridge, takes its name from a long causeway on the River Thmas known as Grandpont that once stretched along almost the full length of Abingdon Road.

Grandpont House sits on stone arches over a water channel off the River Thames. It was built in 1785 for Sir William Elias Taunton (1744-1825), the City Solicitor and Town Clerk of Oxford. The Taunton family owned Grandpont House until 1847, when it was acquired by Brasenose College. It was the home in the 1850s and 1860s of Thomas Randall (1805-1887), a tailor who may have been the inspiration for the Hatter in Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.

Prince Hassan, son of the Khedive of Egypt, lived in the house in 1869-1872 while he was studying law at Brasenose. The chaplain of Brasenose, the Revd HC Wace, was living at Grandpont House In the early 20th century. Another Brasenose Fellow, William Holdsworth, Vinerian Professor of Law, was living there From 1922 to 1944.

Josemaría Escrivá, the founder of Opus Dei, who spent five summers in England, was keen to open an Opus Dei in Oxford. He visited Grandpont House in 1958 and the house and grounds were bought in April 1959. Grandpont House is one of several properties which is owned and operated by Netherhall Educational Association, which is linked with Opus Dei.

Grandpont House was bought by Opus Dei after Josemaría Escrivá visited in 1958 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Holy Cross Chapel near the bus station in Iraklion recalls the lengthy story of the Catholic presence in Crete

A cross on the wall of the Chapel of the Holy Cross, near the KTEL bus station in Iraklion (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

Over the past week or so, I have been going through old photographs of and postings about churches, chapels and monasteries in Crete and throughout Greece, trying to put together a guide to those churches and church sites I have visited, similar to those I have compiled for churches in Milton Keynes and Buckingham, Lichfield and Staffordshire, Oxford, Wexford, Limerick and Dublin.

I have been a frequent visitor to Greece for almost 40 years, since the late 1980s, when I first stayed in Rethymnon.

As my list of Greek churches, cathedral, chapels and monasteries grows, I am surprised how many churches and church sites I have visited, and as I compile the guide the number has already grown to more than 130, of which almost 80 are in Crete alone. But I am also taken aback by the number of churches I have visited in Greece but never blogged about or have lost photographs of.

Although I wrote a now-lost feature as a guide to the cathedrals and churches of Athens to mark the Athens Olympics in 2004, all those notes and photographs seem to have been lost on old laptops or on memory sticks that no longer seem to remember anything. Gone too are my photographs from my journeys throughout the Peloponnese and past visits to many islands on working trips and family holidays, including Halki, Ikaria, Kalymnos, Kephallonia, Kos, Patmos, Pserimos, Rhodes, Samos, Santorini and Zakynthos.

But, as I was going through those photographs and blog postings over the past week or so, I also came across photographs of a church in Iraklion that I have noticed during recent stopovers when I have spent Easter weeks in Rethymnon and visited friends in Piskopiano or had dinner with old friends in Iraklion, and two other chapels that I had visited during treks across the mountains from Rethymnon to the Monastery of Preveli on the south coast of Crete.

The Chapel of the Holy Cross in Iraklion was built in 1893, five years ago before Ottoman Turkish rule in Crete came to an end (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

I have known Iraklion throughout all those 40 years since the 1980s. The old KTEL bus station was moved a few years ago from beneath the old Megaron Hotel about 200 metres east and a bit inland. The main bus station in Iraklion now stands on Ikarou Avenue, where it serves the long-distance intercity buses on routes along the north coast of Crete, including buses to Chania and Rethymnon to the west and Hersonissos and Agios Nikolaos to the east.

Without that move, Ikarou Avenue may have remained a back street in Iraklion and I might never have noticed the small 130-year-old Catholic chapel on Ikarou Avenue. The Chapel of the Holy Cross is at the old Catholic cemetery, close to the KTEL bus station and on a side road off Efesou Road.

The Chapel of the Holy Cross (Παρεκκλήσιο Τίμιος Σταυρός) was a built in 1893, five years before the expulsion of the Ottoman Turks in 1898 and the formation of an autonomous Cretan State headed by Prince George of Greece and Denmark. Crete was not fully incorporated into the modern Greek state until 1906, and this was not recognised internationally until 1913.

