The Armenian Church, Singapore’s oldest church, is a masterpiece by the Irish architect George Coleman

The Armenian Apostolic Church of Saint Gregory the Illuminator on Hill Street is the oldest surviving church in Singapore (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

Patrick Comerford

During our stopover in Singapore last month, I visited a number of cathedrals, churches, chapels, synagogues, mosques and temples in the Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, Taoist and Buddhist traditions.

The Christian places of worship I visited include Anglican, Roman Catholic and Armenian Orthodox cathedrals and churches. The Armenian Apostolic Church of Saint Gregory the Illuminator on Hill Street is the oldest surviving church in Singapore. It was designed by the Irish-born architect, George Drumgoole Coleman (1795-1844) from Drogheda.

Coleman was Singapore’s pioneer colonial architect, and he played a key role in designing and building much of early Singapore after it was founded by Sir Stamford Raffles in 1819. They include the original Saint Andrew’s Anglican Cathedral, Maxwell’s House, later the Old Parliament House, Caldwell House and, perhaps, the Jamae Mosque that gives its name to Mosque Street. But the Armenian Church is considered one of his masterpieces.

Inside the Armenian Church on Hill Street, designed by George Drumgoole Coleman from Drogheda (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

Coleman gives his name to Coleman Street and Coleman Bridge in Singapore. He had a long-term relationship with Takouhi (Thagoohi) Manuk, a sister of Gvork Manuk, a wealthy Persian-born Armenian merchant in India and Java, and he built a mansion for her beside his own. Their daughter, Meda Elizabeth Coleman, was born on 10 March 1829, and the girl was baptised in Saint Andrew’s Cathedral on 30 July 1837.

Takouhi Manuk and her sister Mary Arathoon later inherited their brother’s entire wealth and in 1854 they funded the rebuilding of Saint John’s Armenian Church in Calcutta. It is possibly because of his relationship with Takouhi Manuk that Coleman came to design the Armenian Church of Saint Gregory the Illuminator on Hill Street in 1835, and she donated much of the silverware and furnishings in the church.

The church, known locally as the Armenian Church, is dedicated to Saint Gregory the Illuminator, the first Patriarch of the Armenian Church.

Inside the Armenian Church on Hill Street,dedicated to Saint Gregory the Illuminator, the first Patriarch of the Armenian Church (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

The Armenians were among the earliest merchants and traders to arrive in Singapore after Raffles established it as a trading port in 1819. The community was holding services in Singapore by 1821, and the first priest, Father Krikor Hovhannes (Gregory John), arrived in July 1827.

A temporary chapel was set up at the back of John Little and Company at Commercial Square, now Raffles Place. The community started to raise funds to build a new church in 1827. Over half the building cost was donated by the Armenian community in Singapore, with the rest coming from Armenians in Java and India, and a small portion from European and Chinese merchants in Singapore.

The Armenian community was very small – the 1824 census counted only 16 members, and 34 in 1836 when the church opened – its contribution to the Armenian Church indicates the prosperity and religious devotion of the Armenian community in Singapore.

They included lawyers, merchants, and entrepreneurs, such as the Sarkies Brothers, who built and managed the Raffles Hotel, Agnes Joaquim who hybridised the orchid Vanda ‘Miss Joaquim’, named as Singapore’s national flower, and Catchick Moses who founded the Straits Times.

A memorial plaque in Armenian on the church walls (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

The Armenian community requested a site for a church in 1833, and the government granted land at the foot of Fort Canning in 1834. The foundation stone was laid on 1 January 1835 by Father Thomas Gregorian, who opened and consecrated the new church on Easter Sunday 1836, assisted by Father Khachig Hovhannes.

The east front of the church has a bowed apse with a pediment supporting a spire. The date ‘1835’ commemorates the year the foundation stone was laid.

The altar and east apse in the church (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

The Armenian Church is primarily in the English neoclassical style with a few eclectic influences, and it is centrally-designed in the manner of the Etchmiadzin Cathedral, the mother church of Armenia.

The interior is circular and is said to resemble the round Holy Sepulchre in Cambridge. However, the circle is imposed within a square-cross plan, with projecting square porticos in Roman Doric orders. The Palladian-style design may have been inspired by the circular plan for Saint Andrews’s Church in Chennai (Madras), which in turn is derived from one of James Gibbs’s designs for Saint Martin-in-the-Fields, London.

Coleman’s original symmetrical design included neither tower nor spire, but featured an octagonal cone supporting a small bell turret with Ionic columns.

Each of the Tuscan Doric porticos on the north, south and west fronts of the church is topped with a triangular pediment. Originally the east front simply had a bowed apse with Tuscan Doric pilasters, however the bowed apse has since been boxed in by the portico on which the spire was built.

The north, south and west porticos were designed to allow horse carriages to pull into the porches, where women might then alight and step directly into the church without soiling their dresses.

The pews are backed with woven rattan, a lighter, cooler and more comfortable material that suits Singapore’s tropical climate (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

Coleman’s design is adapted to suit Singapore’s tropical climate. The wide verandahs give shade and protect the timber-louvred windows on the ground floor from heavy downpours. The windows, in turn, diffuse the sunlight and induce cross ventilation. The pews are backed with woven rattan, a lighter, cooler and more comfortable material.

The painting above the altar is of the Last Supper.

The church has undergone many modifications since it was first built (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

The church has undergone a number of modifications since it was first built. A bell turret designed by Coleman was deemed structurally unsound, and it was replaced first by a square tower in 1846-1847, then again replaced in 1853 with a square tower with Doric pilasters, designed by the Welsh-born architect George Vaughan Maddox (1802-1864). Maddox replaced the pitched roof with the present roof.

To support the tower and spire, he added the east portico around the apse where the chancel is. The semi-circular chancel with the raised grand altar is located opposite the main entrance. Probably at the same time the main entrance on the west portico was also widened.

