Daily prayer in Christmas 2024-2025: 16, Thursday 9 January 2025

‘The boat was out on the lake, and he was alone on the land’ (Mark 6: 47) … on the water at Bako National Park, north of Kuching in Sarawak (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

Patrick Comerford

The 40-day season of Christmas continues until Candlemas or the Feast of the Presentation (2 February).

Before today begins, I am taking some quiet time this morning to give thanks, to reflect, to pray and to read in these ways:

1, today’s Gospel reading;

2, a short reflection;

3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary;

4, the Collects and Post-Communion prayer of the day.

‘Then he got into the boat with them and the wind ceased’ (Mark 6: 51) … gondolas near Saint Mark’s Square in Venice (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Mark 6: 45-52 (NRSVA):

45 Immediately he made his disciples get into the boat and go on ahead to the other side, to Bethsaida, while he dismissed the crowd. 46 After saying farewell to them, he went up on the mountain to pray.

47 When evening came, the boat was out on the lake, and he was alone on the land. 48 When he saw that they were straining at the oars against an adverse wind, he came towards them early in the morning, walking on the lake. He intended to pass them by. 49 But when they saw him walking on the lake, they thought it was a ghost and cried out; 50 for they all saw him and were terrified. But immediately he spoke to them and said, ‘Take heart, it is I; do not be afraid.’ 51 Then he got into the boat with them and the wind ceased. And they were utterly astounded, 52 for they did not understand about the loaves, but their hearts were hardened.

‘When evening came, the boat was out on the lake’ (Mark 6: 47) … a small lake at the Sarawak Cultural Village, near Kuching (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

Today’s Reflection:

Saint Mark’s account of the feeding of the 5,000 (6: 34-44), which was the Gospel reading at the Eucharist yesterday, is followed today by his account of Jesus calming the storm on the lake (Mark 6: 45-52).

Each of Saint Mark’s feeding miracles is joined with a water miracle, evoking the Exodus stories, including God parting the waters (Exodus 14: 19-31) and God feeding the people in the wilderness (Exodus 16: 31-21), and the disciples’ misunderstanding is a serious condition, akin to Pharaoh’s misunderstanding that is linked to his oppression of the enslaved people (see Exodus 7 to 11).

In today’s Gospel reading, the disciples are on a boat on their way to Bethsaida when they are caught in a storm on the lake. Jesus walks on the water, calms their fears and shows his divine power – in this case over the stormy, choppy seas (verses 45-52).

In the Gospel reading, the disciples feel abandoned as they face their worst fears and face the abyss in the sea, the fear of drowning in the storms of life, of falling into the pit.

But Christ tells them, ‘Take heart, it is I; do not be afraid.’ And they respond with faith, bow down and worship him, and proclaim him the Son of God.

Christ tells the disciples to get into the boat and to go ahead of to the other side of the lake while he sends the crowd home.

Then, instead of using another boat to follow the disciples, or walking around the shoreline, he goes up a mountain by himself, and he spends the evening and much of the night in prayer.

The Sea of Galilee is shallow, but storms can rise suddenly. Early in the morning, before dawn, the boat is far from the shore when it is battered by waves and the wind. The disciples have lost control and are frightened. They see Jesus walking on the sea, and are terrified even more, thinking they are seeing a ghost. They cry out in their fears, but Jesus seeks to calm their fears: ‘Take heart, it is I; do not be afraid’ (verse 50).

During the past year, I have enjoyed a number of journeys on boats, and walked by countless rivers, harbours, lakes and canals, enjoying the sight of other people enjoying their time in boats and on the water – in Cambridge, Dublin, Great Linford, Iraklion, Kuching, London, Oxford, Paris, Rethymnon, Singapore, Stony Stratford …

It is almost 60 years since I first went rowing as a teenager on Lough Ramor in Virginia. But as an adult, I had long thought that I would be left regretting that I had arrived in Cambridge as a student in my 50s, too late in life to learn, or to re-learn how to row. I had come to enjoy rowing as a sport and an activity, but in a very passive way.

Then one evening, as I was standing casually at the slipway at Askeaton, Co Limerick, where I was living as the priest-in-charge, I was suddenly and unexpectedly invited to get into a boat and started to row.

I was fearless. It was a pleasure I had often hoped for and wished for. And for almost an hour, we rowed upstream, under the bridge at Askeaton, and as far as the castle, and then downstream past the factory, although not as far as the estuary.

When I suggested that I might be too old to learn, I was told brusquely and with humour, that once I stopped learning I had stopped living.

Since then, I have watched children and teenagers hop in and out of boats, freely and fearlessly, confident of their own ability and the ability of those who are training them.

Freely and fearlessly. But as I was messing about on boats in Crete during a holiday some years ago, hopping on and off boats in the sun as I visited smaller islands and lagoons off the coast, I thought of how this was a pleasure that I was paying for, while many refugees were full of fear as they boarded boats in the dark trying to arrive on Greek islands, or cross the Channel, having paid exorbitantly for the risk and the dangers.

Freely. Fearlessly. What are your worst fears?

Many of us have continuing fears about the economy, and some of us have fears that there may be yet another about the Covid-19 pandemic, or that the conflicts raging between Russia and Ukraine and throughout the Middle East may spill over into our own ‘safe areas’. Others of us also have well-founded fears about the ways a second Trump presidency threatens stability in the US and across the world.