The Chapel of the Holy Cross (Παρεκκλήσιο Τίμιος Σταυρός) was a built in 1893 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

In the past, during Venetian rule, Iraklion had many Catholic churches, including Saint Mark’s Cathedral in the heart of the city or prominent monastic churches such as the Dominican Church of Saint Peter.

Pope Alexander V is the only Pope to have been born a Catholic in Crete. He was born Peter Phillarges (Πέτρος Φιλάργης) near modern Neapoli in 1339, under Venetian rule, and became a Franciscan. He was pope from 1409 to 1410, but is now regarded as an antipope.

The Catholic Diocese of Crete was re-established as a bishopric in 1874, initially as a suffragan of the Archbishop of İzmir. Today, the Bishop of Crete is a suffragan of the Archbishop of Naxos, Andros, Tinos and Mykonos, the Catholic cathedral is in Chania, and there are Catholic churches in Crete in Iraklion, Chania and Rethymnon.

Plaques on the wall of the Chapel of the Holy Cross recall the work of Father George Roussos and Father Petros Roussos in restoring the building (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

The small, pre-independence Chapel of the Holy Cross near the new KTEL bus station was built at the entrance to old Catholic cemetery in Iraklion in 1893 by Italian priests serving the small remaining Catholic community in Iraklion.

Today, the main Catholic church in Iraklion is the Church of Saint John the Baptist at Antoniou Patros, near the old port. The church was first built in 1888. The church was severely damaged in the earthquake in 1959 and had to be demolished and rebuilt.There has been a long presence of Capuchin Franciscans in Crete and the pastor at that time, Father George Roussos, built the present church in 1961-1962. Father Petros Roussos, who was the pastor from 1980 to 2008, also refurbished the Capuchin monastery next to the church.

Despite its small size, the church has mass in six different languages and welcomes everyone to coffee afterwards. Daily Mass is usually in the evening, while the Sunday morning Masses are often multilingual to meet the needs of both tourists and expats.

Plaques on the wall of the Chapel of the Holy Cross recall the work of Father George Roussos and Father Petros Roussos in restoring the building. Today, the chapel is primarily a resting place for funerals in the old Catholic cemetery and it is seldom used for the celebration of public Masses. But I may never have noticed this chapel if the main KTEL station in Iraklion had not been moved a few hundred metres a few years ago.

As for that catalogue or index of the churches I have visited in Crete and throughout Greece over the past 40 years, I hope to have that ready within the next few days, as well as some of those other churches, chapels and monasteries that I have found in photographs that I thought I had lost.

The chapel is primarily a resting place for funerals and is seldom used for public Masses (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Saint Patrick’s, Soho Square, was first built for poor Irish Catholics living in squalid slums in London

Saint Patrick’s Church on Soho Square is one of the oldest post-Reformation Catholic parish churches in London (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Patrick Comerford

As I was walking around Soho Square recently, in search of Soho’s Jewish history and of local architectural landmarks, I also visited the two churches on the square: Saint Patrick’s Roman Catholic Church and the French Protestant Church.

Saint Patrick’s on Soho Square is one of the oldest post-Reformation Catholic parishes in London, and the original church on the site was the first Catholic place of worship to open in London after the Roman Catholic Relief Acts were passed in 1778 and 1791 and the first post-Reformation church in England dedicated to Saint Patrick.

The first church on the site was in a building behind Carlisle House and was consecrated in 1792. The present church, built in 1891-1893, is a Grade II* listed building designed by the Leeds architect John Kelly.

Inside Saint Patrick’s Church, Soho Square, designed by the Leeds architect John Kelly and built in 1891-1893 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Catholic martyrs on their way to execution at Tyburn in the 16th and 17th centuries, were given their last drink in Saint Giles’s and were buried in the churchyard of Saint Giles-in-the-Fields. The last of these martyrs, Saint Oliver Plunkett, Archbishop of Armagh, was executed at Tyburn in 1681.

