‘Dancing at Lughnasa’ in Stony Stratford rekindles memories of summers in rural Ireland

A poster for this month’s production of ‘Dancing at Lughnasa’ by the Ballaghaderreen Players at the Hawk’s Well Theatre

Patrick Comerford

I have been a member of the Stony Stratford Playreaders’ group for almost two years now, and during that time we have met twice a month in the library on Church Street, alternating between well-known, established works and plays by group members. We were part of the Stony Words festival last year, and I’m looking forward to taking part in the programme being prepared for next January.

Last month, I was asked to read the part of Trygaeus in Peace by Aristophanes, a very appropriate choice in the present global climate.

This week, we were reading Dancing at Lughnasa, a play by the Irish writer Brian Friel (1929-2015), first produced in 1990 and set in in the fictional town of Ballybeg, based on Glenties in Co Donegal, in August 1936. The play is set at a time when the Spanish Civil War was breaking out and Italy was invading Ethiopia (then Abyssinia), while in domestic politics Eamon de Valera had been office since 1932, and was about to introduce a new constitution and become Taoiseach in 1937, all referred to by the characters in the play.

This is a memory play told from the point of view of the adult Michael Evans, the narrator, as he recalls the summer in 1936, when he was a seven-year-old living with his mother Christina and four aunts, the five Mundy sisters – Maggie, Chris, Agnes, Rose, and Kate – and their brother Father Jack, who has returned from a life as a missionary in Uganda.

Lughnasa is the month of August. But, as the summer draws to a close, the family realises sadly that it is facing economic privation and their hopes fade as the realise the dismal futures they face.

Kate is a school teacher, the only sister with a well-paid job. Agnes and Rose help Maggie to keep house and knit gloves, but know this small income is about to dry up when a new knitwear factory opens nearby. Maggie and Chris have no income at all.

Their brother Father Jack is in his late 50s and a former British army chaplain in East Africa during World War I. He has come back home after 25 years as a missionary priest in Ryanga, a leper colony in a remote part of Uganda. He has malaria, and has trouble remembering many things, including his sisters’ names and everyday, common conversational words.

He no longer says Mass, and perhaps the real reasons he has been sent home are that he has ‘gone native’, abandoned much of his Catholic practice – there are hints that perhaps he has either lost his faith or that he was too close to his former ‘house boy’ Okawa.

He admires or respects the beliefs and practices of the native people of Africa. His apparent loss of faith greatly worries or Kate, who is concerned about the family's reputation. Jack refers to Michael as a love child rather than an illegitimate child and says they are common and accepted among the people of Uganda.

In a scene near the close of the play, Jack ceremonially swaps his British colonial feathered tricorn hat, a departing gift from a British governor, for a cap worn by Chris’s lover Gerry Evans, Michael’s Welsh father who is charming but unreliable. Gerry becomes the new, secular missionary, heading off to Barcelona to join the International Brigades in the Spanish Civil War.

The play takes its name from the occasions when Chris and Gerry go walking and dance and the sisters’ random, spontaneous dancing prompted by intermittent céilí music from a temperamental radio nicknamed Marconi. Their lives are marked by poverty and financial insecurity, lives that are unfulfilled and lead to disaster off-stage.

We learn from Michael’s narrative that Agnes and Rose later die in abject poverty in Southwark in the 1950s, while Michael’s father has a parallel family in Wales, including a half-brother with the same name. For all of this, Michael was surrounded by love in his childhood, and this love is underlined by the way Jack refers to him as a love child rather than an illegitimate child, even though the play is peppered with word ‘bastard’.

Father Jack seems to recover from his malaria or his forgetfulness, but Michael as narrator tells us that he died later of a heart attack soon after the events in the play and he tells us that Kate was inconsolable when Jack died.

The play was originally staged at the Abbey Theatre in Dublin in 1990. It moved to the National Theatre in London in 1991, and later to the Phoenix Theatre and the Garrick, before moving on to Broadway. It was revived in Dublin in 1999-2000, again at the Abbey Theatre, and Joe Dowling directed a new production of the play at the Gate Theatre, Dublin, in 2004. The Old Vic Theatre in London presented a well-received production in 2009 starring Sorcha Cusack, Niamh Cusack, Sinéad Cusack and Andrea Corr.

In various productions, Father Jack has been played by Barry McGovern, Alec McCowen, Donal Donnelly, Des Cave, Michael Countryman, Michael Fitzpatrick, Ardal O’Hanlon and by Michael Gambon in the 1998 film adaptation starring Meryl Streep as Kate Mundy.

Being asked to read the part of Father Jack came as a pleasant surprise. He reminded me of many missionary priests I knew who had worked in Africa, Asia and Latin America and had become incarnational and enculturated in their approach to mission. Perhaps I also identified a little, too, with his problems in finding acceptance of his ministry in retirement. But I also thought of grandfather who had fought in World War I and who had been sent home from Thessaloniki with malaria.

I have only stayed in Co Donegal a half dozen or so times in all my life. But there are few differences from and many parallels between the rural life of the 1930s and the life I remember on my grandmother’s farm near Cappoquin, Co Waterford, in the 1950s and 1960s: the food, the temperamental radio, the difficulties families had in eking out a level, a similar distance into the nearest village, the suspicions of people living in even more remote areas, the lakes and the mountains, families forced to find work in larger towns or cities or to leave and find a living in London, whispered conversations about politics, prejudice and bigotry, and families were sisters were strong and determined women whose hopes and aspirations were always going to be disappointed.

De Valera was still dominating the political landscape, there were memories of Republicans and Blueshirts who went away to join different side in the Spanish Civil War, there was a missionary uncle who never returned, an aunt who was a teacher and a nun, and the Keane family had tried to provide a local industry until the bacon factory closed in 1980.

The ‘Stage’ opposite the Cats provided the same céilí music the sisters listened to, there was a temperamental ‘Marconi’ that ran off a battery and that only picked up the BBC and not Radio Eireann. Prejudice and judgmentalism were still alive in the south-east of Ireland in the 1950s, and I remember overhearing whispered conversations about the Fethard-on-Sea Boycott in neighbouring Co Wexford.

Lughnasa has passed, we are a long way into September, and summer has turned to autumn. But summers and Augusts in rural Donegal in the 1930s and rural Waterford in the 1950s came alive for me in the library Stony Stratford on Thursday afternoon.

Sir William Robinson from Westmeath is remembered 150 years later in streets and developments in Singapore

Modern Singapore has been strongly influenced by Irish-born governors, developers and architects (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

I am sorry to have missed the opportunity to be back in Singapore and Kuching during these weeks. I have missed some family gatherings, including a wedding in Kuching last weekend, and a visit last week to the Marina Bay Sands, a landmark in Singapore and one of the great architectural works by Moshe Safdie, who is one of thes greatest living architects today.

Last year, I looked at the influence of Irish figures and Irish developers and architects on the political life and the landscape of both Singapore and Kuching.

Sir Orfeur Cavenagh (1820-1891), who had family roots in Co Wexford and Co Kildare, lived in Singapore as the Governor of the Straits Settlements in from 1859 to 1867. William Cuppage (1807-1871), who first began to develop Emerald Hill almost 200 years ago, named Erin Lodge, Fern Cottage and Clare Grove after his family’s homes in Ireland.

The architects include including George Drumgoole Coleman (1795-1844) from Drogheda, who designed the original Saint Andrew’s Cathedral and many public buildings, Denis Lane McSwiney (1800-1867) from Cork who designed the Cathedral of the Good Shepherd in Singapore and Denis Santry (1879-1960), also from Cork, who designed many public buildings in both Singapore and Kuching.