The parsonage, built in 1905, houses the Armenian Heritage Gallery (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

The parsonage, a two-storey bungalow in the church grounds, was built in 1905 by Nanajan Sarkies in memory of her late husband, John Shanazar Sarkies. Today, it serves as the administrative offices of the Armenian Church and houses the Armenian Heritage Gallery.

In 1909, the church became the first building in Singapore with electricity.

The Armenian population in Singapore dwindled in the early 20th century, and the last Armenian parish priest left in the late 1930s.

The square tower designed by Maddox was replaced in 1953 by the present spire that sits on an octagonal tower, and it is topped with a ball and cross.

Relocated gravestones in the churchyard (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

When the Christian cemetery at Fort Canning was cleared for a park in the late 1960s, early Armenian tombstones there were moved into the Memorial Garden at the church ground. Tombstones from Bukit Timah-Cavenagh Road cemetery were also moved there.

The tombstones, moved by an American-Armenian Levon Palian, include tombstones of members of the Sarkies family of Raffles Hotel fame, Agnes Joaquim, who bred Singapore’s national flower, and Catchick Moses, who founded the Straits Times. However, the Memorial Garden was never used as a burial ground.

The Armenian Church was gazetted as a national monument in 1973.

The khachkar memorial was erected in 2015 to mark the centenary of the Armenian genocide in the Ottoman Empire in 1915 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

The church had been abandoned religiously for decades when Father Daron Djerejian, an Armenian priest from Nice in France, visited the church in 1979 and conducted the Divine Liturgy.

The Armenian Church celebrated its 150th anniversary in 1985. Archbishop Aghan Baliozian of Australia led a group of Armenian pilgrims from Australia, the Philippines, Hong Kong, Thailand, Japan and the US to Singapore in June 1985.

A celebration of the Divine Liturgy at the church in 2001 marked the 1700th anniversary of the official adoption of Christianity in Armenia. On 27 March 2011, 160 Armenians from 20 countries gathered at the church to commemorate the 175th anniversary of the church.

The Armenian Patriarch, Patriarch Karekin II, appointed Father Zaven Yazichyan, a monk from Etchmiadzin, as the pastor of the Armenian communities in Singapore, Myanmar and Bangladesh in 2016. He is based in Yangon, Myanmar, and visits Singapore five or six times a year.

The Armenian Apostolic Church celebrates Divine Liturgy several times a year, presided over by visiting Armenian priests from around the region. The Armenian Christmas celebrations take place from 10 am to 12 noon on Sunday 12 January 2025, to be presided over by Archbishop Haigazoun Najarian.

The Armenian Church also hosts a number of religious groups that occasionally conduct Divine Liturgy and prayer sessions at the Church, including Saint Mark Coptic Orthodox Church on the first Saturday evening and Sunday morning of each month; Saint Flannan Mission; and the Taizé Prayer Group.

The church grounds are a tranquil oasis in the busy heart of Singapore (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

Saint Andrew’s Cathedral, an intimate part of the story of Singapore since the days of Raffles

Saint Andrew’s Cathedral, Singapore, at night … a church has stood on the site for almost 200 years (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

Patrick Comerford

I have been in Cambridge all day for the celebrations of the 25th anniversary of the Institute for Orthodox Christian Studies, where I was student for some years.

Advent begins tomorrow (1 December 2024), and today is Saint Andrew’s Day, which brings my thoughts back to my visit last week to Saint Andrew’s Cathedral, the Anglican cathedral in the centre of Singapore.

Saint Andrew’s Cathedral is linked intimately to the history and development of Singapore and the story of the city’s founder, Sir Stamford Raffles. It is the cathedral of the Diocese of Singapore, which has 27 parishes and more than 55 congregations.

Saint Andrew’s Cathedral, Singapore … linked intimately to the history and development of Singapore and the story of Sir Stamford Raffles (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

A church has stood on the site since 1836, although the current building was built in 1856-1861. Raffles originally allocated a piece of land between Hill Street and North Bridge Road in his Town Plan of 1822 for an Anglican church. However, due to a lack of funds, it was another 12 years before work began on building the first church.

Initially, Anglicans in Singapore worshipped in a wooden and thatch-roofed mission chapel on the site where Raffles Hotel stands today. The Revd Fred J Darrah, who arrived in Singapore in 1833 as the second residency chaplain, wanted to build a proper church. He called a public meeting on 6 October 1834, and funds were raised to start building a church on the land allocated by Raffles over a decade earlier.

Some sources say the land on which the church was built, between North Bridge Road and Saint Andrew’s Road, was donated by Singapore’s first Arab settler, Syed Sharif Omar bin Ali Al-Junied, a trader and landowner. A substantial portion of the initial funds was raised by the Scottish community. And so, the church was named after Saint Andrew, patron saint of Scotland.

An early view of Saint Andrew’s Church, designed by George Drumgoole Coleman, with Government Hill, now Canning Hill, in the background (National Archives of Singapore)

The first Saint Andrew’s Church was designed in the neo-classical style by the Drogheda-born Irish architect George Drumgoole Coleman (1795-1844). The foundation stone was laid on 9 November 1835, the church was built in 1836, and the Revd Edmund White conducted the first service in the church on 18 June 1837.

At the time, Singapore came within the Diocese of Calcutta, and Bishop Daniel Wilson of Calcutta consecrated Saint Andrew’s Church on 10 September 1838.

There were complaints that the church resembled a ‘Town Hall, a College or an Assembly Room’. A spire was added by John Turnbull Thomson in 1842. The church had a bell known as the Revere Bell, named after Mrs Maria Revere Balestier, the wife of the US Consul, Joseph Balestier, who donated the bell in 1843.

However, the spire was built without a lightning conductor and the church was hit by two lightning strikes, in 1845 and 1849. The church was declared unsafe, it was closed in 1852, and it was demolished in 1855.

Inside Saint Andrew’s Cathedral, Singapore, facing the liturical east (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

The construction of a second church was initiated by the then Governor of the Straits Settlements, William Butterworth. Colonel Ronald MacPherson, the executive engineer of Singapore, designed the new church in the Gothic Revival style. MacPherson is said to have been inspired in part by Netley Abbey, a ruined 13th century church in Hampshire, and the piers of the nave of Saint Andrew’s closely resemble the surviving piers at Netley.