Several embassies were in Soho in the 18th century, and they had private chapels where Catholics attended Mass. The French Embassy and chapel were in Greek Street in the 1730s; the Neapolitan Embassy and chapel were at 13 Soho Square for a time; and 21 Soho Square housed the Spanish Embassy and chapel in the 1770s, although it later became the White House, an unsavoury hotel and high-class brothel.

Carlisle House was built in 1690 as the town house of the Earl of Carlisle. It was leased in the 1760s by Teresa Cornelys, a Venetian adventuress and sometime opera singer, whose former lovers included Casanova. The house was a venue for masquerade balls, operas and recitals until she was fined for staging operas without a licence. The old mansion was demolished in 1788 and two houses, 21a and 21b Soho Square, were built on the site.

The number of Catholics living in the area rose significantly in the 18th century, with thousands of Irish immigrants living around the Rookery, a squalid slum on the edge of Soho often called ‘Little Ireland’ or ‘Little Dublin’. In response to their plight, the Confraternity of Saint Patrick was founded in October 1791 by a group of prosperous Irish Catholics who wanted to acquire Carlisle House and convert it into a chapel.

The monument to Father Arthur O’Leary in Saint Patrick’s Church, Soho Square (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Father Arthur O’Leary (1729-1802), a celebrated Irish Capuchin preacher and controversialist who was staying at Wardour Street, raised the funds to lease Carlisle House. He was born in Fanlobbus, Dunmanway, Co Cork. He was educated by the Capuchins in Saint Malo, where he was ordained and spent 24 years as a prison chaplain. He returned to Cork in 1777 and his preaching soon attracted large numbers. He played a key role in the ‘Paper War’, arguing for Catholic Emancipation, and later supported the Act of Union as a means to Catholic emancipation.

Father O’Leary moved to London and he was a chaplain at the Spanish Embassy from 1789 until he died. His social circle included Edmund Burke, Richard Brinsley Sheridan and Charles James Fox.

O’Leary acquired a 62-year lease on the property on Soho Square, and the chapel was solemnly opened on 29 September 1792. Bishop John Douglass (1743-1812) presided at the Mass and Father O’Leary preached the sermon.

A statue of Saint Patrick in Saint Patrick’s Church, Soho Square (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Father Daniel Gaffey became the chaplain of the new church, but for many years it continued to be known as ‘Father O’Leary’s Chapel’. Its fittings included a painting of the Crucifixion by Van Dyck or a pupil. The organ was built by Robert and William Gray in 1793 and the early organists included Vincent Novello, the musician, composer and music publisher.

When Pope Pius VI died in captivity in France in 1799 a prisoner of Napoleon, the papal envoy in London, Cardinal Charles Erskine (1739-1811), chose Saint Patrick’s for the official papal requiem. The Mass began at 10 in the morning and finished at 3:30 in the afternoon, with Father O’Leary preaching. O’Leary died a few years later in January 1802, aged 72, and was buried in Old Saint Pancras Churchyard.

The most densely crowded part of Saint Giles’s Rookery was demolished in the 1840s to make way for New Oxford Street. The number of very poor Catholics then numbered about 10,000 people. Most lived in the part of the Rookery that remained, south of New Oxford Street around Church Lane, until this too was demolished later in the 19th century.

The High Altar and sanctuary in Saint Patrick’s Church, Soho Square (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

The original Saint Patrick’s Chapel was in an unsafe conditions when it was demolished in 1889. The present church, designed by John Kelly of Leeds, was built on the site in 1891-1893.

John Kelly (1840-1904) and Edward Birchall (1839-1903) were partners in Kelly and Birchall, an architectural practice in Leeds from 1886 to 1904, specialising in churches in the Italianate and Gothic Revival styles. Kelly’s other churches include Saint Alban and Saint Stephen in St Albans, Hertfordshire (1903).

Kelly made the fullest use of the available space on a narrow site as he skilfully planned the interior, and his church transformed the site.