I aslo came across a member of the Comerford family, Gerald Francis Commerford, who was held by the Japanese as a prisoner of war in Singapore and Borneo during World War II.

Sir William Cleaver Francis Robinson (1834-1897) was in Singapore as the Governor of the Straits Settlement for almost three yers from 1877 to 1879

Another key Irish-born figure in Singapore was Sir William Cleaver Francis Robinson (1834-1897), a colonial administrator and composer, who wrote several well-known songs. Robinson only spent a short time in Singapore as the Governor of the Straits Settlement, less than three years from 1877 to 1879, and for most of his colonial career he was based in Australia. But he has left his mark in Singapore in street names and property developments.

Despite his name, Robinson was not connected with the well-known business of Robinson and Cleaver on the corner of Donegall Square and Donegall Place in Belfast. Instead, Robinson was descended from distinguished landed families in Ireland, each with a strong presence in the Church of Ireland. His father, Admiral Hercules Robinson (1789-1864), was present with Nelson at the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805 and later was the Sheriff of Westmeath in 1842.

Hercules Robinson took his unusual first name from his maternal grandfather, Sir Hercules Langrishe (1729-1811) of Knocktopher Abbey, Co Kilkenny, an MP for Kilkenny in Grattan’s Parliament and a vocal advocate of Catholic Emancipation.

The admiral’s father, the Revd Christopher Robinson, the Rector of Granard, Co Longford, while his mother, Elizabeth Langrishe, was a sister of James Langrishe (1765-1847), Dean of Achonry and Archdeacon of Glendalough, and a first cousin of both Robert Tottenham (1773-1850), Bishop of Clogher, who lived at Woodstock, Co Wicklow, and John Loftus (1770-1845), 2nd Marquess of Ely, who inherited Loftus Hall, Co Wexford, and Rathfarnham Castle, Dublin.

Rosmead, the Robinson family home near Delvin, Co Westmeath, has been abandoned and derelict since 1940 (Photograph: Willie Forde Photography)

William Robinson was born on 14 January 1834 in Rosmead, his mother’s family home near Delvin, Co Westmeath, halfway between Mullingar and Kells. He was the fourth son of Admiral Hercules Robinson and his wife Frances Elizabeth Wood (1794-1873), the only daughter and heir of Henry Wildman Wood (1720-1795). Rosmead was built in the early 1700s by the Wood family and passed to the Robinson family after Hercules Robinson and Frances Elizabeth Wood married in 1822.

William Robinson was educated at home in Co Westmeath, and at the Royal Naval School, a private boarding in New Cross, Surrey. At the end of his school days, the indebted Robinson family were forced to sell the Rosmead estate in Westmeath in the Encumbered Estates Court. George Charles Mostyn (1804-1883), 6th Lord Vaux of Harrowden, bought the estate in 1852.

The Robinson estate included 1,564 acres at Rosmead, an additional 1,630 acres in Co Westmeath, 1,182 in Co Kilkenny, 677 in Co Meath, and 1,460 in Co Mayo. The sale of the contents alone took three days and included three grand pianofortes, a library with 1,162 books and a painting by Van Dyck.

Meanwhile, William Robinson joined the staff of the Colonial Office in 1858 as a private secretary to his brother, Hercules Robinson, who was Lieutenant Governor of St Kitts, and then accompanied him to Hong Kong in 1859.

William was appointed the President (Viceroy or Governor) of Montserrat in the West Indies in 1862. That same year, he married Olivia Edith Deane Townsend, a daughter of Thomas Stewart Townsend (1800-1852), briefly Dean of Lismore and Dean of Waterford (1850), and then Bishop of Meath (1850-1852).

Robinson was posted to Dominica and then was the Governor of the Falkland Islands (1866-1870), which he described as a ‘remote settlement at the fag end of the world’; Prince Edward Island (1870-1873), where he oversaw the island being incorporated into Canada in 1873; the Leeward Islands (1874); and, for his first time, Governor of Western Australia (1875-1877).

Robinson was appointed governor of the Straits Settlements in 1877. The Straits Settlements came under British control as a crown colony in 1867. It originally consisted of the four individual settlements of Singapore, Penang, Malacca and Dinding; Christmas Island and the Cocos (Keeling) Islands were added in 1886, and the island of Labuan, off the coast of Borneo, was incorporated into the colony in 1907. Most of the territories now form part of Malaysia, from which Singapore was expelled in 1965.

Robinson arrived in Singapore in 1877, ten years after the Straits Settlements had become a British crown colony. The governor was also High Commissioner for the Federated Malay States on the peninsula, and for British North Borneo, the Sultanate of Brunei and Sarawak in Borneo, ruled from Kuching by the Brooke dynasty.

At the time of his appointment to Singapore, Robinson was knighted (KCMG). From Singapore, he oversaw British interests in Bangkok in 1878, and received awards from the King of Siam (Thailand).

Sir William Robinson left Singapore for Australia in 1880

After his time in Singapore, Robinson later served as Governor of Western Australia for a second term (1880-1883) and Governor of South Australia (1883-1889), and was promoted in the knighthood to GCMG in 1887. He found his role as Governor of South Australia was primarily symbolic and social, and was probably bored during that time there. But he was passionate about music, playing the violin and the piano and singing, and he relieved his boredom in South Australia in musical events. He wrote many songs and composed a comic opera that was staged at the Princess Theatre in Melbourne.

He turned down an opportunity to become Governor of Hong Kong, saying he did not want to undergo its harsh climate. He was the acting Governor of Victoria in 1889, and rejected an invitation to become Governor of Mauritius. After an interlude in London, he returned for a third term as the Governor of Western Australia (1890-1895). He managed the transition of the colony to self-rule and chose John Forrest as the first Premier of Western Australia.

He retired from his colonial career in March 1895, at age 61. He moved back to England and became the director of many companies. He died on 2 May 1897 in South Kensington, London. He and his wife Olivia were the parents of two daughters and three sons. He left £84,058 in his will – the equivalent of almost £14 million today.

William Robinson often lived in the shadow of his brother, Hercules Robinson (1824-1897), another Irish-born colonial governor whose career included being Governor of Hong Kong, Governor of Ceylon (Sri Lanka), Governor of New South Wales, the first Governor of Fiji, Governor of New Zealand, two terms as High Commissioner for Southern Africa, and two terms as Governor of the Cape Colony. When Hercules was made a member of the House of Lords in 1896 he chose the title of Baron Rosmead of Rosmead, Co Westmeath.

But by then the Mostyn family had put the Rosmead estate up for sale again in the Landed Estates Court in 1879. There were proposals for its adaptation ‘for religious use’ in 1933. The designs by the Dublin architect Ralph Henry Byrne (1877-1946) including the creation of an oratory.

But these proposals came to nothing. The porch and the roof were removed in 1940, much of the house was dismantled, and some of the stone work used to rebuild Balrath, Co Meath, in 1942. Since then, the house has lain in ruins.

Sir William Robinson is remembered in the names of streets and developments in Singapore, including Robinson Road, Robinson Square, Robinson Centre and Robinson Point

But Sir William Robinson is remembered in the names of streets and developments in Singapore, including Robinson Road, Robinson Square, Robinson Centre and Robinson Point.

Robinson Road is a major trunk road in the Central Area that stretches from Maxwell Road to Finlayson Green. The land on which Robinson Road stands was created through land reclamation that began in 1879. It was a coastal road until more land reclamation from the early 1900s to 1932 shifted the shoreline further east to make room for building Shenton Way.

Today, Robinson Road is flanked by major skyscrapers and several developments, including Robinson Centre and Robinson Point. For years, the headquarters of the Criminal Investigation Department and the Chinese daily Sin Chew Jit Poh were on Robinson Road.