The building was finished in Madras chunam, a plaster mixture made from shell lime, egg white, coarse sugar and water in which coconut husks had been steeped. After drying, the plastered walls and columns were polished with rock crystal or rounded stones and dusted with fine soapstone powder, giving the building a remarkably smooth and glossy surface.

The tower was originally designed to be twice the height of the previous tower and without a spire. But during its construction, it was discovered that the foundation might not support such a heavy structure, and a lighter spire was built instead. The plan was also simplified so that it could be more easily built by Indian convict labourers.

Inside Saint Andrew’s Cathedral, Singapore, facing the liturgical west (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

Bishop Daniel Wilson of Calcutta laid the foundation stone on 4 March 1856, and after MacPherson was transferred to Malacca, the building was completed by Major John FA McNair, John Bennett and WD Bayliss. The church was completed in 1861, and the first service was held on 1 October 1861. Bishop George Cotton, who succeeded Daniel Wilson as Bishop of Calcutta, consecrated Saint Anrew’s on 25 January 1862.

Three stained glass windows in the apse were dedicated in 1861 to three figures in Singapore’s early colonial history and who are represented on the windows by their coats of arms. The window at the centre is dedicated to Sir Stamford Raffles, the windows on the left to John Crawfurd, the first major Resident of Singapore, and the windows on the right to Major General William Butterworth, the governor who initiated building the second church.

The reredos behind the High Altar depicts the Shepherds at the Nativity. It was designed by Sir Charles Blomfield, made in Italy and crafted in alabaster and mosaic. It was donated in memory of Emily Harriet (Kerby) Hose (1841-1904), the wife of George Hose (1838-1922), Bishop of Labuan and Sarawak (1881-1909) and a former colonial chaplain in Singapore and Archdeacon of Singapore; she died in the Bishop’s House, Kuching, in 1904.

The reredos designed by Sir Charles Blomfield in memory of Emily Harriet Hose (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

MacPherson is also commemorated in the grey and red granite memorial monument surmounted by a Maltese cross in the grounds, and by the stained glass window over the west door depicting the four evangelists. The gallery at the west end was not part of MacPherson’s plan but was added after the cathedral opened. It has the only decorated elements in the church, with foliated pillars and pilasters, and crocketed arches.

The pulpit was given by a former governor, Sir Cecil Clementi Smith (1840-1916), and was made in Sri Lanka in 1889. Smith was a grandson of the composer Muzio Clementi (1752-1832), who once lived in Lyncroft House, now the Hedgehog Inn in Lichfield, and a nephew of John Clementi, who built Iveragh Lodge in Waterville, Co Kerry, as a shooting lodge in 1858.

The Coventry Cross of Nails is on the wall behind the pulpit. The lectern was a gift of Thomas Shelford and the altar rails were given by the Shelford family.

The Revere Bell was replaced by a chime of bells in 1889, and the Revere Bell is now in the National Museum of Singapore.

The High Altar and sanctuary in Saint Andrew’s Cathedral (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

Saint Andrew’s Church was transferred from the Diocese of Calcutta to the Diocese of Labuan and Sarawak in 1869, and Archdeacon John Alleyne Beckles consecrated Saint Andrew’s as the cathedral of the new diocese in 1870. The diocese was officially named the Diocese of Singapore, Labuan and Sarawak in 1881.

But the Diocese of Singapore, Labuan and Sarawak covered such a large area that it became almost unmanageable. Singapore was made a separate diocese in 1909, covering the Straits Settlements, Peninsular Malaya, Siam (Thailand), Java, Sumatra and adjacent islands, with Bishop Charles James Ferguson-Davie (1872-1963), a former USPG missionary in India, as the first Bishop of Singapore (1909-1927).

The Canterbury Stone, set in a pillar by the lectern and bearing a bronze replica of the Canterbury Cross, was sent from Canterbury Cathedral in 1936.

The four evangelists depicted in the MacPherson window above the west door (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

In the days before Singapore fell to the Japanese in 1942, the cathedral was turned into an emergency hospital. Casualties of the frequent bombings were sent to the cathedral for treatment when the hospitals were overcrowded.

Bishop Leonard Wilson (1897-1970) was Bishop of Singapore (1941-1949) at the outbreak of World War II. He became a Japanese prisoner of war and was held in Changi. Despite his treatment as a prisoner, including torture, he baptised three of his captors.

He later became Dean of Manchester (1949-1953) and Bishop of Birmingham (1953-1969), and is commemorated by a diamond-shape stone plaque in the floor in front of the High Altar in Birmingham Cathedral

Church services in Saint Andrew’s Cathedral resumed after the Japanese surrendered in 1945. A Memorial Hall dedicated to those who died in World War II was added in 1952.

The north and south transepts of the cathedral were originally built as porches for carriages and have been extended to provide halls, meeting rooms and offices: the north transept in 1952, and the south transept 1983.

Saint Andrew’s Cathedral was listed as a Singapore national monument in 1973. Saint Andrew’s Cathedral Choir is the oldest musical institution in Singapore.

The west porch of Saint Andrew’s Cathedral, Singapore (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

Meanwhile, the diocese was renamed the Diocese of Singapore and Malaya in 1960. The diocese was dissolved in 1970 and split into the Diocese of Singapore and the Diocese of West Malaysia.

The Church of the Province of South East Asia, consisting of the Dioceses of Singapore, West Malaysia, Kuching and Sabah, was formed in 1996. Bishop Moses Tay, Bishop of Singapore, became the first Archbishop of the Province.

A project to exted the cathedral began in 2003. The extension, the Cathedral New Sanctuary, was completed in November 2005. It is largely built underground and features a new worship hall within two underground levels of floor space.