The church was built in the Italian Renaissance style with small-gauge dark red brick, with rubbed brick detail. It has a west campanile tower, vestibule, antechapel, aisled, apsidal sanctuary and south chapel. The main entrance has a Roman-style porch with Corinthian columns. Above the entrance is the inscription: Ut Christiani ita et Romani sitis (‘Be ye Christians as those of the Roman Church’), a quotation from the writings of Saint Patrick.

Inside Saint Patrick’s Church, Soho Square, facing the west end (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

The main entrance has a portico in Portland stone, with Corinthian columns and pilasters, and the Papal tiara and keys set into the pediment. This forms the base of the imposing 125 ft high campanile that rises in arcaded stages. A niche in the tower has a statue of Saint Patrick by Boulton and Sons.

The tower, the main body of the church and the narthex are built in red brick. A blind arcade forms the north wall of the nave along Sutton Street (now Sutton Row) with a clerestory and another blind arcade above. The octagonal vestibule at the bottom of the campanile, and the antechapel beyond it, occupy the entire width of the old presbytery.

Inside, the church has an elegant, light and airy nave without aisles. The round-headed arches are separated by tall Corinthian pilasters that form shallow recesses along the sides. These bays accommodate a series of side chapels, shrines and the confessionals.

A plain-glassed clerestory runs along the north and south sides of the nave and along the west end wall over the gallery, and the west wall has a large, round window. The barrel-vaulted ceiling is coffered. The nave ends in an apsidal sanctuary, the two separated by marble altar rails with intricately carved, pierced panels.

The Baptistry in Saint Patrick’s Church, Soho Square (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

The high altar is built of white marble with amber marble panels. The two tiers of the apse wall, above and below the cornice, are ornamented with Corinthian pilasters. The arch and domed ceiling of the sanctuary are ribbed and panelled, in the same manner as the nave.

The iron and brass tabernacle from the old chapel was adapted to the new high altar. The Gray organ had been rebuilt by Hill in 1882 and was installed on the left of the sanctuary.

The Stations of the Cross from the old chapel were re-erected in the nave. The former high altar was used in Our Lady of Sorrows Chapel, with the altarpiece of the Crucifixion. Phyffers’s Pietà and the Mater Dolorosa attributed to Dolci were in the same chapel, along with a relic of Saint Oliver Plunkett.

The elaborate, neo-Renaissance Carrara marble altar in Our Lady of Lourdes Chapel, at the west end of the nave on the south side, was donated to the church in 1892.

The 18th-century Carrara marble Pietà in the vestibule (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

The 18th-century Carrara marble Pietà in the vestibule features an angel holding the body of Christ. A large mural memorial commemorating Father O’Leary, with his portrait carved in relief, was re-erected in the antechapel on the right. I also noticed a copy of Murillo’s ‘Mater Dolorosa’ at the back of the church, below the gallery.

The church holds several old pre-Reformation vestments, including chasubles once used in the private chapel of Catherine of Aragon, the first wife of Henry VIII. Their original embroidery and orphreys have been restored and, 500 years later, they are still worn on special occasions.

During the Blitz, a German bomb penetrated the church roof on 19 November 1940, struck a pier on the south side of the nave and hit the floor, but failed to detonate.

A copy of Murillo’s ‘Mater Dolorosa’ at the back of the church, below the gallery (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Many alterations have been made to Kelly’s church since it was built. The old Stations of the Cross were replaced by ones in cast relief, the former high altar was moved to the Our Lady of Sorrows Chapel, and the altar to Saint Anthony of Padua in the antechapel dates from the 1920s.

Archbishop Fulton Sheen, the first Catholic television evangelist, was a regular preacher in Saint Patrick’s from the 1920s to the 1960s. He once described himself as the ‘unappointed curate of the Parish’ and often stayed in the parish house.

In the 1960s, in response to the reforms following the Second Vatican Council, the high altar was adapted from the mensa of the original and brought forward to a lower position, leaving the reredos in situ.

Saint Patrick’s Church was renovated and refurbished at a cost of £4 million in 2010-2011. During the renovations, Mass was celebrated nearby in the Chapel of Saint Barnabas, at the House of Saint Barnabas.