As we grow up and mature, we tend to have fewer fears of the outside world, and as adults we begin to cope with the fears we once had as children, by turning threats into opportunities.

The fears I had as a child – of snakes, of the wind, of storms at sea, of lightning – are no longer the stuff of the recurring nightmares they were when I was a child. I have learned to be cautious, to be sensible and to keep my distance, and to be in awe of God’s creation.

Most of us have recurring dreams that are vivid and that have themes that keep repeating themselves. Yet in sleep the brain can act as a filter or filing cabinet, helping us to process, deal with and put aside what we have found difficult to understand in our waking hours, or to try to find ways of dealing with our lack of confidence, feelings of inadequacy, with the ways we confuse gaining attention with receiving love, or with our needs to be accepted, affirmed and loved.

The disciples’ plight in today’s Gospel reading seems to be the working out of a constant, recurring, vivid dream of the type many of us experience at some stage: the feelings of drowning, floating and falling suddenly, being in a crowd and yet alone, calling out and not being heard, or not being recognised for who we are.

As seasoned boat-handlers, the Disciples know not to try walking on water. They know the risk of sudden storms and swells, and they know the safety of a good boat, as long as it has a good crew.

But since the early history of the Church, the boat has symbolised the Church. The bark (barque or barchetta) symbolises the Church tossed on the sea of disbelief, worldliness, and persecution but finally reaching safe harbour. Part of the imagery comes from the ark saving Noah’s family during the Flood (I Peter 3: 20-21). Christ protects the Disciples and their boat on the stormy Sea of Galilee (see also Matthew 14: 22-33; John 6 16-21). The mast forms the shape of the Cross.

It is an image that appears in Apostolic Constitutions and the writings of Tertullian and Clement of Alexandria. We still use the word nave for the main part of the church, which, architecturally often looks like an up-turned boat.

None of us should risk walking on water, or risk play stupidly in boats on the river or in choppy waters or storms. But if we are to dream dreams for the Church and for the Kingdom of God, we need to be aware that it comes at the risk of feeling we are being sold out by those we see as brothers and sisters, and risk being seen as dreamers rather than people of action by others: for our dreams may be their nightmares.

If we are going to dream dreams for the Church, for the Kingdom of God, we may need to step out of our safety zones, our comfort zones, and know that this comes with a risk warning.

And if we are going to dream dreams for the Church, for the Kingdom of God, we need to keep our eyes focussed on Christ, and to know that the Church is there to bring us on that journey.

Let us dream dreams, take risks for the Kingdom of God, step outside the box, but let us keep our eyes on Christ and remember that the boat, the Church, is essential for our journey, and let us continue to worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness.

‘He came towards them early in the morning, walking on the lake’ (Mark 6: 48) … flood waters near the River Ouse at Stony Stratford (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

Today’s Prayers (Thursday 9 January 2025):

The theme this week in ‘Pray With the World Church’, the Prayer Diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), is ‘The Melanesian Brotherhood Centenary’. This theme was introduced on Sunday with a Programme Update by Ella Sibley, Regional Manager for Europe and Oceania, USPG.

The USPG Prayer Diary today (Thursday 9 January 2025) invites us to pray:

God of peace, we pray for the Pacific Islands, asking you to bring unity, stability, and harmony to the region.

The Collect:

O God,
who by the leading of a star
manifested your only Son to the peoples of the earth:
mercifully grant that we,
who know you now by faith,
may at last behold your glory face to 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.

The Post-Communion Prayer:

Lord God,
the bright splendour whom the nations seek:
may we who with the wise men have been drawn by your light
discern the glory of your presence in your Son,
the Word made flesh, Jesus Christ our Lord.

Additional Collect:

Creator of the heavens,
who led the Magi by a star
to worship the Christ-child:
guide and sustain us,
that we may find our journey’s end
in Jesus Christ our Lord.

Yesterday’s Reflection

Continued Tomorrow

‘Then he got into the boat with them and the wind ceased’ (Mark 6: 51) … the River Cam and the Backs below Magdalene Bridge in Cambridge (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

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

Samuel Johnson and his five willows by Stowe Pool in his ‘City of Philosophers’

Samuel Johnson amid the Christmas lights … he described Lichfield as ‘a city of philosophers’ almost 250 years ago (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2023)

Patrick Comerford

The Calendar of the Church of England in Common Worship today (13 December) has been commemorating Samuel Johnson (1709-1784), a pious Anglican throughout his life, but is best remembered as a writer of dictionaries and a literary editor.

Johnson, who was known as ‘The Great Moralist’, was a High Church Anglican and deeply committed to the Church of England since his younger days when he read William Law’s A Serious Call to a Devout and Holy Life.

It is almost 250 years since Samuel Johnson took his friend James Boswell to Lichfield in 1776 to show him ‘genuine civilised life in an English provincial town’. Later Johnson would recall: ‘I lately took my friend Boswell and showed him genuine civilised life in an English provincial town. I turned him loose at Lichfield.’

They stayed at the Three Crowns in Breadmarket Street, beside the house on the corner of Market Square where Johnson was born and spent his childhood.

When Bosswell asked Johson why the people of Lichfield seemed to lack industry, Johnson famously replied that the people of Lichfield were philosophers: ‘Sir, (said Johnson,) we are a city of philosophers: we work with our heads, and make the boobies of Birmingham work for us with their hands.’