Crosby House, a seven-storey office complex, is a landmark at the corner of Robinson Road and McCallum Street. It was once owned by the Standard Chartered Bank and later by Singtel. Buildings along Robinson Road include architecture built in the 1920s and 1930s, such as the curved Telecoms Building – previously known as the Eastern Extension Telegraph Company (1927) and then Cable and Wireless Building, and later the Ogilvy Centre. The building now houses So Sofitel Singapore, a five-star hotel.

In Australia, Robinson Avenue, Robinson Road and Cleaver Street in central Perth were named after Robinson, as well as Port Robinson, a natural harbour in the Pilbara region of Western Australia.

Of course, there were other colonial governors in Singapore who were born in Ireland or who came from Irish families.

General Sir Andrew Clarke (1824-1902), who was the Governor of the Straits Settlements in 1873-1875, was a son of Colonel Andrew Clarke (1793-1847), another colonial governor, who was born in Lifford, Co Donegal. The younger Andrew Clarke was brought up by his grandfather, Dr Andrew Clarke, and two uncles, James Langton Clarke and William Hislop Clarke at the family home, Belmont, near Lifford. He went to Portora Royal School, Enniskillen, and spent part of his early military career in Fermoy Co Cork.

Belmont was a large country house at Curraghlane in Lifford. The house has since been demolished, and a housing estate named Beechwood is on the grounds of the house.

Peter Benson Maxwell (1817-1893), the chief justice of the Straits Settlements in 1867-1871, was the fourth son of the Revd Peter Benson Maxwell (1780-1867) of Birdstown, Co Donegal, and was educated at Trinity College Dublin. His wife, Frances Dorothea Synge (1813-1896), was a daughter of Francis Synge (1761-1831) of Glanmore Castle, Ashford, Co Wicklow, MP for Swords. Their son, Sir William Edward Maxwell (1846-1897), was Acting Governor of the Straits Settlements in 1893-1894.

So there is much more to explore in these Irish links the next time I am in Singapore.


A walking tour of Robinson Road, Singapore

Saint Peter and Saint Paul Church, John Newton’s church in Olney, is celebrating 700 years

Inside Saint Peter and Saint Paul Church, Olney, which is celebrating its 700th anniversary this year (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Patrick Comerford

The Church of Saint Peter and Saint Paul, the parish church of Olney in Buckinghamshire, is celebrating its 700th anniversary this year [2025]. The 14th century church, with its tall spire and its unusual setting at the end of the town, is the first thing most visitors notice as they approach Olney from Newport Pagnell and the south.

The church stands on the bank of the River Great Ouse and, with its fine spire, dominates the southern approach to the town, making the steeple a distinctive landmark in its setting beside the bridge over the river.

The church is an integral part of the world famous Olney Pancake Race, run every Shrove Tuesday, and followed by the Shriving Service. The town sign depicts the church and the pancake race, which dates back to 1445.

The church also has strong connections with John Newton, the slave trader and clergyman, who became an abolitionist and who was a curate there, and with William Cowper, the poet and abolitionist.

Saint Peter and Saint Paul Church, Olney … the tall spire is the first thing most visitors notice in Olney (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Saint Peter and Saint Paul is a Grade I listed church. Local traditions say an earlier church was located at a different site in Olney, and this is supported by the apparent lack of earlier architecture in the current building.

It is thought an earlier parish church stood at the north end of Olney. There is a suggestion that the earlier church was founded in 1018, and it is likely to have been on a modest scale.

The greater part of the present church was built in the 14th century between ca 1330 and 1400 in the Decorated Gothic style. The rest of the church is of the same period, with tall windows and 14th century tracery, though these windows have been restored and the glass is Victorian or modern.

The north aisle was partly rebuilt in the 16th and 17th centuries.

Inside Saint Peter and Saint Paul Church, Olney, facing west … the roof of the nave is lower than the roof of the chancel (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

The church has a slightly unusual appearance because the roof of the nave is lower than the roof of the chancel, and of slate rather than tile. This is because the nave was altered in 1807, when the clerestory was demolished, internal roof carvings were removed, and the old roof timbers and lead were sold. It was said in 1825 that several carved figures and heads from the church where found throughout the buildings and gardens of the town. The south aisle was largely rebuilt in 1831.

The architect Sir George Gilbert Scott (1811-1878), who was brought up in Olney, was a son of the Revd Thomas Scott (1780-1835) and a grandson of Newton’s friend, the biblical commentator, the Revd Thomas Scott (1747-1821) of Olney. Sir George Gilbert Scott rebuilt and restored the church in 1870-1885, including the restoration of the chancel (1874), the nave (1876-1877) and the south aisle and a new east window was installed a cost of nearly £2,000.

The chancel, high altar and east window in Saint Peter and Saint Paul Church, Olney (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

The windows in the south and north aisles display the flowing tracery characteristic of 14th century church architecture, although they were much restored, and in some cases replaced, in the 19th century. The fine, stained glass windows in the church date from the late 19th and 20th centuries.

The five-light East Window (1870) by W Holland & Sons is in memory of Ann Ravis and depicts the Crucifixion, the Ascension, the Resurrection, the Annunciation, the Last Supper and the Nativity.

A window at the west end of the chancel commemorates the abolitionist, hymnwriter and former curate John Newton (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

A three-light window on the south side at the west end of the chancel commemorates the abolitionist, hymnwriter and former curate John Newton (1725-1807) and was erected in 1973 by Archibald & Emily Maud Allen in memory of their daughter Evelyn Garrard Allen. It was made by James A Crombie (1913-2000) the stained glass designer and watercolourist during a brief spell when he was working for Wippell of Exeter.

The upper images show Christ and figurative representations of the abolition of slavery; the lower images show Newton in the pulpit in Olney, with depictions on either side of the life-changing storm in Lough Swilly off the coast of Co Donegal that brought about his conversion.

The window commemorating the poet William Cowper is half-hidden by the pulpit (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Half-hidden by the pulpit, a three-light window (1946) at the east end of the north nave by George Bryan Cooper-Abbs (1901-1966), chief designer of J Wippell and Co in Exeter, shows Christ in Majesty, with Saint Peter and Saint Paul, patrons of the church, on either side. Below his feet are the church, with the William Cowper and the hymnwriter John Newton on either side. Quotations from some of Cowper’s hymns also appear in the window.

The church spire, which is unusual for Buckinghamshire, is set on a tall tower and reaches a height of 56.5 metres (185 ft). The tower originally housed a peal of six bells, the oldest of which is dated 1599. The church bells were refurbished and added to a few years ago, making it one of the finest peals of ten bells in the country.

The window commemorating John Newton depicts him in the pulpit in Olney and scenes from the life-chamging storm in Lough Swilly (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

John Newton wrote the hymn ‘Amazing Grace’ while he was at Olney for a New Year’s Day service on 1 January 1773. Newton had once been the captain of several slave ships and an investor in the slave trade. Newton experienced a conversion during a severe storm in Lough Swill off the coast of Co Donegal in 1748. Many years later, he renounced the slave trade and became a prominent abolitionist.

Newtown was ordained deacon and priest in Church of England in 1764 and served in Olney until 1779, when he became the Rector of Saint Mary Woolnoth, London.

The churchyard in Olney has been closed for some years and is under the care of Milton Keynes Council. Among the graves in the south-east corner is the grave of John Newton and his wife Mary, re-interred from Saint Mary Woolnoth, London, in 1893 when the burial ground was being cleared.

A plaque in the north porch outlines many of the church’s connections (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Newton was a contemporary in Olney of the poet and hymn writer William Cowper (1731-1800), and together they co-wrote the Olney Hymns (1779), which included ‘Amazing Grace’.