Today, only a handful of resident Catholics remains in the parish. Hundreds of people continue to attend Saint Patrick’s Church, but they are mostly visitors, tourists and people working in the area. The church continues to attract immigrants and migrant workers from across London, and Mass is regularly celebrated in both Spanish and Portuguese.

Looking out on Soho Square from Saint Patrick’s Church (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Daily prayers in Ordinary Time with USPG: (46) 13 July 2023

Holy Trinity Church, or the Father Mathew Memorial Church, the Capuchin church on Father Mathew Quay, Cork (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

We are in Ordinary Time in the Church Calendar, and this week began with the Fifth Sunday after Trinity (9 July 2023).

Before this day begins, I am taking some time this morning for prayer, reading and reflection.

Over these weeks after Trinity Sunday, I have been reflecting each morning in these ways:

1, Looking at relevant images or stained glass window in a church, chapel or cathedral I know;

2, the Gospel reading of the day in the Church of England lectionary;

3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary.

Building work on the church began in 1832, but it was not completed until 1890 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Holy Trinity Church (Father Mathew Memorial Church), Cork:

Holy Trinity Church, also known as the Father Mathew Memorial Church, is a Gothic Revival church and friary on Father Mathew Quay, on the banks of the River Lee in Cork.

The church belongs to the Order of Friars Minor Capuchin and is the only church dedicated to Father Theobald Mathew (1790-1856), the Temperance campaigner.

The Capuchins arrived in Cork in 1637, 12 years after the first Capuchin community in Ireland was established in Dublin.

The church was built by the Capuchins, under the guidance of Father Theobald Mathew, on what was once known as Charlotte Quay. It replaced an earlier, smaller church that stand in a lane nearby, behind Sullivan’s Quay.

The name of Charlotte Quay was later changed in honour of Father Mathew.

The church was designed by the architect George Richard Pain (1793-1838). It is aligned on a north/south axis, rather than the traditional, liturgical east/west axis.

The foundation stone was laid on 10 October 1832, Father Mathew’s birthday. Pain died in 1838, and supervision was taken over by Thomas Coakley. The Great Famine interrupted the building project, and Thomas Deane was chosen to complete the church without its portico and spire, while William Atkins was responsible for the interior.

The church finally opened on 10 October 1850. However, the church was not completed until 1890, in time for the centenary of Father Mathew’s birth. The friary to the west of the church was completed in 1884.

Inside the church are some magnificent examples of stained-glass windows. The sanctuary window is dedicated to Daniel O’Connell, and a number of windows on the south aisle are the work of Harry Clarke and the Harry Clarke studios.

One window was commissioned by the Cork and District Trades and Labour Council and dedicated to the Cork Capuchin Brother Thomas Dowling, who had mediated during a strike. It was produced by Joshua Clarke to a design by his son Harry Clarke and under his supervision. It depicts Christ as Prince of Peace and Saint Francis holding a dove, with the city’s skyline at the bottom of the window.

Two other windows were commissioned from Harry Clarke and his brother, Walter Clarke, depicting the Sacred Heart and the Immaculate Conception being venerated by Munster saints.

The Father Mathew Memorial Church was designed by the architect George Richard Pain (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Mark 10: 7-15 (NRSVA):

[Jesus said:] 7 ‘As you go, proclaim the good news, “The kingdom of heaven has come near.” 8 Cure the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, cast out demons. You received without payment; give without payment. 9 Take no gold, or silver, or copper in your belts, 10 no bag for your journey, or two tunics, or sandals, or a staff; for labourers deserve their food. 11 Whatever town or village you enter, find out who in it is worthy, and stay there until you leave. 12 As you enter the house, greet it. 13 If the house is worthy, let your peace come upon it; but if it is not worthy, let your peace return to you. 14 If anyone will not welcome you or listen to your words, shake off the dust from your feet as you leave that house or town. 15 Truly I tell you, it will be more tolerable for the land of Sodom and Gomorrah on the day of judgement than for that town.’

Inside the church, facing the liturgical east (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Prayer:

The theme this week in ‘Pray With the World Church,’ the Prayer Diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), is ‘Fighting Climate Change Appeal – Hermani’s story’. This theme was introduced on Sunday.