Lichfield has grown considerably in the two and a half centuries since that visit, from 4,000 people in Samuel Johnson’s days, to almost 35,000 people today. It is one of England’s smallest cities, but retains its civilised charm, and I returned to Johnson’s ‘city of philosophers’ – as I do so often – for a personal, three-day retreat last weekend.

Samuel Johnson was a key figure in shaping the English language as we use it today. Indeed, he has been described as ‘arguably the most distinguished man of letters in English history’ and his biography by Boswell has been described as ‘the most famous single work of biographical art in the whole of literature.’

Although Johnson began his literary career as a ‘Grub Street’ journalist, he made lasting contributions to English literature as a poet, essayist, moralist, novelist, literary critic, biographer, editor and lexicographer.

Samuel Johnson’s monument in a corner of the south transept in Lichfield Cathedral (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2023)

But why did Samuel Johnson describe Lichfield ‘a city of philosophers’?

In the decades before Johnson’s birth, Lichfield had been badly battered in the English Civil War. But the first sign of faith in its future was the decision by Bishop John Hacket to rebuild Lichfield Cathedral immediately after the Caroline Restoration.

Writers and cultural figures associated with Lichfield in the immediate aftermath of the Cromwellian era include: Elias Ashmole (1617-1692), whose legacy lives on in the Asmolean Museum in Oxford; Bishop John Fell (1625-1686), remembered in rhyme that opens ‘I do not like thee Doctor Fell’, and the son of a Dean of Lichfield; and Lancelot Addison (1632-1703), Dean of Lichfield and father of the essayist Joseph Addison (1672-1719).

It is easy to understand how, by the 18th century, Lichfield was a centre of genteel society, so that Daniel Defoe considered it the best town in the area for ‘good conversation and good company.’ There was little industry in Lichfield, but the place prospered thanks to both the wealth of the clergy in the Close, and to its place as coaching city on the main route to the north-west and Ireland.

The 18th century became a period of great intellectual activity, and Lichfield was home to many figures of intellect and culture, including Samuel Johnson, David Garrick, Erasmus Darwin and Anna Seward, prompting Johnson’s observation that Lichfield was ‘a city of philosophers’.

I spent some time on Sunday afternoon browsing the second-hand book stall in the Samuel Johnson Birthplace Museum, the five-storey house at the west end of the Market Square where Samuel Johnson was born on 18 September 1709.

Samuel Johnson married the widowed Elizabeth Porter in 1735, when he was 25 and she was 46 and the mother of three children. Two years later, Johnson and 20-year-old David Garrick set off for London in 1737 in search of fame and fortune. They survived many difficulties, and eventually Johnson became the leading literary figure of his generation and Garrick the leading actor.

Johnson’s fortunes took a dramatic turn in 1746 when a publisher commissioned him to compile a dictionary of the English language – a contract that was worth 1,500 guineas. Johnson claimed he could finish the project in three years. In comparison, the Académie Française had 40 scholars who would spend 40 years completing its French dictionary. Eventually, it took Johnson nine years to complete his Dictionary of the English Language.

Johnson’s Dictionary was not the first, nor was it unique. But it remained the standard, definitive and pre-eminent English dictionary for 150 years, until the Oxford English Dictionary was published in 1928. His Dictionary offers insights into the 18th century, providing ‘a faithful record of the language people used.’ It has been described as ‘one of the greatest single achievements of scholarship.’ As a work of literature, it has had a far-reaching impact on modern English.

The first edition of Johnson’s Dictionary is a huge book. The pages are almost 18 inches tall, and the book is 20 inches wide when opened. It contains 42,773 entries, and sold for £4 10s, the equivalent of about £350 today. An important innovation was his use of around 114,000 literary quotations to illustrate meanings. The authors most frequently cited include Shakespeare, Milton and Dryden.

Erasmus Darwin (1731-1802) was a generation younger than Johnson. He had a medical practice close to the cathedral, between the Close and Beacon Street, from 1757 until 1781, and was a member of the Lunar Society, which met sometimes in his house in Lichfield, from 1765 to 1813. The inner circle included Darwin, James Watt, Matthew Bolton, Joseph Priestley and Josiah Wedgwood, while others involved included the engineer James Brindley, the botanist Joseph Banks, American polymath Benjamin Franklin, astronomer William Herschel, printer and designer James Baskerville and artist Joseph Wright of Derby.

Johnson’s Willow (centre) with Lichfield Cathedral in the background … it is the fifth willow in this place on the north side of Stowe Pool (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2023)

During the weekend, I also took time to revisit some other Johnson legacies in Lichfield: the Johnson statue in Market Square; his monument in a corner of the south transept of Lichfield Cathedral; John Myatt’s fading mosaic mural on a wall on a corner of Bird Street, opposite New Minster House; and ‘Johnson’s Willow’ on the north shore of Stowe Pool.

I have been familiar with the willow trees at this location for over 50 years, and the present willow tree is the fifth there since Johnson’s days.

The first willow there was probably planted around 1700, and became famous for two reasons: its great size, and its connections with Samuel Johnson.

When Johnson was young, the willow was close to his father’s parchment factory. When he returned to Lichfield in later years, he never failed to visit the tree, passing it on his way to visit his friends the Aston sisters who lived at the two large houses on Stowe Hill. He is said to have described the willow as ‘the delight of his early and waning life’.