The cathedral bells, cast in 1888 by John Taylor & Co of Loughborough, were originally hung as a chime of eight. They were designed for change ringing, but were hung dead due to fears that the tower had unsuitable foundations. However, a survey in 2018 found that the tower was suitable for change ringing, and the first change ringing took place on in 2019.

After more than two years of restoration works, the cathedral nave was reopened and was dedicated last Christmas Eve (24 December 2023) by Archbishop Titus Chung, who has been the Bishop of Singapore since 2020.

Looking out onto Coleman Street from the west porch of Saint Andrew’s Cathedral (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

Today the Diocese of Singapore has seven area groups made up of 27 local parishes within the Archdeaconry of Singapore and six deanery countries – Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Nepal, Thailand and Vietnam.

The acting vicar of Saint Andrew’s is the Revd Christopher Chan; the cathedral priests are the Revd Moses Israeli, the Revd Daniel Lim and the Revd Andrew Yap; the assistant priests are the Revd Louis Tay and the Revd Soon Soo Kee; and the deaconesses are the Revd Ti Lian Swan and the Revd June Tan. The cathedral is usually open daily from 7 am to 8 pm.

Saint Andrew’s Cathedral hosts over a dozen services on a typical Sunday. These include the Holy Communion in English at 8 am on Sundays, at 9:30 on the second and fourth Sundays of the month, and at 11:30 on the first, third and fifth Sundays. There are also regular Sunday celebrations of the Holy Communion in Mandarin, Cantonese, Hokkien and Burmese.

Saint Andrew’s Cathedral hosts over a dozen services on a typical Sunday (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

George Drumgoole Coleman, the architect from Drogheda who shaped the streets of Singapore

Parliament House in Singapore was first designed by George Drumgoole Coleman for John Argyle Maxwell (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

Patrick Comerford

During our two recent visits to Singapore, I was interested in how much of Singapore was shaped in the 19th century and early 20th century by some influential Irish figures, including the Governor Sir Orfeur Cavenagh (1820-1891), who had family roots in Co Wexford and Co Kildare, and the architects George Drumgoole Coleman (1795-1844), who was born in Drogheda, and Denis Santry (1879-1960), who was born in Cork.

George Drumgoole Coleman (1795-1844), also known as George Drumgold Coleman, was Singapore’s pioneer colonial architect.

Only a few of Coleman’s buildings in Singapore have survived, including the Armenian Church of Saint Gregory the Illuminator, Maxwell’s House, later the Old Parliament House, Caldwell House and, perhaps, the Jamae Mosque that gives its name to Mosque Street. But he played a key role in designing and building much of early Singapore after it was founded by Sir Stamford Raffles in 1819.

George Drumgoole Coleman was born in Drogheda, Co Louth, in 1795, and returned to Drogheda in 1841-1842

George Drumgoole Coleman was born in Drogheda, Co Louth, in 1795. He was the son of James Coleman, a merchant whose business included building materials. James Coleman had married into the Co Louth merchant family of Drumgold or Drumgoole, and many members of the Dromgold family are buried both at Saint Peter’s Church (Church of Ireland), Drogheda, and in the Cord Cemetery off Cord Road, Drogheda.

I mused at one stage how my great-great-grandfather, James Comerford (1775-1825) of Co Wexford, was a first cousin of Sylvester Comerford (1756-1796), who married Mary Dromgoole of Drogheda in 1779. But any connection would be both conjectural and remote.

There are no records indicating where George Coleman received his architectural education, and his name is not in the registers of the Dublin Society’s Drawing School or the Royal Academy School in London.

However, it has been suggested that he was articled to Francis Johnston (1760-1819), who once had an architectural practice in Paradise Place, off William Street, Drogheda, in in 1786-1793, and who designed Townley Hall and a related row of family houses in Drogheda (1794-1798). Perhaps Johnston’s influence is reflected in Coleman’s Palladian and Georgian designs in Singapore. But Johnston moved from Drogheda to Dublin before Coleman was born, and completed Townley Hall while Coleman was still an infant.

At the age of 19, Coleman left Ireland in 1815 for Calcutta, where he worked as an architect, designing private houses for the merchants of Fort William. In 1819, he was invited through his patron, John Palmer, to build two churches in Batavia (now Jakarta) in the Dutch East Indies. The churches were never built, but Coleman spent two years in Java, where he surveyed large sugar plantations, designed private buildings and sugar mills and built machinery for sugar milling.

The Armenian Church of Saint Gregory the Illuminator on Hill Street was designed by George Coleman in 1835 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

Coleman obtained an introduction to Sir Stamford Raffles from Palmer and arrived in Singapore in June 1822. There he waited four months for Raffles to return from Bencoolen, now Bengkulu, in Sumatra.

In the meantime, he designed the Residency at the top of Bukit Larangan, now Fort Canning Hill, for Raffles. The house, with plank walls, Venetian windows and an attap roof, impressed Raffles. Later, at John Crawfurd’s expense, Coleman extended and redesigned the house as the residence of the Residents and Governors of Singapore.

Meanwhile, Raffles was impressed and commissioned Coleman to design a garrison church – that was never built – and to lay out the streets of Singapore. He planned the town centre, created roads, designed fine buildings, and oversaw the works at the Christian Cemetery on the slope of the hill.

Coleman left for Java in June 1823 and spent the next 2½ years there, but returned to Singapore in 1825 due to conflicts between the Dutch and native Javanese.

He designed a large Palladian house for David Skene Napier, the first magistrate in Singapore, in 1826, and a palatial building for the merchant John Argyle Maxwell. Before Maxwell’s house was completed, it was leased to the government for use as a court house and government offices. Much altered and enlarged, it eventually formed part of the Parliament House. This too was designed in the Palladian style, adapted to the tropical climate by incorporating a veranda and overhanging eaves to provide shade.

As a Revenue Surveyor in 1827, Coleman surveyed land titles that were issued mostly for shophouse lots in the town.