Find out more HERE.

The Prayer in the USPG Prayer Diary today (13 July 2023) invites us to pray:

We bring before you our world leaders and governments as they make decisions around the environment and climate. May they work together with the understanding that all must be involved to create change.

Collect:

Almighty and everlasting God,
by whose Spirit the whole body of the Church
is governed and sanctified:
hear our prayer which we offer for all your faithful people,
that in their vocation and ministry
they may serve you in holiness and truth
to the glory of your name;
through our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

Post Communion:

Grant, O Lord, we beseech you,
that the course of this world may be so peaceably ordered
by your governance,
that your Church may joyfully serve you in all godly quietness;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

The Sacred Heart depicted with angels and saints in a Harry Clarke window in the Father Mathew Memorial Church (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Yesterday’s reflection

Continued tomorrow

Saints in one of the Harry Clarke Windows in the Father Mathew Memorial Church (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

Praying in Ordinary Time 2021: 176, Il Redentore, Venice

Il Redentore, the Chiesa del Santissimo Redentore, is Andrea Palladio’s great church on the waterfront on Giudecca (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2021)

Patrick Comerford

This morning, we enter the last week of Ordinary Time. Today is the Feast of Christ the King or the Sunday before Advent. Later this morning (21 November 2021), I hope to preach at Morning Prayer in Saint Mary’s Church, Askeaton, and to preside and preach at the Parish Eucharist in Sant Brendan’s Church, Kilnaughtin (Tarbert), Co Kerry.

Each morning in the time in the Church Calendar known as Ordinary Time, I have been reflecting in these ways:

1, photographs of a church or place of worship;

2, the day’s Gospel reading;

3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary.

My theme on this prayer diary this week is seven more churches in Venice. Earlier in this prayer diary, I illustrated my morning reflections with images from churches in Venice: Saint Mark’s Basilica (20 June), Salute (21 June), Torcello (22 June), San Giorgio Maggiore (23 June), San Geremia (24 June), Santa Sofia (25 June) and San Michele and churches on Murano and Burano (26 June). While I was in Venice this month, I reflected on the synagogues in the Ghetto in Venice (7-13 November)

As part of my reflections and this prayer diary this week, I look at seven more churches I visited in Venice earlier this month. This theme begins today (21 November 2021) with photographs from Il Redentore, Palladio’s great church on the island of Giudecca.

Inside the Chiesa del Santissimo Redentore or Church of the Most Holy Redeemer, known as Il Redentore (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2021)

The Chiesa del Santissimo Redentore (Church of the Most Holy Redeemer), known as Il Redentore, was designed by Italian Renaissance architect Andrea Palladio (1508-1580). It stands on the waterfront of the Canale della Giudecca, and dominates the skyline of the island of Giudecca. Canaletto painted the church many times, and inside there is a rich collection paintings, including works by Tintoretto, Paolo Veronese and Francesco Bassano.

The church was built as a votive church in thanksgiving God for the deliverance of Venice from a major outbreak of the plague in 1575-1576, when 46,000 people, or 25% to 30% of the population) died.

The Senate of Venice commissioned Andrea Palladio to design the church. The Senate wanted a church on a square plan, but Palladio designed a single nave church with three chapels on either side

The prominent position of the church on the Canale della Giudecca provided Palladio with an opportunity to design a façade inspired by the Pantheon of Rome and enhanced by being placed on a wide plinth.

Palladio required 15 steps to reach the entrance, a direct reference to the Temple in Jerusalem. Palladio’s own hope was that ‘the ascent (of the faithful) will be gradual, so that the climbing will bring more devotion.’

The cornerstone was laid by the Patriarch of Venice, Giovanni Trevisano, on 3 May 1577 and the church was consecrated in 1592. At the urging of Pope Gregory XIII, the church was put in the charge of the Order of Friars Minor Capuchin, and a small number of Friars reside in the monastery attached to the church.