Cowper’s poems and hymns have given the English language phrases such as ‘God moves in a mysterious way his wonders to perform’; ‘Variety’s the very spice of life, that gives it all its flavour’; ‘I am monarch of all I survey’; ‘Oh! for a closer walk with God’; ‘God made the country, and man made the town’; and ‘There is a pleasure in poetic pains which only poets know.’

Other figures associated with the church include the organist and composer Henry Gauntlett and the biblical commentator Thomas Scott. A plaque in the north porch in memory of Kate Hollingshead (1886-1969) outlines many of these connections.

The pulpit in Saint Peter and Saint Paul Church, Olney (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

The church marks the 700th anniversary of its founding this year, which coincides with the tercentenary of John Newton’s birth. A week of celebration is planned between Saturday 28 June and Sunday 6 July 2025, with other special services and events through the year.

A History Day on Saturday 5 July includes speakers and exhibitions. Olney Archaeological Society is presenting a talk by Professor Stephen Upex of Madingley Hall, Cambridge, on the church in the Olney landscape.

The church has a Priest-in-Charge rather than a rector because the Newport Deanery in the Diocese of Oxford is being reorganised and the parish is to become part of a new Benefice of Ouse Valley North. At the moment there is a vacancy for the Priest-in-Charge; the Revd Hugh Reid is the curate.

The baptismal font at the west end of Saint Peter and Saint Paul Church, Olney (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

• The Sunday morning services at 10 am in Saint Peter and Saint Paul are: Holy Communion, Common Worship (first, third and fifth Sunday), Informal Worship (second Sunday), and Informal Communion (fourth Sunday). There is a variety of evening services at 6 pm on Sundays, including a Said Communion on the second Sunday and there is a midweek celebration of Holy Communion at 10 am on Wednesdays.

The east end of Saint Peter and Saint Paul Church, Olney (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

How Fisherwick and the Chichester family gave Lichfield names to the streets of Belfast

Arthur Chichester of Fisherwick, Marquess of Donegall, is remembered in street names and buildings throughout central Belfast (Photographs: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

Patrick Comerford

As Donegal celebrates its 450th anniversary this year, I wonder whether any connections are being made with Donegal House in Lichfield. But Donegal House in Lichfield and Donegall Square in Belfast take their name not from the town and county in the north-west Ireland but from the family who lived for generations at Fisherwick Hall, 6 km (4 miles) east of Lichfield, and a similar distance north of Comberford and Tamworth.

The street patterns of central Belfast and their names date from the second half of the 18th century, and many of the names are derived directly from Arthur Chichester (1739-1799), 5th Earl of Donegall and later 1st Marquess of Donegal. He owned a quarter of a million acres in Ireland and was the principal landlord of Georgian Belfast. Yet he had his main residence at Fisherwick Hall, near Lichfield, where the gardens were laid out by Capability Brown.

I have had a long-standing interest in the Chichesters of Fishwerwick because Arthur Chichester bought Comberford Hall, including the Manors of Wigginton and Comberford, on 1 August 1789 from Thomas Thynne (1734-1796), Viscount Weymouth – who was about to become the 1st Marquis of Bath – and his son, Thomas Thynne.

Chichester Street, Belfast, is named after the Chichester family of Fisherwick, between Lichfield and Tamworth (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

Lord Donegall became the greatest landowner of his day in Ireland. His estates included 11,000 acres at Dunbrody, Co Wexford, almost 90,000 acres in Co Antrim, 160,000 acres in Co Donegal, the whole town of Belfast, and the townland of Ballynafeigh, Co Down, totalling over quarter of a million acres in all.

However, Arthur Chichester chose to live not in Ireland but at Fisherwick Hall near Lichfield. He tore down the Skeffington family’s old Tudor manor house, replacing it with a vast Palladian mansion set in a park of 4,000 acres, all designed and constructed by Lancelot ‘Capability’ Brown.

He was accused of ‘draining a manufacturing country of £36,000 a year and having raised fines’, paid by tenants to get leases, ‘sufficient to impoverish a province, and transported them out of the kingdom to build palaces in another land, where he is unknown and disregarded.’

Donegal House, Bore Street, Lichfield … takes its name from the Chichester family, Earls of Donegall (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

Lord Donegall is said to have rebuilt Comberford Hall, replacing the original half-timbered Tudor manor house dating back to the late 15th century, at the same time as he rebuilt Fisherwick Hall. However, Mrs Valerie Coltman, who lived at Comberford Hall for many years, believed it is more likely that Comberford Hall was rebuilt more than 70 years earlier in 1720.

He also gave his name to Donegal House in Bore Street, Lichfield, although the house was built in 1730 by a local merchant James Robinson.

Within a year of buying Comberford Hall, Lord Donegall had raised £20,000 from the banker Henry Hoare, using the manors and lands of Comberford and Wigginton as security. In 1791, he received additional titles of Marquess of Donegall and Earl of Belfast in the Irish peerage and of Baron Fisherwick of Fisherwick, Staffordshire in the British peerage. The mortgages he raised on Comberford and other Staffordshire properties probably paid the fees and administrative costs involved in receiving these elevated titles.

Arthur Chichester, Earl of Donegall, bought Comberford Hall on 1 August 1789 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

Meanwhile, underneath the veneer of aristocratic splendour, domestic life for the Chichester family of Belfast and Fisherwick was in turmoil.

His eldest son, George Augustus Chichester (1769-1844), would eventually inherit the family titles as 2nd Marquess of Donegall and Earl of Donegall and Earl of Belfast. In his youth George was known as Lord Chichester, a courtesy title. At an early age, he developed a gambling addiction. One source says he ‘was licentious and profligate in proportion to his status and fortune.’

Arthur paid his son’s debts several times but eventually allowed him to be sent to the debtors’ prison. While in jail, George was offered financial assistance by Sir (James) Edward May (1751-1814), to secure his release in return for marrying his daughter Anna. May has been described as ‘a moneylender who also ran a gaming house’. He secured Lord Chichester’s release in 1795, and George was now obliged to return the obligation and marry Anna.

Five days before his 26th birthday, George Chichester married 18-year-old Anna May on 8 August 1795. But Anna was an illegitimate child and was also underage. In her circumstances, marriage required the consent of the Lord Chancellor and the permission given by her Welsh guardians was insufficient. Years later, the marriage was declared unlawful.

The Donegall title, with its unusual spelling, is repeated in street names in Belfast (Photographs: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

Anna’s father Edward May, had married Anna’s mother, Eliza Bagg in Saint George’s Church, Holborn, in 1773. But Eliza was already legally married. She was neither divorced nor widowed, and her first husband, a man named Lind, was living in the East Indies. Eliza May was never charged with bigamy, but their children – two sons and two – were deemed illegitimate.

George Chichester succeeded as 2nd Marquess of Donegall when his father died in 1799. He and Anna fled to Belfast in 1802 to escape his debtors once again and brought the May family with them, including Edward and Eliza and their four children.

Edward May became the agent for the Chichester family estates in Belfast. He was MP for Belfast in 1801-1814, was twice Sovereign (Mayor) of Belfast (1803-1806, 1809-1810), and in 1811 he also succeeded to the title of baronet first given to his father in 1763.

As Sir Edward May, he pioneered land reclamation on the edges of Belfast Lough, and gave his name to Edward Street, Great Edward Street, which merged with Victoria Street, May Street, May’s Dock and May’s Market. On his orders, the gravestones and memorials in Saint George’s Churchyard were destroyed or removed in 1806 and large parts of the graveyard were sold off in 1811 for the development of Church Lane and Ann Street.

When May died on 23 July 1814, it emerged that Eliza and Edward had not been legally married and that Eliza was a bigamist. All their children were deemed illegitimate, including their younger son, the Revd Edward May, who had become the Vicar of Saint Anne’s, Belfast, only weeks after his ordination in 1809.