The willow also attracted the interest of the Lichfield poet Anna Seward (1742-1809) and the American poet Elizabeth Graeme Fergusson (1737-1801). Fergusson wrote two long ‘Odes on the Litchfield (sic Willow’, in which she celebrated Johnson and other cultural figures who might have walked beneath the willow’s boughs.

Fergusson also used this tree, along with its ancestors and descendants, to symbolise the spread of civilisation from the ancient world to modern Britain and America.

Because of the willow’s association with Johnson, many later visitors to Lichfield came to see it. The original tree eventually became decayed, and in 1829 it was blown down. But it has been replaced by many of its descendants ever since.

A second willow, grown from a cutting of the original, was planted on the same site in 1830. It too was blown down in a great storm in 1881.

The third willow – again a true descendant – was not planted beside Stowe Pool until 1898. In 1956 it was found to be unsafe, and was felled after cuttings had been taken to raise a new tree.

The fourth willow was planted in 1959 during the celebrations of the 250th anniversary of Johnson’s birth.

Because of decay, the fourth willow was pollarded in 2014, 2016 and 2018, and it was finally felled on 8 October 2021. However, cuttings had been taken, and one of these was planted on the same site by Stowe Pool on 2 November 2021 to become the fifth willow. The ceremony included a reading of a poem about Johnson’s Willow by Sarah Dale, the winning entry in the Johnson Society’s Willow poetry competition.

Johnson’s Willow remains a part of Lichfield’s heritage and a much-loved link with Johnson and his age.

John Myatt’s fading mosaic mural of Samuel Johnson on a wall on a corner of Bird Street (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2023)

On his last visit to church, the walk strained Samuel Johnson. However, while there he wrote a prayer for his friends, the Thrale family: ‘To thy fatherly protection, O Lord, I commend this family. Bless, guide, and defend them, that they may pass through this world, as finally to enjoy in thy presence everlasting happiness, for Jesus Christ’s sake. Amen.’

In his last prayer, on 5 December 1784, before receiving Holy Communion and eight days before he died, Samuel Johnson prayed:

Almighty and most merciful Father, I am now, as to human eyes it seems, about to commemorate, for the last time, the death of thy Son Jesus Christ our Saviour and Redeemer. Grant, O Lord, that my whole hope and confidence may be in his merits, and his mercy; enforce and accept my imperfect repentance; make this commemoration available to the confirmation of my faith, the establishment of my hope, and the enlargement of my charity; and make the death of thy Son Jesus Christ effectual to my redemption. Have mercy on me, and pardon the multitude of my offences. Bless my friends; have mercy upon all men. Support me, by the grace of thy Holy Spirit, in the days of weakness, and at the hour of death; and receive me, at my death, to everlasting happiness, for the sake of Jesus Christ. Amen.

As he lay dying, Samuel Johnson’s final words were: ‘Iam Moriturus’ (‘I who am about to die’). He fell into a coma and died at 7 p.m. on 13 December 1784 at the age of 75. He was buried at Westminster Abbey a week later.

Johnson’s life and work are celebrated in a stained glass window in Southwark Cathedral, he has monuments in Westminster Abbey, Saint Paul’s Cathedral, London, and Lichfield Cathedral, and he is named in the calendar of the Church of England on this day as a modern Anglican saint.

The Samuel Johnson Birthplace Museum in Lichfield where Samuel Johnson was born on 18 September 1709 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2023)

‘For last year’s words belong to last year’s language and next year’s words await another voice’

‘We shall not cease from exploration’ … winter sunset in the fields between Stony Stratford and Wolverton Mill (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2022)

Patrick Comerford

For last year’s words belong to last year’s language
And next year’s words await another voice.
…

We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.
Through the unknown, unremembered gate
When the last of earth left to discover
Is that which was the beginning;
At the source of the longest river
The voice of the hidden waterfall
And the children in the apple-tree

Not known, because not looked for
But heard, half-heard, in the stillness
Between two waves of the sea.

— TS Eliot, Little Gidding

‘And the end of all our exploring / Will be to arrive where we started’ (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2022)

‘Little Gidding’ is the last poem in TS Eliot’s Four Quartets.

Moving from last year’s words and language to the voice of this new year provides an opportunity to reflect on the meaning of time, the past, the present and the future.

A good place to do this last week was during the walks Charlotte and I took by the Balancing Lakes and the fields between Stony Stratford and Wolverton Mill.

It is a New Year, and I am now living on the outskirts of Milton Keynes, and living outside Ireland for the first time in many years. Fifty years ago I was living on High Street in Wexford; half a century later, I am living on High Street in Stony Stratford.

Time plays games with us all as we move between one place and the next, from one year to the next. Yet time does little to diminish the impact of a move like this, or to dampen the emotions – joys and losses – that are at the heart of making such a move.

During those late afternoon strolls at sunset by the water, between the enveloping dusk of the afternoon and the winter darkness of the evening, I was aware of how time moves on relentlessly even when we think we are moving at our own pace.

It has been a year in which I have been made aware of my own frailty and failings. Yet, in the midst of great losses, there have been immeasurable gains.