Every year, the doge and senators walked across a specially built pontoon bridge from the Zattere to Giudecca to attend Mass in the church. The Festa del Redentore remains a major festival in Venice, on the third Sunday in July. A huge firework display on the previous evening is followed by a mass procession across the pontoon bridge.

Il Redentore has one of the most prominent sites of any of Palladio’s buildings, and is one of the pinnacles of his career. It is a large, white building with a dome crowned by a statue of the Redeemer.

A central triangular pediment on the façade stands above a larger, lower one. Palladio applied rigorous geometric proportions to his façades and this is reflected in Il Redentore. The overall height is four-fifths that of its overall width, while the width of the central portion is five-sixths of its height.

It has been suggested that there are some oriental influences in the exterior, particularly the two campanili that resemble minarets.

As a pilgrimage church, the building was expected to have a long nave. This was a challenge for Palladio, and the result is an eclectic building, in which the white stucco and grey stone interior combines the nave with a domed crossing in spaces that are clearly articulated yet unified. An uninterrupted Corinthian order makes its way around the entire interior.

Il Redentore includes paintings by Francesco Bassano, Lazzaro Bastiani, Carlo Saraceni, Leandro Bassano, Palma the Younger, Jacopo Bassano, Francesco Bissolo, Rocco Marconi, Paolo Veronese, Alvise Vivarini and the workshop of Tintoretto.

The sacristy has a series of wax heads of Franciscans made in 1710.

The Ascension of Christ, by the workshop of Tintoretto (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2021)

John 18: 33-37 (NRSVA):

33 Then Pilate entered the headquarters again, summoned Jesus, and asked him, ‘Are you the King of the Jews?’ 34 Jesus answered, ‘Do you ask this on your own, or did others tell you about me?’ 35 Pilate replied, ‘I am not a Jew, am I? Your own nation and the chief priests have handed you over to me. What have you done?’ 36 Jesus answered, ‘My kingdom is not from this world. If my kingdom were from this world, my followers would be fighting to keep me from being handed over to the Jews. But as it is, my kingdom is not from here.’ 37 Pilate asked him, ‘So you are a king?’ Jesus answered, ‘You say that I am a king. For this I was born, and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice.’

Inside Il Redentore, with a glimpse out to the Canale della Giudecca (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2021)

The Prayer in the USPG Prayer Diary today (21 November 2021, Christ the King) invites us to pray:

‘The Lord is King, he is robed in majesty.’
King of kings,
We wonder in Your majesty.
May we worship You
For evermore.

The Scourging of Christ, by the workshop of Tintoretto (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2021)

Yesterday’s reflection

Continued tomorrow

Il Redentore seen on the crossing of the Canale della Giudecca from the Zattere … the two campanili resemble minarets (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2021)

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

The waterfront below the steps of Il Redentore (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Praying in Ordinary Time 2021: 145, Church Street, Dublin

The Capuchin Church of Saint Mary of the Angels on Church Street, Dublin, was designed by JJ McCarthy and built in 1866-1882 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2021)

Patrick Comerford

Before the day begins, I am taking a little time this morning for prayer, reflection and reading. Each morning in the time in the Church Calendar known as Ordinary Time, I am reflecting in these ways:

1, photographs of a church or place of worship;

2, the day’s Gospel reading;

3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary.

My theme for these few weeks is churches in the Franciscan (and Capuchin) tradition. My photographs this morning (21 October 2021) are from the Capuchin Church of Saint Mary of the Angels on Church Street, Dublin.

Inside the Church of Saint Mary of the Angels on Church Street, facing the liturgical east (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2021)

The Capuchins began as a reform movement within the Franciscan tradition in 1525. The Capuchin Friars first arrived in Ireland in 1615, and established their first Friary in Dublin in Bridge Street in 1626. They moved to Church Street in the 18th century, and in 1796 they built a simple chapel facing the street.

The Capuchin Church of Saint Mary of the Angels on Church Street, Dublin, faces the Father Mathew Square public housing scheme. The church is named after a small church of the same name in Portziuncula, 2 km south of Assisi, where Saint Francis of Assisi died on the evening of 3 October 1226.