Coleman designed and built his own house in 1828, and it was completed in May 1829. That year, Coleman’s daughter, Meda Elizabeth Coleman, was born to Takouhi (Thagoohi) Manuk, on 10 March 1829, and the girl was baptised in Saint Andrew’s Cathedral on 30 July 1837. The child’s mother, Takouhi Manuk, was a sister of Gvork Manuk, a wealthy Persian-born merchant in India and Java, and Coleman built a mansion for her beside his own.

Takouhi Manuk and her sister Mary Arathoon later inherited the entire wealth of their bachelor brother and in 1854 they funded the rebuilding of Saint John’s Armenian Church in Calcutta. It is possibly because of his relationship with Takouhi Manuk that Coleman came to design the Armenian Church of Saint Gregory the Illuminator on Hill Street in 1835, and she donated much of the silverware and furnishings in the church.

Saint Andrew’s Cathedral, Singapore … Coleman designed the original church on Coleman Street in 1835 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

Meanwhile, in 1829, Coleman surveyed in minute detail the islands that would form the new harbour of the port, including all the shoals, slopes and heights of the hills along the coast for the possible fortification of the harbour. The survey was drawn and printed by JB Tassin as the first comprehensive map of the town and environs of Singapore.

Coleman was appointed the Superintendent of Public Works and Convicts in 1833 and was also the surveyor and overseer of convict labour. He managed building the North Bridge Road and South Bridge Road in 1833-1835.

Coleman built the first Anglican church in Singapore, Saint Andrew’s, which was begun in 1835. However, it was demolished in the 1850s when it became unsafe due to lightning strikes, and it was replaced by Saint Andrew’s Cathedral.

Coleman designed the Telok Ayer market, built on the waterfront in 1835. It was demolished during to land reclamation work in 1879 and was moved to Lau Pa Sat, where it retains the octagonal shape of Coleman’s original market.

Coleman helped found the Singapore Free Press & Mercantile Advertiser with William Napier, Edward Boustead, and Walter Scott Lorrain. The Singapore Free Press was first published in October 1835. Due to this competition, the Singapore Chronicle, the first newspaper in Singapore, closed in 1837, and the Singapore Free Press remained unrivalled until it was succeeded by the Straits Times in 1845.

‘Chijmes’ on Victoria Street incorporates Caldwell House, designed by George Coleman in 1840-1841 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

Although Coleman designed numerous private houses in Singapore, only two that with certainty are his design have survived: the Parliament House, originally Maxwell’s house, although it has undergone considerable changes; and Caldwell House on Victoria Street.

Caldwell House was built in 1840-1841 for Henry Charles Caldwell of the Magistrates Court. The house was bought in 1852 by Father Jean-Marie Beurel to establish the Convent of the Holy Infant Jesus. Today it is part of CHIJMES.

Coleman was also commissioned to finish and extend the Raffles Institution, originally designed by Phillip Jackson. That building was demolished in 1972.

The Istana Kampong Glam is believed to be by Coleman, although there is no definite evidence. Coleman is also said to have designed the green Jamae Mosque (Masjid Chulia), on the corner of South Bridge Road and Mosque Street. The entrance gate is distinctively South Indian, but the two prayer halls are Neo-Classical style, typical of Coleman’s. This unique appearance has made the mosque a prominent landmark.

Coleman is said to have designed the Jamae Mosque on the corner of South Bridge Road and Mosque Street in Singapore (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

On his doctor’s advice to return to a more temperate climate, Coleman left for Europe on 25 July 1841 after 15 years of continuous work and 25 years in the East, leaving behind Takouhi Manuk and their daughter Meda Elizabeth Coleman. He visited Drogheda and later married Maria Frances Vernon, youngest daughter of George Vernon of Clontarf Castle, Dublin, in Saint George’s Church, Hanover Square, London, on 17 September 1842.

However, Coleman was unable to settle down in Europe. He returned to Singapore with his wife on 25 November 1843, and they moved into his house on Coleman Street. Their son, George Vernon Coleman, was born on 27 December 1843.

Within three months, Coleman died at the age of 49 at home on 25 March 1844, due to a fever brought on by exposure to the sun. He was buried in an Old Christian Cemetery at the foot of Government Hill, now Fort Canning Hill. His gravestone misspells his name as George Doumgold Coleman.

Within months of Coleman’s death, his widow married William Napier, a conveyancing lawyer and the first law agent in Singapore. Napier adopted Coleman’s infant son George, who would die at sea on board HMS Maeander in 1848 at the age of four. His daughter Meda Elizabeth Coleman died in Singapore in October 1907.

An undated photograph of Coleman’s house at 3 Coleman Street as it originally appeared (Source: Lee Kip Lin, ‘The Singapore House 1819-1942’, Singapore 1988)

After Coleman’s death, the Coleman House at 3 Coleman Street became the London Hotel and then the Hotel de la Paix and the Burlington Hotel. The hotel was frequented by Joseph Conrad during his visits to Singapore.

The house changed hands many times, and at various times it was a boarding house and the Theatre Royal. Up to 1,000 squatters were living there and it was in a dilapidated state when it was demolished in December 1965. It is now the site of the Peninsula Shopping Centre.

Coleman’s grave and other graves were exhumed in 1954-1965 when the cemetery was turned into a park and the gravestones were built into the walls at Fort Canning Park. But his name lives on in a number of places in Singapore, including Coleman Bridge, Coleman Place and Coleman Street.

Looking out onto Coleman Street from the porch of Saint Andrew’s Cathedral (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

Coleman Bridge links Hill Street and New Bridge Road, spanning the Singapore River near Clarke Quay. Part of the bridge marks the boundary between the Downtown Core and the Singapore River Planning Area, both within the Central Area of Singapore.

Coleman Bridge was the second bridge built across the Singapore River and the first built in masonry. A brick bridge joining Old Bridge Road and Hill Street over the Singapore River was built in 1840 and named Coleman Bridge. The bridge had nine arches, and was first known as the New Bridge, giving its name to New Bridge Road.

The brick bridge was replaced in 1865 by one of timber, then in 1886 by an iron bridge spanning the Singapore River, and by the present concrete bridge in 1987. Several features of the iron bridge, including the decorative lamp posts and iron railings, have been incorporated in the present Coleman Bridge.