But ‘what might have been … is always present,’ as TS Eliot reminds us in ‘Burnt Norton,’ his first poem in the Four Quartets. And I have promised myself more time this year for walks by rivers and lakes, in gardens and in the countryside, more time for wonder at the world and creation, more time for prayer and reflection, and more time for friendship and for love.

‘Through the unknown, unremembered gate’ … in the mid-December snow in Saint Mary’s churchyard in Shenley Church End (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2022)

Time present and time past
Are both perhaps present in time future
And time future contained in time past
If all time is eternally present
All time is unredeemable.
What might have been is an abstraction
Remaining a perpetual possibility
Only in a world of speculation.
What might have been and what has been
Point to one end, which is always present.
Footfalls echo in the memory
Down the passage which we did not take
Towards the door we never opened
Into the rose-garden.

— TS Eliot, Burnt Norton

‘Footfalls echo in the memory / Down the passage which we did not take’ … night time in Stony Stratford (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2022)

A walk through the fields near Stony Stratford and Wolverton to Warren Park

Walking in the fields and countryside around Stony Stratford and Wolverton at dusk (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2022)

Patrick Comerford

The people who walked in darkness
have seen a great light (– Isaiah 9: 2)

These days after Christmas Day have been relaxing and the days have been dry at times and almost sunny, with weather that has encouraged the two of us to go for walks in the fields and countryside around Stony Stratford and Wolverton.

The Balancing Lake between Wolverton and Stony Stratford is one of a pair of small balancing lakes near Wolverton Mill that connect to the wider Ouse Valley Park. This area was once agricultural land and the balancing lakes were created to help prevent flooding in nearby areas.

The water levels in the balancing lakes can be raised to store water and to reduce the peaks of river flow, a process that reduces flood risk in downstream areas. The lakes are fed and controlled by a complex system of sluice gates and weirs.

The Balancing Lake between Wolverton and Stony Stratford is one of a pair of small balancing lakes near Wolverton Mill (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2022)

Many older trees still stand in the park, and at dusk their bare branches stood silhouetted against the dark blue skies. They serve as reminders that although we are close to the A5 this was once rich agricultural land before Milton Keynes was created half a century ago.

Walking through the fields and parkland earlier this week, Charlotte and I crossed a fence and found ourselves in Warren Park, on the outskirts of Stony Stratford and Wolverton and about three miles from the centre of Milton Keynes.

Warren Park is a purpose-built campus office development arranged in two courtyards, developed around Warren House and with extensive landscaped grounds incorporating Victorian fishponds.

Modern offices at Warren Park reflected in one of the Victorian fishponds (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2022)

There were six significant farms on the Wolverton Estate in the 19th century: Wolverton House, Wolverton Park, Manor Farm, Stonebridge House, Stacey Bushes and Brick Kiln. Other farms included Debbs Farm, then no more than 90 acres, and later absorbed by the new Warren farm.

The farms on the Wolverton Estate were inherited as family concerns, with sons succeeding fathers as tenants. Thomas Harrison at Wolverton House farmed about 400 acres. After he died in 1809, the house and farm passed to his son Richard Harrison. When Richard Harrison died in 1858, the farm was managed by his widow Grace until 1869, and then by their son Spencer Harrison until 1892.

When Spencer Harrison gave up the farm in 1892, the Radcliffe Trust separated Wolverton House from the farm and rented it as a large country house. Warren Farm was created that year and the trust rebuilt the farmhouse in the field once known as the Warren.

Henry Barrett was the first tenant and he remained at Warren Farm until he died in 1917. The Turney family then took over the tenancy of the farm. They stayed there until 1970 when the entire estate was sold to Milton Keynes Development Corporation.

Warren House or Warren Farm Cottage dates from the 18th century (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2022)

Warren House or Warren Farm Cottage dates from the 18th century. This is a stone-built house that has two storeys at the front or south-west side, and three storeys and an attic at the rear or north-east side.

The south-west front has two widely spaced windows on each floor, with three-light casements and glazing bars, and a closed, stone-built porch that is gabled, with a tile roof. There is a blind window recess above the porch.

The coursed dressed rubble north-east front has a lower floor half-basement. There are four windows with keys on each floor and they have glazing bar sashes. There is one hipped dormer and the house has a steep, old tile roof and two brick chimneys.

The north-east front of Warren House and the lower floor half-basement (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2022)

Today, Warren Park is a purpose-built campus office development, with a mixture of traditional properties and modern buildings. The courts and yards are atmospheric and intimate in their layout and design, with a mix of brick, stone and timber board elevations, all beneath pitched and tiled roofs.

Canon Harnett Close and Canon Harnett Drive leading into Warren Park are named after Canon WHL Harnett resigned as rector of Wolverton in the 1930s after 40 years.

Warren Park has a variety of businesses as tenants. The external landscaped areas include the Victorian fish ponds, and the onsite facilities include post boxes, electric vehicle charging points and a Greek café.

Warren Park is a purpose-built campus office development, with a mixture of traditional properties and modern buildings (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2022)

When we arrived at dusk, that part of me that is Greek was disappointed that the Greek Grill Café was closed. But it offers one of many excuses to return soon again and to explore Warren Park further.

We walked back to Galley Hill as dusk turned to evening darkness under a crescent moon and a sky decorated with bright stars.