Building work began in 1866, the foundation stone was on laid 12 June 1868, but the church was not completed until 1881. The church was dedicated on the Feast of Saint Francis on 4 October 1882.

The church was designed in the Decorated Gothic style by James Joseph McCarthy (1817-1882), who saw himself as the architectural heir of AWN Pugin in Ireland.

The Gothic style of the exterior is very impressive, with its large lancet and rose windows and canopied statues. The street-facing façade is built of limestone, with Portland stone dressings, and the three gabled entrances have tall Portland hoods.

The large, pointed, relieving arch frames a rose window. Below it are two tall two-light windows in deeply-moulded frames, and a canopied statue of the Virgin Mary by Leo Broe, between canopied statues, also by Leo Broe, of the Franciscan saints, Saint Francis and Saint Clare, in the tall lower arches in the outer bays.

Inside, the church is oriented on a west-axis rather than the liturgically traditional east-west axis. This is a 10-bay hall with low, shallow lateral chapels and confessional niches, and a large, pointed-arch apse.

The interior is lit from the tall, graded triple-lancets with dark limestone mullions in the north and south walls.

There is a trefoil-profiled kingpost roof, with giant carved corbels of angels and saints.

The high altar and reredos are by James Pearse (1839-1900), father of the 1916 leader Patrick Pearse. The reredos depicts six Franciscan saints: Saint Clare, with a monstrance, Saint Louis of France, Saint Lawrence of Brindisi, Saint Fidelis of Sigmaringen, Saint Elizabeth of Hungary and Saint Felix of Cantalice.

The mandorla-shaped Stations of the Cross are in oil on canvas, with inscriptions in Irish. The side altars are dedicated to the three patron saints of Ireland, Saint Patrick, Saint Brigid and Saint Colmcille.

The chapel of the Third Order of Saint Francis was added in 1891, the gallery and choir loft in 1906, the shrine of Saint Anthony of Padua in 1945, and the Lourdes Grotto in 1950. A north aisle, added in 1910 by Ashlin and Coleman, now serves as an enclosed hall and sacristy.

The Father Mathew Hall, beside the church, and the adjoining monastery were built in 1881.

Today the friars serve their local community through parish work and through the Capuchin Day Centre, founded in 1969 by Brother Kevin Crowley. From humble beginnings in the Friary gardens, it now provides over 700 meals each day and over 1,500 food parcels each Wednesday to the homeless and poor of Dublin. Pope Francis visited the Capuchin Day Centre during his visit to Dublin in August 2018.

The Capuchin Mission Office supports the work of Irish friars in Zambia, South Africa, New Zealand and Korea.

Saint Mary of the Angels is not a parish church, but the friars are responsible for Halston Street Parish, one of the oldest in Dublin city centre.

The Father Mathew Square housing scheme, facing the church, was designed in 1917 by JJ McCarthy’s son, Charles James McCarthy (1857-1947). It was named after the Capuchin temperance campaigner, Father Theobald Mathew, who gives his name to the Capuchin church in Cork.

Inside the Church of Saint Mary of the Angels on Church Street, facing the liturgical west (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2021)

Luke 12: 49-53 (NRSVA):

[Jesus said:] 49 ‘I came to bring fire to the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled! 50 I have a baptism with which to be baptized, and what stress I am under until it is completed! 51 Do you think that I have come to bring peace to the earth? No, I tell you, but rather division! 52 From now on, five in one household will be divided, three against two and two against three; 53 they will be divided:

father against son
and son against father,
mother against daughter
and daughter against mother,
mother-in-law against her daughter-in-law
and daughter-in-law against mother-in-law.’

The high altar and reredos, depicting six Franciscan saints, are by James Pearse (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2021)

The Prayer in the USPG Prayer Diary today (21 October 2021, Global Media and Information Literacy Week) invites us to pray:

Lord, we thank you for the ability to communicate with Christians across the world through technology. May we use this technology wisely and safely, casting a critical eye over the information we receive.

The Franciscan cross beneath the organ and gallery (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2021)

Yesterday’s reflection

Continued tomorrow

Looking out onto Church Street and Dublin city centre (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2021)

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