May Street Presbyterian Church, Belfast … May Street is named after Sir Edward May and his family (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

The elder son, Stephen Edward May, had taken his father’s seat as MP for Belfast in 1814. He also presumed he had succeeded as the third baronet and was styling himself Sir Stephen Edward May. But in the eyes of the law, he had been born out of wedlock and the title was removed from him. Feeling he had been shamed publicly, he resigned as MP and the title reverted to his uncle, Sir Humphrey May, as the third baronet.

The revelations about the May bigamy also meant that Anna May, Lady Donegall, was illegitimate. In addition, she had been underage when she married, and it emerged in 1815 that under the terms of legislation in 1753 her marriage was invalid. Not only was she under-age when she married, but the marriage was under special licence without calling banns, and her marriage had not received the consent of the Lord Chancellor.

The couple’s adult children now faced being cut out of the succession to the Chichester family titles and estates in Ireland and in England and being disinherited. The eldest son, who had been using the courtesy title of Earl of Belfast, became plain Mr George Chichester.

Lord Belfast failed in his efforts to sort out his legal position in the consistory court and in chancery, and the Lord Chancellor referred the case to the House of Lords in 1821. The case was not heard, but a Marriage Act amendment bill in 1822 retrospectively legalised past formal breaches of the marriage laws, and finally Lord Belfast’s legitimacy was resolved 27 years after his parents’ irregular and forced marriage.

Celebratory dinners were held in Belfast and other places in August and September. On 8 December 1822, he married Lady Harriet Butler (1799-1860), a daughter of Richard Butler (1775-1819), 1st Earl of Glengall. She had been partly brought up by the Empress Josephine in France, she had a fiery temper and the couple were known as ‘Bel and the Dragon’.

Lord Belfast came to a new, but ultimately disastrous, financial arrangement with his father, and the Chichester properties in Belfast were sold in a vain attempt to ward off mounting debts.

His father, the 2nd Marquess of Donegall, died in 1844, aged 75, and Lord Belfast succeeded as the 3rd Marquess of Donegall. But by then, the debts of father and son had mounted to over £400,000 – the equivalent of about £64 million today. He had already lost control of almost all his property and influence in Belfast, and now saw the town sold off forcibly through the encumbered estates court in 1850. He died in October 1883. Both his sons had died before him, and his titles and remaining estates passed to his brother, Lord Edward Chichester (1799-1889), Dean of Raphoe.

Church House on Fisherwick Place … Fisherwick Place takes its name from Fisherwick, between Lichfield and Tamworth (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

Meanwhile, when the 1st Marquess of Donegall died in 1799, Comberford Hall and his other Staffordshire estates, including Fisherwick, again heavily mortgaged, passed to a younger son, Lord Spencer Stanley Chichester (1775-1819). He also inherited Dunbrody Abbey, Co Wexford, with a townhouse in Saint James’s Square, London, 20,000 acres on the Inishowen Peninsula in Co Donegal, the townland of Ballymacarrett, Co Down, the lands through which the Lagan Canal passed … and the family’s Gainsborough portraits.

But Spencer Chichester’s gambling debts also caught up with him. In 1801, he sold some of his lands in Lichfield, Alrewas, Whittington, Wichnor, Comberford, Coton, Tamworth and Hopwas, including two public houses and various burgage tenements in Lichfield, to the Lane family of King’s Bromley.

By January 1805, Spencer Chichester was seeking legal opinion on his title to the Manor of Comberford and Wigginton. Eventually, he was forced to sell Fisherwick, where the great house was demolished. This branch of the Chichester family, crippled by the gambling debts of profligate sons, found it impossible to pay off their loans, and were forced to sell Comberford Hall and the manorial rights and lands that went with it.

Lord Spencer Chichester’s son, Arthur Chichester, was given the title of Baron Templemore in 1831, and his branch of the family eventually inherited the Donegall titles.

A collection of Arthur Street names in Belfast (Photographs: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

Athur Chichester of Fisherwick, Marquis of Donegall, and many of his family members are remembered to this day in street names throughout the city centre in Belfast.

Arthur Street, Arthur Place, Arthur Lane, Arthur Square and Upper Arthur Street take their name from Arthur Chichester.

Chichester Street leads from Donegall Square east to Victoria Street, and then onto Oxford Street. Chichester Avenue, Chichester Close, Chichester Court, Chichester Gardens, Chichester Park and Chichester Road are off Antrim Road.

Fisherwick Presbyterian Church … moved from Fisherwick Place to Malone Road in 1901 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Fisherwick Place takes its name from Fisherwick Hall near Lichfield. It is a small street running from Great Victoria Street to College Square, and the corner with Howard Street is dominated by Church House, the headquarters of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland.

Church House stands on the site of Fisherwick Place Presbyterian Church, which was founded in 1823. When Church House was built on the site, the church moved to a site on Malone Road, and the new church opened as Fisherwick Presbyterian Church in 1901.

Marquis Street was originally known as Ferguson’s Lane after the family of Sir Samuel Ferguson, the Belfast-born lawyer and poet. Its name was changed in deference to the Marquis of Donegall.

Donegall Square and City Hall in the heart of Belfast (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

The name Donegall appears in several places in Belfast, including Donegall Square, Donegall Road, Donegall Place, Donegall Gardens, Donegall Lane and Donegall Parade.

But it is worth noting tha the spelling of the name throughout Belfast is with two Ls, the way the Chichester family spelt it in their titles since the 17th century.

When the first Marquess of Donegall built a new church in Belfast, he named its Saint Anne’s Church in honour of his first wife, Lady Anne Hamilton, daughter of the Duke of Hamilton, whom he married in 1761. It has since been replaced by Saint Anne’s Cathedral.

Charlotte Street and Little Charlotte Street off Donegall Pass (Photographs: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

Charlotte Street and Little Charlotte Street, in a loyalist heartland off Donegall Pass, are named after either his eldest daughter, Lady Charlotte Anne Chichester, who was born in 1762 and died in infancy, or his second wife, the widowed Charlotte (née Spencer) Moore. They were married on 24 October 1788, she had no children and she died less than a year after their marriage, on 19 September 1789.

The name of My Lady’s Road near Ormeau Road is intriguing. When the 2nd Marquis of Donegall went to live at Ormeau House about 1807, the former Anna May did not appreciate the journey along a row of dilapidated cottages with broken windows. A special way was made for Lady Donegall and became known as My Lady’s Road. Ormeau Avenue and Ormeau Road take their name from Ormeau House.

Templemore Avenue, Close, Park, Place and Street and the Templemore Baths in East Belfast take their name from the title held by Lord Spencer Chichester’s descendants. But during last weekend’s visit, I never managed to visit Lichfield Avenue, off Bloomfield Road in East Belfast.

Arthur Square in Belfast city centre … the streets off it include Ann Street, Arthur Street, Castle Lane, Cornmarket and William Street (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

The Donegal-born academic and colonial governor who married a Greek countess in Corfu

Sir George Ferguson Bowen (1821-1899), a Donegal-born author, academic and colonial governor … he was first married in Corfu, and later in Chelsea

Patrick Comerford

During a holiday in Corfu some years ago (2019), I wrote a series of postings on Irish politicians who were involved in the political life of Corfu and played roles in the events that eventually led to the unification of Cork and the Ionian islands with the modern Greek state.

Those four Irish-born politicians and administrators who played key roles in shaping 19th century political life in Corfu are: Sir Richard Church (1784-1873) from Cork; Sir Charles Napier (1782-1853) from Celbridge, Co Kildare; George Nugent-Grenville (1789-1850) from Co Westmeath, 2nd Baron Nugent of Carlanstown; and Sir John Young (1807-1876) from Bailieborough, Co Cavan, later Lord Lisgar.