The people who sat in darkness have seen a great light,
and for those who sat in the region and shadow of death
light has dawned (– Matthew 4: 16)

Dusk turns to evening darkness in Warren Park (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2022)

Saint Mary Magdalene, Willen, the only surviving church designed by Robert Hooke

The Church of Saint Mary Magdalene, Willen, is the only surviving church designed by Robert Hooke (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2022)

Patrick Comerford

I was writing on Tuesday about the recent visit two of us made to the Peace Pagoda at Willen Lake. But in Willen we also visited the Church of Saint Mary Magdalene, the only surviving church among the buildings designed by the scientist, inventor, and architect Robert Hooke.

This church is regarded as a classic of early English Baroque architecture. It is one of the finest churches in Milton Keynes and it is in a beautiful setting close to Willen Lake, beside the Hospice in Willen. It has been identified by the journalist, author and former chair of the National Trust, Sir Simon Jenkins, as one of the ‘1,000 Best Churches in England.’ It was designated a Grade I listed building in 1966.

The parish registers fir Willen date back to the year 1065. The present church stands in the place of an older one that resembled the church in Great Woolston, but without a turret, the two bells belonging to it hanging in arches, as at Little Linford.

The present Church of Saint Mary Magdalene was built in 1680 by Robert Hooke (1635-1703), who was Secretary and Creator of Experiments at the Royal Society and City Surveyor for reconstruction after the Great Fire of London as well as co-designer of the Monument to The Great Fire of London.

The church was commissioned and paid for by the Revd Dr Richard Busby (1606-1695), the long-serving headmaster of Westminster School (1638-1695), who was also the local Lord of the Manor in the village of Willen.

Busby is said to have funded the cost of the church by asking for a silver spoon from each of his pupils. Among the more illustrious of his pupils were Christopher Wren, Robert South, John Dryden, John Locke, Matthew Prior, Henry Purcell, Thomas Millington, Francis Atterbury and Robert Hooke, who designed the church and supervised its construction.

As well as his work as an architect, Robert Hooke was the curator of experiments of the Royal Society, a member of its council, and the Gresham Professor of Geometry. He was Surveyor to the City of London and chief assistant to Christopher Wren. In that role, Hooke helped Wren rebuild London after the Great Fire in 1666, and his collaboration with Wren included Saint Paul’s Cathedral, where the dome uses a method of construction conceived by Hooke.

In the reconstruction of London after the Great Fire, Hooke proposed redesigning the streets on a grid pattern with wide boulevards and arteries, a pattern later used in the renovation of Paris, Liverpool, and many cities in the US. However, his proposal was thwarted by arguments over property.

Hooke also worked on the design of London’s Monument to the fire, the Royal Greenwich Observatory, Montagu House in Bloomsbury, and the Bethlem Royal Hospital (‘Bedlam’). Hooke was also involved in the design of the Pepys Library, where the diaries of Samuel Pepys offer the most frequently cited eyewitness account of the Great Fire of London.

Other buildings designed by Hooke include the Royal College of Physicians (1679), Ragley Hall, Warwickshire, and Ramsbury Manor, Wiltshire.

The church was modified In the 19th century by removing the cupola from the tower and adding an apse at the end of the nave (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2022)

Hooke’s church in Willen was built in 1678-1680. The project cost Busby almost £5,000, not including the materials taken from the former church on the site. George Lipscomb observes that ‘with good management the church might have been built for a third part of the money.’

The church is similar in style to several of the 52 churches rebuilt by Wren after the Great Fire of London.

The church was modified In the 19th century by removing the cupola from the tower and adding an apse at the end of the nave. This was a reversal of Hooke’s original architectural intention, which was to combine a simple nave with a decorative tower.

This is a plain structure in the Italian style, built of brick with stone dressings, and it consists of a nave with apse, a chancel, and a west tower.

The chancel floor is paved with black and white marble. The side walls of the nave are pierced by six plain windows; the pulpit and desk are of oak; the font, of marble, is ornamented with heads of cherubim, and has a carved oak cover. The oak pews are neat. The ceiling is coved, and enriched with angels’ heads and other ornaments.

The church is entered through the tower by some stone steps. The tower contains three bells, each inscribed: ‘Richard Chandler made me 1683’. On each angle of the tower is an ornament in the shape of a pineapple. There is a vestry on one side of the tower, and on the other side is a room erected for a library, chiefly for theology, founded by Busby for the use of the vicar.

The Church of Saint Mary Magdalene, Willen, is part of the Diocese of Oxford. Sunday services are held each Sunday in the church, led regularly by the Revd Dr Sam Muthuveloe. Stephen Fletcher and Margaret Moakes are the Licensed Lay Ministers. Saint Mary Magdalene Church is open for private prayer or quiet reflection on Mondays from 10am until evening.

Willen is part of the Stantonbury Ecumenical Partnership, involving six churches from four denominations in north-east Milton Keynes. The six churches in the partnership are Saint Lawrence, Bradwell; Saint James’s, New Bradwell; Saint Andrew’s, Great Linford; Saint Mary Magdalene, Willen; Cross and Stable, Downs Barn; and Christ Church, Stantonbury.

The Church of Saint Mary Magdalene was commissioned by Richard Busby, Headmaster of Westminster School and Lord of the Manor in Willen (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2022)

The Peace Pagoda at Willen Lake is a symbol of peace and disarmament

The Peace Pagoda on the shores of Willen Lake was built in 1980 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2022)

Patrick Comerford

The Peace Pagoda on the shores of Willen Lake strikes many people as an unusual building in an unlikely location in English parkland on the fringes of Milton Keynes.