Coleman Bridge, the second bridge built across the Singapore River, has been rebuilt in 1865, 1886 and 1987 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

My old school in Gormanston plans a new build that is more than a facelift

The school buildings at Gormanston College are typical of mid-1950s architecture … are they about to go? (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

I am like anyone and everyone who went to school in Ireland, I imagine, having regular dreams in which I dread looming ‘Leaving Cert’ exams, in my case in Irish, Maths and Science.

Despite my parents’ best efforts to bring my Irish up to scratch, including sending me for a month in the Kerry Gaeltacht in Ballinskelligs, I managed to scrape through barely with a pass on a pass paper in Irish. Precocious teenager that I was, I had learned more about French kissing than Irish grammar that summer in the mid-1960s.

Despite my eldest brother’s best efforts to bring my Maths up to scratch – he was six years ahead of me in Gormanston and studied maths at UCG, UCD and then at PhD level in Duke University, North Caroline – I managed to scrape through with a bare pass on a pass paper. I still wonder whether I am barely functional when it comes to numeracy skills.

Despite everyone’s best efforts to bring my science up to scratch – although there was no music at home, not even a record player, there were a number of chemistry sets – I managed to scrape through with a flimsy pass on a pass paper that combined both chemistry and physics. I still remember the poor benighted science teacher who asked me to leave the lab when I turned up wearing a poppy in my jacket in November and when I compounded his exasperation by my failure to grasp what he was saying about the periodic table.

I had been in the A stream throughout primary school. By the time I was sitting the ‘Leaving Cert’ I had slipped back to the C stream, and was taking some subjects in the D stream. My teachers seemed to have more confidence in my potential than I showed at exam time. Had there been exams in drama or debating, say, I might have left school with more than two honours (the equivalent of two A Levels). I console myself that English and Geography represent one arts and one science subject, but who counts up an additional six passes?

I still have dystopian dreams about missing classes and failing exams (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

I still have occasional dreams – perhaps everyone else does too – in which I fret about not having prepared adequately for those end-of-school exams. Irish was compulsory in schools in those days, and a fail mark meant failing the whole gamut of exams that year. To fail maths would have been an embarrassment for my brother who had tried but failed to coach me in his chosen subject.

I got a summer job with an insurance company in Dublin when I finished the exams that year. Failure would mean going back to school to repeat another year. When I rang the school to hear my results, my favourite teacher told me assuringly that my results were good enough (as thy were in those days) to get into university and to do anything except medicine or dentistry.

But in recurring dreams, I still find myself running along the school corridors in Gormanston, barging into the wrong classroom, or feeling numbed by the realisation of the consequences of missing yet another Irish class because I have let time flit away in the art room or the music room.

With my 6C stream on the main steps at Gormanston in 1969

Now, it seems, those classrooms, science labs, art rooms, music rooms, even the school chapel and the sports pavilions are to be no more. Am I going to have to change the locations in those dreams, or are they too indelibly etched in the caverns of my mind and in memories that have been consolidated over more than half a century?

All those questions surface now that I hear that the go-ahead has been given for a new school building at Gormanston College after an appeal against the decision of Meath County Council to grant permission was rejected by An Bord Pleanála.

When I was there, Gormanston was a private, fee-paying boarding school with about 400 boys aged from 12 to 18. The facilities included a school chapel, a language laboratory, music rooms and art rooms, football pitches, athletic tracks, ball alleys, tennis courts, a swimming pool, a gym, a theatre, a sports pavilion and a nine-hole golf course.

Few of us probably realised in the 1960s how privileged we were. Yet most of us probably realised we were part of the next generation of leadership in many fields of Irish life, including business, politics, the arts, public administration, agriculture, sport, journalism, medicine and academic and church life. Many of my year still keep in touch through a What’s App group.

The school was built beside Gormanston Castle in the mid-1950s (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

The main school building beside Gormanston Castle is a protected structure, built in 1956 in cast iron and concrete in a style that is typical of the mid-20th century. It is a multiple-bay, four-storey school, built around two central courtyards inspired by English public schools or the courts or quads of a university college. The two-storey projecting granite framed entrance, where we stood on the steps for class and year photographs, is an imposing and interesting feature with the steps leading up to the timber panelled double doors set in glazed entrance.

The design and detail of the sports pavilion, with its clock tower and the viewing gallery overlooking the playing fields, was also built ca 1956 and it too is said to be representative of architectural design in the mid-20th century.

The school chapel is said to have been inspired by Coventry Cathedral, which was being built at the same time. The details include the breakfront entrance, the angled concrete panels and windows, the stained glass windows and the etched glazed doors, all making it a mini-replica of Sir Basil Spence’s cathedral in Coventry.

The school chapel is said to have been inspired by Coventry Cathedral (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

The first boarders arrived at Gormanston Castle in 1954 and the new college officially opened in 1956. My brother arrived at Gormanston as a schoolboy in 1959 and I followed in the 1960s. We were happy there, but we were never there at the same time.

. On the night before 1 April 1969, some of my year group climbed the water tower by one of the ball alleys and hung an effigy for all the school community to see on waking the next morning. The whole escapade was shrouded in secrecy and the instigators of the prank remain unnamed.

A lot has changed since then. The school moved from being a fee-paying school to the free school scheme in 2014, and today Gormanston is a state-run co-educational school under the patronage of the Franciscan order, catering for 430 pupils.

Change has also meant progress, but now the school’s board of management says the existing 1950s school buildings is not ‘suitable for continued use as a school. The existing building is no longer fit for purpose.’

It is planning new school buildings, and wants to build a state-of-the-art, purpose-built school that can cater for up to 1,000 pupils. The new two-storey, 37-classroom building with a total floor area of 10,753 sq m is to be built on the opposite side of the road to Gormanston College and Gormanston Castle.