But during my visit to Holy Trinity Church, Sloane Square, last week, I heard a wedding story that reminded of a fifth Irish politician, academic and administrator who played a key role in the cultural, intellectual, political and social life of Corfu in the mid-19th century.

George William Howard Bowen married Gertrude Chamberlain in Holy Trinity Sloane Square on 16 January 1896 the marriage of The bride was a niece of Joseph Chamberlain (1836-1914), and a first cousin of the future Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain (1869-1940). The groom was a son of Sir George Ferguson Bowen (1821-1899), a Donegal-born author, academic and colonial governor, and Contessa Diamantina di Roma (1832-1893), a Greek-born aristocrat, who were married in Corfu.

During his career, Sir George Bowen held colonial appointments and postings in the Ionian Islands, Queensland, New Zealand, Victoria, Mauritius and Hong Kong. He was born on 2 November 1821, the eldest son of the Revd Edward Bowen (1779-1867), Church of Ireland Rector of Taughboyne (Churchtown), a parish near Lifford and St Johnston in Co Donegal. The Revd Edward Bowen later became Rector of All Saints’ Church, Newtowncunningham, Co Donegal, and the Bowen family lived at Bogay Glebe.

George Bowen was educated at Charterhouse School and studied classics at Trinity College, Oxford (BA 1844; MA 1847). He was twice President of the Oxford Union, was elected a fellow of Brasenose College, Oxford, in 1844, entered Lincoln’s Inn and received some naval training on HMS Victory.

The Ionian Academy in Corfu … Sir George Bowen was president from 1847 to 1851 (Photograph: MrPanyGoff/Wikipedia/CCL)

Bowen moved to Greece in 1847 when he was appointed president of the Ionian Academy (Ιόνιος Ακαδημία) in Corfu. The academy was founded by Frederick North (1766-1827), 5th Earl of Guilford, in 1824 when he moved to Corfu, then under British administration as part of the United States of the Ionian Islands. This became the first university in modern Greece, but has since closed.

As he was setting out on his academic career in Corfu, Bowen met the artist, writer and poet Edward Lear (1812-1888) in Rome in 1847. Lear accepted Bowen’s invitation to visit Corfu, and even considered the possibility of taking a post at the University of Corfu. In a letter during his first visit to Corfu, he described ‘my very good friend Mr Bowen.’

Bowen remained president of the Ionian Academy until 1851, when he was elected to a fellowship at Brasenose College, Oxford, which he held until 1854. During the 1852 elections, he campaigned vigorously for WE Gladstone.

The Palace of Saint Michael and Saint George, Corfu … Countess Diamantina di Roma and Sir George Bowen were married in Corfu in the palace chapel in 1856 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

He returned to Corfu in 1854 when he became the Chief Secretary to Sir John Young, the Cavan-born Lord High Commissioner of the Ionian Islands. He was appointed a Companion of the Order of St Michael and St George (CMG) in 1855.

Perhaps Bowen had returned from Oxford to Corfu for love. While he was chief secretary in Corfu, Bowen married the Contessa Diamantina di Roma (1833-1893) on 28 April 1856; he was 34 and she was 22. Diamantina was the tenth of 11 children of Conte Giorgio-Candiano Roma (1798-1860) and his wife his wife, the former Contessa Orsola di Balsama.

The Roma family were local aristocracy of Venetian descent who had lived on the Ionian islands for many generations. They were originally named Regolo and had origins in 13th-century Rome. Count Giorgio-Candiano Roma, who was born on Zakynthos in 1833, was the President of the Ionian Senate (1850-1856), and titular head of the Islands, from 1850 to 1856. He was also the Poet Laureate of the Ionian Islands.

Countess Diamantina was born on Zakynthos in 1833. She had a privileged, well-educated upbringing and was familiar with the workings of government, politics and diplomacy. She was described as ‘pretty’ and ‘slender but graceful’.

Diamantina and George were married in the chapel of the Palace of Saint Michael and Saint George in Corfu. The ceremony was conducted by his brother, the Revd Edward Bowen, then the Rector of Lower Wigborow, Essex. A witness was Sir John Young, the Cavan-born Lord High Commissioner of the Ionian Islands, and later Governor of New South Wales. Twelve days later, Bowen was knighted (KCMG).

Diamantina and George were the parents of six children, including two children who were born in Corfu: a son Edward George Bowen, born 15 January 1857 and died 12 days later; and a daughter, Adelaide Diamantina (Nina) Bowen, born on 17 August 1858.

By the time he left Corfu, Bowen had fallen dramatically in Edward Lear’s esteem. In Lear’s diaries, Bowen had become ‘a beast’, ‘a brute,’ and as ‘Sir Gorgeous Figginson Blowing’, perhaps because of Bowen’s scheming against Lear’s friend Sir Franklin Lushington, a Supreme Court judge in the Ionian Islands.

Diamantina and George Bowen left Corfu for Australia in 1859

The couple left Corfu in 1859 when Bowen was appointed the first Governor of Queensland, a colony that had just been separated from New South Wales. On their arrival in Brisbane, they were welcomed by a crowd of over 4,000 people waving flags, both the British Union Jack and the Greek flag.

The Bowens remained in Queensland until 1868, and it is said Bowen’s influence there was greater than that of the governors in other Australian colonies.

Meanwhile, Bowen’s father, the Revd Edward Bowen, died in Newtowncunningham, Co Donegal, on 18 August 1867, and is buried in All Saints’ Churchyard, Newtowncunningham. That year, Bowen was appointed Governor of New Zealand. There he was successful in reconciling the Māori reaction to the British rule and saw the end of the New Zealand Wars, and he also approved the flag of New Zealand, designed by Albert Hastings Markham.

Bowen became Governor of Victoria in 1873 and then moved to Mauritius in 1879 as 13th Governor of the colony. He was the Governor of Hong Kong from 1883 until he retired due to ill health in 1887.

George and Diamantina were the parents of six children. Two of those children were born in Corfu, and the other children included George William Howard Bowen, who was born in Brisbane in 1864 and who was married in Holy Trinity Church, Sloane Square in 1896.

Holy Trinity Church, Sloane Square … George Bowen, father and son, were married in Chelsea in 1896 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2022)

Diamantina Lady Bowen died in London in 1893 at the age of 60. George married his second wife, the widowed Letitia Florence White, in Chelsea on 17 October 1896, nine months after his son was married in Holy Trinity Church, Sloane Square. Sir George Bowen died from bronchitis on 21 February 1899 in Brighton, after a short two-day illness. He was 77.

George Bowen recalled his career in Thirty Years of Colonial Government (London, 1889). But three other books were based on his academic and administrative experiences in Greece: Ithaca in 1850 (London 1851, translated into Greek 1859), Mount Athos, Thessaly and Epirus (London, 1852), and Handbook for Travellers in Greece (London, 1854).

Bowen’s background in the Church of Ireland is typical of many of the Irish Philhellenes. His brother, the Very Revd Edward Bowen (1828-1897), who was also born in Taughboyne, Co Donegal, and educated in Oxford, and conducted the wedding of George and Diamantina in Corfu, later became Rector of Taughboyne and then Dean of Raphoe (1882-1897). The present Rector of Taughboyne is the Revd Canon David Crooks.

Countess Diamantina Bowen was described as ‘pretty’ and ‘slender but graceful’

Further reading:

RB Joyce, ‘Bowen, Sir George Ferguson (1821–1899)’, Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, https://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/bowen-sir-george-ferguson-3032/text4451, published first in hardcopy 1969, accessed online 29 September 2022.