There are more than 80 peace pagodas across Europe, Asia, and the US today. But the first peace pagoda in any Western country was built in Milton Keynes.

Recently, two of us vsited the Milton Keynes Peace Pagoda, which is striking and sits at the western edge of Willen Lake. It was built in 1980 as a symbol of world peace and harmony by the monks and nuns of the Nipponzan Myohoji Sangha, a small Japanese Buddhist order in the Nichiren tradition.

The peace pagoda at Willen Lake was completed in September 1980, with an inauguration ceremony attended by religious leaders and world peace activists from across the globe. The ceremony was led by the Most Ven Nichidatsu Fujii, founder and teacher of the Order of Nipponzan Myohoji.

Four white lions guard the entrances of the Peace Pagoda (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2022)

I first met monks from the order when they visited Ireland in 1980 to protest against proposals for uranium mining in Co Donegal and to visit the Department of Foreign Affairs in Dublin. Two monks were my guests in Dublin, and they met many members of the Irish Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND).

Members of the order are dedicated to building peace pagodas worldwide and to chanting and drumming the Daimoku (Nam-myoho-renge-kyo ) from the Lotus Sutra to pray for world peace and social justice, especially for nuclear disarmament.

A year after the pagoda opened in Milton Keynes, I was a guest of the order in Tokyo when I was a panellist and speaker at the three-day World Assembly of Religious Workers for General and Nuclear Disarmament, which they sponsored in Tokyo in 1981. I was representing Irish CND, Christian CND and peace activists in the churches, and had been nominated by the Irish Nobel Peace laureate Sean MacBride (1904-1988), who was president of Irish CND and of the International Peace Bureau.

Sean MacBride was a personal friend of the Ven Gyotsu Sato (1918-2018), a Buddhist monk of Nipponzan Myohoji, the kwy organiser of the conference, a lifelong peace activist and vice-president of the International Peace Bureau.

A former air force pilot and army major during World War II, he became a monk and dedicated his life for the development of the Japanese peace movement. Among others, he played an essential role in linking the Japanese movement with those in Europe and the US and with the United Nations. He was later forced to leave the honour, and died of pneumonia at the age of 99 on 1 March 2018.

A frieze on the pagoda tells the story of the Buddha (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2022)

The order’s peace pagodas around the world have been built as symbols of world peace and to promote unity among all the peoples, regardless of race, creed or border.

Peace pagodas have been built in places that seem to be most in need of healing, such as the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki where US atomic bombs killed more than 150,000 people on 6 and 9 August at the end of World War II.

Four white lions guard the entrances of the Peace Pagoda. Inside, the Peace Pagoda enshrines sacred relics of the Buddha presented from Nepal, Sri Lanka and Berlin.

The pagoda also has a frieze, between the architrave and the cornice, with a traditional design. It tells the story of the Buddha from his birth 2,500 years ago at the foot of the Himalayas to his death at Kusinagara after 50 years of teaching.

The Buddhist Temple beside Milton Keynes Peace Pagoda (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2022)

The Peace Pagoda on the shores of Willen Lake sits next to the Buddhist Temple that regularly hosts services and visitors. Members of the public are welcome inside or to visit the grounds and their gardens.

Surrounding the temple and the peace pagoda, 1,000 cedar and cherry trees have been planted in remembrance of all victims of all wars. They were donated by the ancient Japanese city of Yoshino, famous for the beauty of its cherry blossoms.

The cherry tree was the first tree to blossom in Hiroshima after the atomic bombing in 1945. At the top of the hill between the pagoda and the temple stands the One World Tree, with prayers, messages of hope and small ornaments attached to it.

A highlight at the pagoda each year is the anniversary of the Hiroshima bombing on 6 August, which we are looking forward to attending this summer.

The shores of Willen Lake seen from the Peace Pagoda (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2022)

Moments of bliss and sweet music at the lake in Curraghchase

A young girl with a violin and her friend beneath a cedar tree at Curraghchase (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2020)

Patrick Comerford

This is supposed to be a bank holiday weekend in the Republic of Ireland, although for many people the pandemic lockdown has made every day and every week feel like one, long bank holiday weekend, and they are longing to get back to work and to get back to normality.

The June bank holiday replaced the former ‘Whit Monday.’ So, it is interesting that Pentecost and the holiday weekend come together this year.

I have been semi-cocooning for ten weeks or so in the Rectory in Askeaton, continuing to work yet feeling vulnerable with my pulmonary sarcoidosis, while at the same time needing to be in the parish, letting parishioners know that I am here and that I am available.

I had wandered as far as Beagh Castle at Shannon Estuary, near Ballsyteen, last weekend, while remaining within the safe distance guidelines. This weekend, I was a little braver, and two of us went for a walk in the grounds of Curraghchase Forest Park, which is still within the safe distance guidelines and within the bounds of the parish.

Everyone seems to be finely tuned to birdsong these days, but it is still surprising, walking along the woodland paths, to hear them so clearly and so distinctly. What became obvious for the first time was how noisy as a species we humans are.

A family of swans on the lake at Curraghchase (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2020)

On the lake below the ruined house, a pair of swans with four signets seemed curious if not happy with the human attention they were receiving from visitors, the lake had a generous abundance of yellow water lilies, and seemed to be surrounded by a corona of wild yellow irises.