The local newspaper, the Drogheda Independent, reported last month that the plans include a general-purpose hall, a multi-use hall, a special needs unit, library, staff rooms and photovoltaic roof panels. There are plans too for three grass sports pitches, five hard surface ball courts, outdoor seating and breakout areas, a sensory garden, a tech yard, new landscaping, 96 car parking spaces and 360 cycle parking spaces.

What changes are ringing for the future of the school buildings in Gormanston? (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

The planning application coincides with the transfer of ownership of the school’s proposed new site from the Franciscans to the Educena Foundation, in anticipation of a new school becoming built. The school does not own the site of the existing school, and instead is a long-term tenant. The redevelopment and refurbishment of the existing school is complicated by the fact that Gormanston Castle and the school buildings are protected structures

A resident of Gormanston who appealed the county council’s decision to An Bord Pleanála claimed the existing school building ‘would be permanently used to house refugees, which would double the population of Gormanston.’

However, the school board points out that the preliminary surveys and assessments of the site ‘were carried out in 2021, which pre-dates the invasion of Ukraine.’ They say ‘this matter is of no relevance to the assessment of the development.’

I have no idea what the future holds for those buildings that I can recall in detail in my dreams, including the classrooms, the study halls, the dormitories, the refectory, the corridors, the staircases and the school chapel.

One Lord Gormanston is said to have created the sculpted yew walk as a triangular-shaped cloister to appease his daughter and dissuade her from becoming a nun (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

As schoolboys we dared each other to listen at night for the baying of foxes on the lawn in front of the castle that was said to precede the death of a memberf of the Preston family. The supersition gave its name to the student-produced magazine, Tally-Ho!

What is going to happen to the trees lining Cromwell’s Avenue or the cloister-like yew walks where we were forbidden to go for fear we set them alight while smoking?

What does the future hold for the monks’ graveyard or the once carefully tended and manicured greens of the golf course?

But, perhaps, the 1950s buildings, including the dormitories, class rooms and refectory, could provide ideal accommodation for Ukrainian refugee families. It would fit in with the Franciscan values that have been at the heart of the school for decades.

I can just imagine a future generation of Ukrainians having recurring dystopian dreams, running through those corridors, anxious about missing classes and worried that they are going to fail their final exams in science, maths – or even Irish.

The stained glass in the college chapel … inspired by the glass in Coventry Cathedrsl (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Morning prayers in Easter with USPG: (47) 25 May 2023

The Ascension depicted in the East Window in Saint Patrick’s Cathedral (Church of Ireland), Armagh (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

Eastertide and Ascensiontide continue throughout this week, until the Day of Pentecost next Sunday (28 May 2023).

Today, the calendar of the Church of England in Common Worship remembers the Venerable Bede (735), Monk at Jarrow, Scholar, Historian, and Aldhelm (709), Bishop of Sherborne. Before this day gets busy, I am taking some time this morning for prayer and reflection.

I am reflecting each morning during Ascensiontide in these ways:

1, Looking at a depiction of the Ascension in images or stained glass windows in a church 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.

The East window in Saint Patrick’s Cathedral, Armagh, was designed by Sir Thomas Drew and executed by Heaton, Butler and Bayne (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

The East Window, Saint Patrick’s Cathedral, Armagh:

Saint Patrick’s Cathedral, Armagh, is the seat of the Church of Ireland Archbishop of Armagh and the Diocese of Armagh. The origins of the site are said to date back to the fifth century and the foundation of a monastery by Saint Patrick.

When Brian Boru, High King of Ireland, visited Armagh in 1004, he acknowledging it as the head cathedral of Ireland. He was buried at Armagh cathedral after his death at the Battle of Clontarf in 1014. However, Armagh’s claim to the primacy of Ireland was not formally acknowledged until the Synod of Ráth Breasail in 1111.

Throughout the Middle Ages, the cathedral was one of the most important churches in Ireland, although the archbishops of Armagh sometimes lived, at various time in Dundalk, Drogheda or Termonfeckin in Co Louth.

The East window in Saint Patrick’s Cathedral depicts the Ascension. It was designed by Sir Thomas Drew and executed by Heaton, Butler and Bayne in 1903. It replaced a Warrington window of 1849.

Four of the lower panels with the exception of the centre panel quote Psalm 68: 18 from left to right: ‘Thou art gone up on high’, ‘Thou hast led captivity captive’, ‘and received gifts for men’, ‘yea: even for thine enemies’ – probably a reference to Archbishop Marcus Gervais Beresford’s role in negotiations during the disestablishment of the Church of Ireland.

The centre panel in the lower row depicts Saint Patrick with the coat of arms of the Archbishops of Armagh and a reference to the year 445 when Saint Patrick supposedly built the first church at Armagh.

The window has five lancets, measuring 5580 mm tall, the four side panels 820 mm wide, and the centre panels 920 mm, and 16 tracery-lights.

The window is in memory of Archbishop John George Beresford, Archbishop Marcus Gervais Beresford and Alexander James Beresford-Hope.

Lord John George de la Poer Beresford (1773-1862), a younger son of the 1st Marquess of Waterford, was Archbishop of Armagh for 40 years (1822-1862).

The window also commemorates his immediate successor as archbishop and first cousin once removed, Marcus Gervais Beresford (1801-1885), who was Archbishop of Armagh (1862-1885) at the time of the disestablishment of the Church of Ireland.

Their kinsman, Sir Alexander James Beresford Beresford Hope (1820-1887), was, along with John Mason Neale and Benjamin Webb, a founder of the Cambridge Camden Society, later the Ecclesiological Society. He also supervised the commissioning and construction of All Saints’ Church, Margaret Street, London, to the designs of William Butterfield on behalf of the Ecclesiological Society.

The East Window and the chancel in Saint Patrick’s Cathedral, Armagh (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Matthew 9: 35-10: 20 (NRSVA):

35 Then Jesus went about all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues, and proclaiming the good news of the kingdom, and curing every disease and every sickness. 36 When he saw the crowds, he had compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. 37 Then he said to his disciples, ‘The harvest is plentiful, but the labourers are few; 38 therefore ask the Lord of the harvest to send out labourers into his harvest.’