A ‘virtual tour’ of the 12 ‘extreme’ points at the edges of Ireland

Sunrise on the banks of the River Shannon in Athlone in the heart of Ireland … but what are the furthest extremes of the island? (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

I have to accept at this stage that I am not going to Greece this year, and – much to my regret – my holiday in Thessaloniki and Halkidiki at the end of August and beginning of September has now been cancelled.

Of course, I would prefer to be healthy this year, and hope to travel to Greece on a number of occasions next year, than to travel to Greece now and not be able to go there at all this year. And I would hate to find out that I had either brought Covid-19 with me to Greece or, instead, brought it back to Ireland.

Now, by way of compensation, I am planning 10 or 12 days in southern Ireland, visiting favourite places – and some new places – in counties Kerry, Cork, Waterford, Kilkenny and Wexford.

Living in Askeaton for the past three years or more, I have been able to visit parts of Ireland that might have been more difficult to reach in other circumstances, from the Aran Islands in Galway Bay to the extremities of the Kerry peninsulas.

What are the furthest extremes of Ireland that you have visited?

When we take the map of the full island and exclude offshore islands and rocky outcrops – ignoring Rockall and Rathlin for example – there are 12 ways of defining the extreme points of Ireland: the whole island; the Republic of Ireland, excluding Northern Ireland; and then Northern Ireland on its own.

On the cliffs above the Giant’s Causeway … the farthest north I have been in Ireland (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Four extreme points on the mainland of Ireland:

The extreme points of the mainland of Ireland, in clockwise direction, are:

North: Banba’s Crown at the tip of Malin Head on the Inishowen Peninsula, Co Donegal (Latitude: 55° 23′ 4″ N)

East: Burr Point on Ards Peninsula, Co Down (5° 25′ 58″ W)

South: Brow Head, near Mizen Head, Co Cork (51° 26′ 52″ N)

West: Dunmore Head, Dingle Peninsula, Co Kerry (10° 28′ 46″ W)

The geographical centre of Ireland is 8.85 km north-north-west of Athlone Town in the townland of Carnagh East, Co Roscommon on the west shore of Lough Ree.

It is interesting that the most northern point on the island is in the Republic of Ireland and not in Northern Ireland, that the point furthest east is in Northern Ireland, and the extreme points south and west are so close to one another (at least as the crow flies).

Mizen Head … the furthest south I have been in Ireland (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

I have not been to all these extremities. But the furthest north, east, south and west I have been on the island of Ireland to date are:

North: the Giant’s Causeway, Co Antrim (55° 14′ 27″ N). My most recent visit to the Giant’s Causeway was on 12 November 2016, when I was on a visit to the North Antrim coast.

East: Donaghadee, on the Ards Peninsula, Co Down (5.53° W). I was there in September 1998 to speak at the Annual Conference of the Church of Ireland Men’s Society in Donaghadee Parish Church on ‘The 1798 Rebellion and the Church of Ireland.’ During that visit I stood on the shoreline, with a clear view across to the coast of Scotland.

South: The furthest south I have been is at Mizen Head, visiting the lighthouse or signal station (51° 27' 00" north) on 21 May 2016. Earlier that same day I had lunch in O’Sullivan’s in Crookhaven (51° 28' 09" north), which claims to serve the ‘most southerly pint in Ireland.’

West: When I travelled through the Dingle Peninsula on 20 September 2017, I stood at the end of western tip of Slea Head (51° 28' 09" N), near Dunmore Head, looking at the Blasket Islands.

Looking out at the Blasket Islands from the western tip of Slea Head (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

The geographical centre of Ireland, according to the Irish Ordnance Survey, is in the townland of Carnagh East, Co Roscommon on the west shore of Lough Ree, where the 8° Meridian West meets the 53°30' North Latitude. It is opposite the Cribby Islands and 8.85 km north-north-west of Athlone Town. Lecarrow is the closest population centre.

An alternative centre-point for Ireland has been placed, at a point 3 km south of Athlone in east Co Roscommon. So, if I have to place myself in the middle of Ireland, then I have been to Athlone many times, and on the shores of Lough Ree, and enjoyed a rink in Sean’s Bar, which claims to be the oldest pub in Ireland, and perhaps the pub in the heart of Ireland too.

Wicklow Harbour … probably the furthest east I have been in the Republic of Ireland (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

But I have not been to all the extremities of the Republic of Ireland either. They are:

North: Banba’s Crown at the tip of Malin Head on the Inishowen Peninsula, Co Donegal (Latitude: 55° 23′ 4″ N)

East: Wicklow Head, Co Wicklow (05° 99′ 78″); although, if the islands are included, the point furthest east is Lambay Island (06° 00′ 54″ W)

South: Brow Head, near Mizen Head, Co Cork (Latitude: 51° 26′ 52″ N)

West: Dunmore Head, Dingle Peninsula, Co Kerry (Longitude: 10° 28′ 46″ W)

The furthest north, east, south and west I have been in the Republic of Ireland to date are:

North: The furthest north I have been in the Republic is Redcastle on the Inishowen Peninsula, Co Donegal, when I was at an ordination in the late 1980s, or Arnold’s Hotel, in Dunfanaghy, when the then Bishop Michael Jackson invited me to speak at the Clogher Clergy Conference. So, I need to make some careful calculations to figure out this piece of extreme tourism.

East: Wicklow Town, the tip of Howth Head or the shores of Portrane, Co Dublin, looking out onto Lambay Island. I never managed to complete a boat trip from Skerries to Lambay Island one summer’s evening some years ago, and I have not yet walked out to the edge of Wicklow Town. So, once again, I need to make some difficult calculations.

South: Mizen Head and Crookhaven.

West: The end of western tip of Slea Head on the Dingle Peninsula.

Looking out at Lambay Island from the shores of Portrane (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

The four extreme points of mainland Northern Ireland, excluding the islands, are:

North: Benbane Head, Co Antrim (55°15′ N)

East: Burr Point, Ards Peninsula, Co Down (5° 25′ 58″ W)

South: a point south of Greencastle, Co Down (54° 2′ N)

West: Bradoge Bridge, Co Fermanagh (8°10′ W), and the most westerly town in Northern Ireland is nearby Belleek (8°10′ W).

The four extreme limits of Northern Ireland I have visited are:

North: the Giant’s Causeway, Co Antrim (55° 14′ 27″ N)

East: Donaghadee, on the Ards Peninsula, Co Down (5.53° W)

South: The furthest south I have been in Northern Ireland is Kilkeel, Co Down (54.059°N), on the road from Rostrevor to Newcastle.

West: A point west Belleek, Co Fermanagh (8°10′ W), crossing the border on a minor road from Bundoran, Co Donegal, into Garrison, Co Fermanagh, around 1970.

Sean’s Bar in Athlone, beneath the shadows of Athlone Castle, claims to date back to 900 AD (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2018)

‘Patriotism is not enough. I must have no hatred or bitterness for anyone’

‘Patriotism is not enough’ … the Edith Cavell Memorial in Saint Martin’s Place, London, this week (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2019)

Patrick Comerford

One monument in London that constantly attracts my attention is the Edith Cavell Memorial in Saint Martin’s Place, close to the north-east corner of Trafalgar Square. It stands beside the Church of Saint Martin-in-the-Fields, where I had lunch on Monday afternoon, and is close the National Gallery and the National Portrait Gallery.

Edith Cavell (1865-1915) was a nurse from Norfolk and was matron at Berkendael Medical Institute in Brussels when World War I broke out in 1914. She nursed soldiers from both sides without distinction and also helped 200 Allied soldiers escape from German-occupied Belgium. She was arrested in August 1915, court-martialled, found guilty of treason, and shot by a German firing squad on 12 October 1915.