10 Then Jesus summoned his twelve disciples and gave them authority over unclean spirits, to cast them out, and to cure every disease and every sickness. 2 These are the names of the twelve apostles: first, Simon, also known as Peter, and his brother Andrew; James son of Zebedee, and his brother John; 3 Philip and Bartholomew; Thomas and Matthew the tax-collector; James son of Alphaeus, and Thaddaeus; 4 Simon the Cananaean, and Judas Iscariot, the one who betrayed him.

5 These twelve Jesus sent out with the following instructions: ‘Go nowhere among the Gentiles, and enter no town of the Samaritans, 6 but go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. 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.

16 ‘See, I am sending you out like sheep into the midst of wolves; so be wise as serpents and innocent as doves. 17 Beware of them, for they will hand you over to councils and flog you in their synagogues; 18 and you will be dragged before governors and kings because of me, as a testimony to them and the Gentiles. 19 When they hand you over, do not worry about how you are to speak or what you are to say; for what you are to say will be given to you at that time; 20 for it is not you who speak, but the Spirit of your Father speaking through you.’

The window is in memory of Archbishop John George Beresford, Archbishop Marcus Gervais Beresford and Alexander Beresford-Hope (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s prayer:

The theme in the prayer diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel) this week is ‘Accountability and Care.’ USPG’s Research and Learning Advisor, Jo Sadgrove, introduced this theme on Sunday, when she reflected on accountability on the anniversary of George Floyd’s death today (25 May 2023).

The USPG Prayer invites us to pray this morning (Thursday 25 May 2023):

Let us pray for the Black Lives Matter movement. May we work towards a world free from prejudice and may all who seek racial justice be upheld by the power of solidarity.

Collect:

God our maker,
whose Son Jesus Christ gave to your servant Bede
grace to drink in with joy the word
that leads us to know you and to love you:
in your goodness
grant that we also may come at length to you,
the source of all wisdom,
and stand before your face;
through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

Post Communion:

Merciful God,
who gave such grace to your servant Bede
that he served you with singleness of heart
and loved you above all things:
help us, whose communion with you
has been renewed in this sacrament,
to forsake all that holds us back from following Christ
and to grow into his likeness from glory to glory;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Saint Patrick’s Cathedral, Armagh, is the seat of the Church of Ireland Archbishop of Armagh and the Diocese of Armagh (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Yesterday’s reflection

Continued tomorrow

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

Watching football in the pub with princes and dukes

The Duke of Wellington on Wolverton Road, Stony Stratford … once known as the Duke of Edinburgh (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2022)

Patrick Comerford

There is a story about the Duke of Edinburgh that is probably apocryphal but is still worth retelling.

It is said that one Saturday afternoon, during a football match, he personally rang one of the senior farm staff members at Balmoral. The phone was answered by the man’s son, who said his father was watching football on the television, and asked could whether he could take a message.

‘No, tell him I want to talk to him,’ Prince Philip insisted.

‘OK,’ the youth came back, ‘but who’s calling him?’

‘The Duke of Edinburgh,’ the duke said clearly.

Without dropping the ’phone, the boy shouted out, ‘Hey, Dad! Some bloke from the pub wants to talk to you. Are you in?’

There are pubs throughout England and Scotland known as the Duke of Edinburgh, and when Prince Philip died earlier last year many were – paradoxically – disappointed that they could not close as marks of respect, because they were already closed due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

But, of course, few if any of the Dukes of Edinburgh up and down the land were not named after Prince Philip. Most of these pubs, it seems, were named after Queen Victoria’s second son, Prince Alfred (1844-1900), who was given the titles of Duke of Edinburgh, Earl of Ulster, and Earl of Kent by his mother in 1866.

Prince Alfred later became the sovereign Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha (1893-1900), and the title ‘Duke of Edinburgh’ lost its popularity as a name for pubs in England as tensions with Germany rose in the years before World War I.

The coat of arms of the Duke of Wellington on the pub sign (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2022)

In the 1860s, the Duke of Edinburgh was the name of a pub on the corner of Wolverton Road and King Street in Stony Stratford. The popularity of the pub grew with the development of the tram line between Stony Stratford and Wolverton, but the name lost its lustre at the same time.

For a time it was known as the Dog and Gun, but a succession of proprietors eventually settled on the name of the Duke of Wellington for their premises.

Arthur Wellesley (1769-1852), 1st Duke of Wellington, was born in Merrion Square, Dublin, and went to school at Drogheda Grammar School. He was one of the many Irish-born British Prime Ministers, but he is popularly remembered and celebrated as the victor at the Battle of Waterloo. He had been a proxy sponsor at the baptism of that earlier Duke of Edinburgh, and died in 1852, long before the Duke of Edinburgh in Stony Stratford changed its name.

In recent weeks, the Duke of Wellington on Wolverton Road has changed management, and the scaffolding has come down from around the building, revealing once again the sign displaying the coat of arms of the Dukes of Wellington. These arms quarters the arms of the Wellesley and Cowley families, with an additional representation of the crosses of Saint George, Saint Andrew and Saint Patrick as ‘the union badge of the United Kingdom.’

The Colley or Cowley family, the direct male line of ancestors of the Dukes, came to Ireland in the late 16th century. When Richard Colley’s distant cousin Garret Wesley died and he inherited the Dangan and Mornington estates in Co Meath, Richard Colley changed his name to Wellesley.

The Duke of Wellington is the only pub in Stony Stratford that I know to have a name with Irish associations. The new-look pub has become a popular local venue in recent weeks for World Cup fixtures. For England supporters, it matters little whether the Duke of Edinburgh was Scots or German or the Duke of Wellington was Irish or English. Hopefully, there are more pressing issues, such as human rights in Qatar, including the rights of women, gay people and migrant workers, the lack of democracy, and the despotic and explotative regime, and the arrogant, grubby attitude of senior officials in FIFA.

The Duke of Wellington at night … a popular venue for watching live sport (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2022)