At first she was buried in Belgium, but were brought back to Britain in May 1919 for a state funeral at Westminster Abbey before she was finally buried at Norwich Cathedral 100 years ago.

Although Edith Cavell’s sister, Lilian Wainwright, wanted no public monuments, funds for a public memorial were raised by a committee chaired by Harry Levy-Lawson, Viscount Burnham, proprietor of the Daily Telegraph. Other committee members included the Lord Mayor of London, the Bishop of London, and the chairman of London County Council.

The sculptor Sir George James Frampton (1860-1928) accepted the commission, but declined any fee. He adopted a distinctively Modernist style for the memorial, which comprises a 3 metre high statue of Cavell in her nurse’s uniform, sculpted from white Carrara marble, standing on a grey Cornish granite pedestal. The statue stands in front of the south side of a larger grey granite pylon that is 12 metres high. The top of the block is carved into a cross and a statue of a mother and child, sometimes interpreted as the Virgin and Child. The whole memorial is elevated on three steps.

The inscription on the pedestal beneath the statue of Cavell reads:

Edith Cavell
Brussels
Dawn
October 12th 1915
Patriotism is not enough
I must have no hatred or
bitterness for anyone

The last three lines quote her comment to the Revd Stirling Gahan (1870-1958), the Irish-born Anglican chaplain in Brussels, who gave her Holy Communion on the night before her execution. These words were initially left off, and added in 1924 at the request of the National Council of Women.

The face of the granite block behind the statue of Cavell bears the inscription ‘Humanity,’ and higher up, below the Virgin and Child, ‘For King and Country.’ Other faces of the block bear the inscriptions, ‘Devotion,’ ‘Fortitude’ and ‘Sacrifice.’ On the rear face of the block is a carving of a lion crushing a serpent, and higher up, the inscription, ‘Faithful until death.’

The memorial was unveiled by Queen Alexandra on 17 March 1920. It received a Grade II listing in 1970, and was upgraded to a Grade I listing in 2014.

The site was chosen because it is beside the first headquarters of the British Red Cross at 7 Saint Martin’s Place.

The Edith Cavell Memorial is the work of the sculptor Sir George Frampton (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2019)

Edith Cavell was born on 4 December 1865 in Swardeston, a village near Norwich, where her father was the vicar for 45 years. She was the eldest of the four children of the Revd Frederick Cavell (1824-1910) and his wife Louisa Sophia Warming (1835-1918), and her maternal grandmother was Irish and she had two sisters and a brother.

She was educated at Norwich High School for Girls, and then went to boarding schools at Clevedon in Somerset, and Laurel Court in Peterborough.

She was recruited by Dr Antoine Depage in 1907 as the matron of a new nursing school in Brussels. She was visiting her widowed mother in Norfolk when World War I broke out. She returned to Brussels, where her clinic and nursing school were taken over by the Red Cross.

After the German occupation of Brussels in November 1914, Edith began sheltering British soldiers, helping them to escape to the neutral Netherlands, and hiding wounded British and French soldiers and Belgian and French civilians of military age.

She was arrested on 3 August 1915, charged with harbouring allied soldiers and war treason, despite not being a German national, and was sentenced to death. The First Geneva Convention guaranteed the protection of medical personnel, but this was forfeit if used as cover for belligerent action. At her trial, she made no attempt to defend herself.

The British government said it could do nothing to help her. But Hugh S Gibson, First Secretary of the US legation at Brussels, made clear to the German government that executing her would further harm Germany’s already damaged reputation. He reminded the Germans of the burning of Louvain and the sinking of the Lusitania.

The sentence of death by firing squad was confirmed at 4.30 pm on 11th October 1915, to be carried out before dawn the next day. Her final words to the German Lutheran prison chaplain, the Revd Paul Le Seur, were, ‘Ask Father Gahan to tell my loved ones later on that my soul, as I believe, is safe, and that I am glad to die for my country.’

Pastor Le Soeur realised that Edith could not receive spiritual help from someone in a German uniform. He hurriedly called for Horace Gahan who was not at home, but eventually the message reached him to meet the chaplain at his lodgings. Learning of Edith’s fate was a very shocking moment for him.

Gahan arrived at Saint Gilles Prison that evening after 8.30 p.m. with a pass and went to Edith’s cell. There he found her calm and resigned. He recalled her words, ‘I have no fear or shrinking; I have seen death so often it is not strange, or fearful to me!’

They shared Holy Communion together and he stayed for an hour. She spoke kindly of her treatment in prison and said, ‘But this I would say, standing as I do in view of God and eternity, I realise that patriotism is not enough. I must have no hatred or bitterness towards anyone.’

The meeting ended after they softly recited the hymn Abide with Me together. On leaving, he said ‘God Bless’; she smiled and replied tenderly, ‘We shall meet again.’

Sixteen men, forming two firing squads, carried out the death sentence on her and four Belgian men in Schaerbeek at 7 a.m. on 12 October 1915. News reports after her execution were found to be only true in part. Even the American Journal of Nursing repeated the fictional account of her execution in which she fainted and fell because of her refusal to wear a blindfold in front of the firing squad. Allegedly, while she lay unconscious, the German commanding officer shot her dead with a revolver.

Pastor Le Seur, the German army chaplain, recalled at the time of her execution, ‘I do not believe that Miss Cavell wanted to be a martyr ... but she was ready to die for her country ... Miss Cavell was a very brave woman and a faithful Christian.’

Immediately after her execution, Horace Gahan wrote an important and moving account of their meeting. It was sent through the US Legation to the Foreign Office in London, where it was released. Her story was used in war-time propaganda as an example of German barbarism and moral depravity.

Edith Cavell became the most prominent British female casualty of World War I, and many memorials were created around the world to remember her.

The Edith Cavell Health Care Campus is on the site of the former Edith Cavell Hospital in Peterborough, and there is a memorial to Edith Cavell in Peterborough Cathedral, which I visited yesterday.

She was also honoured in Peterborough with the naming of the Cavell car park, one of four car parks at the Queensgate shopping centre. During the refurbishment of Queensgate in 2011, there were plans to drop the names of all four car parks and refer only to them by colour, with the Cavell car park becoming the Blue car park. But the plans stirred in a public backlash and the names have been retained.

As for the Revd Horace Sterling Townsend Gahan (1870-1959), he continued to live in Brussels for a few years after World War I, and there he was sometimes known affectionately as ‘Father Pat’ because of his Irish origins.

Gahan was born in Lurganboy in the parish of Donegal on 11 November 1870, a son of Frederick Beresford Gahan, a civil engineer, and his wife, Katherine Janes (née Townsend). He was ordained deacon by the Bishop of Worcester (1894) and priest by the Bishop of Coventry (1895), and worked in parishes in the Church of England until 1905, when he returned to Ireland.

He was a curate in Tullamore (1905-1907) in the Diocese of Meath, the Baggotrath Chapel (1907-1909), on Upper Baggot Street, Dublin, and the Rector of Templeharry (1909-1910), in the Diocese of Killaloe.

After a brief time in the Diocese of Rochester, Horace Gahan moved to Brussels as the Anglican chaplain of Christ Church, just as World War I was about to break out. He returned to England in 1923 as the rector of a parish in Leicester, and died 60 years ago in February 1959.

Incidentally, Horace Gahan’s immediate successor as Rector of Templeharry was Canon Robert Neill (1883-1951), whose great-grandson, Canon Stephen Neill, located the parish registers that record the baptisms of President Barack Obama’s ancestors in the parish records.

Edith Louisa Cavell was 49 at the time of her execution. The Church of England commemorates her in the Calendar of Saints on 12 October.

The Cavell Blue Car Park at Queensgate Shopping Centre in Peterborough (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2019)