For the first time, I noticed an abundance of blue damselflies (Enallagma cyathigerum). Perhaps I had never paid attention to them before, perhaps I had never bothered to notice their beauty and their dance.

Yet damselflies are one of the more sensitive insects in an aquatic setting and they are an important link between the health of the aquatic ecosystem and its response to climate change.

Blue damselflies in the mid-day heat (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2020)

Back at the De Vere Café, people were keeping their distances, as they waited two metres apart for the simple pleasure of coffee and ice cream, and as they sat at the benches in family clusters two metres apart.

It is so obvious not only that we all need to get out and feel at one with nature, but that we also need to be at one with one another: people were saying hello to complete strangers or people they would never say hello to in normal, pre-pandemic times. I am only human because I relate to other people, and because I need to be with other people.

But nature and humanity can never be separate or distinct from each other. And they were brought together under a spreading cedar tree on the lawn below the ruined mansion. A child was practising her violin in the shade beneath the branches of the tree. It was a moment of bliss.

As a small family group walked by, a small girl, no more than two or three years old, decided to sit down and listen to the older girl playing the violin. Her parents tried to cajole her to move on, but she sat there listening. Her parents moved on, and called her name, but she still sat there. Her parents disturbed the scene by shouting out promises of ice cream as they continued to move on. But still the child sat there, enchanted by the scene and sound in the afternoon sun.

Sometimes the noise we make as humans creates a beauty beyond words. Sometimes these days are different from all other times. Sometimes they become moments that are filled with a beauty that should linger in our memories longer than the days of damselflies.

Walking around the lake at Curraghchase (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2020)

Sculpture by Lough Owel recalls the legend of the Children of Lir

‘The Children of Lir’ (1993) Linda Brunker on the shores of Lough Owel, near Mullingar, Co Westmeath (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2019)

Patrick Comerford

On the way back from Sligo early last week, I stopped to see a number of lakeside and riverside sculptures that tell stories from Irish legends and history, including ‘The Gaelic Chieftain’ by Maurice Harron, near Boyle, Co Roscommon, and Will Fogarty’s sculpture of Saint Eidin in the Linear Park by the banks of the River Shannon in Carrick-on-Shannon.

Linda Brunker’s bronze sculpture, ‘The Children of Lir,’ overlooks Lough Owel, outside Mullingar, Co Westmeath. It was commissioned by Westmeath County Council in 1993.

Linda Brunker, who now lives in Toulouse in France, was born in Dublin in 1966, and studied at the National College of Art and Design, Dublin (1983-1988), where she received a Diploma in Sculpture (1987) and her degree in fine art (1988).

She has received many public commissions through Ireland and in Brussels, London and the US, and her work is in private collections in Ireland, Europe, Japan and the US.

Her public works include the ‘Pact Woodland Sculpture Project’ (2006) in Tymon Park, Dublin; ‘Voyager’ (2004) at Laytown Strand, commissioned by Meath County Council; ‘The Healing Tree’ (2002), Virginia, Co Cavan; ‘The Wishing Hand’ (2001), Department of Education, Marlborough Square, Dublin; and ‘The Children of Lir’ overlooking Lough Owel.

Her work has been recognised with numerous awards and presentation pieces.

She lived at Laguna Beach, California, and Melrose, West Hollywood, before moving to Toulouse some years ago.

Linda Brunker’s ‘The Children of Lir’ (1993) on the shores of Lough Owel, Co Westmeath (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2019) (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2019)

Lough Owel and Lough Derravaragh in Co Westmeath are associated with the myth of the Children of Lir. In Irish storytelling, it is classed one of the ‘The Three Sorrows of Storytelling’ – the other two being ‘The Exile of the Children of Uisneach’ and ‘The Faith of the Children of Tuireann.’

Lir was a chieftain of the Tuatha de Danann tribe. On the death of Daghda, their king, a convention of chiefs elected his son, Bodhbh Dearg (Bov the Red), to succeed him. This decision offended Lir who felt he had a greater claim to the kingship.

Shortly after, Lir’s wife died and in a gesture of friendship, Bodhbh Dearg, who had three beautiful foster-daughters, offered Lir the choice of his daughters as wife. Lir chose Aobh, the eldest who gave birth to four beautiful children: Fionnuala, Aodh, Fiachra, and Conn. Tragedy struck when Aobh died. Lir was heartbroken and he too would have died but for the great love he had for his children.

After a time Bodhbh Dearg offered Lir Aoife, the sister of Aobh, as his wife, and Lir and Aoife were married.

Lir’s four children were famous for their beauty and were beloved by all the Tuatha De Danann. At the beginning, Aoife looked after the children with a mother’s love but evil touched her heart and she became insanely jealous of Lir’s love for his children.

One morning, when Lir was away hunting, Aoife took the children out in her chariot to visit their grandfather Bodhbh Dearg. She stopped at Lough Derravaragh and led the children to the water to bathe. As soon as they were on the lake, she struck them with a magic wand and changed them into four beautiful swans, decreeing that they should spend 300 years on Lough Derravaragh, 300 years on the Sea of Moyle or the North Channel, and 300 years on the Bay of Erris, Co Mayo.

Aoife left them their speech and gave them the power of singing in a way surpassing all earthly music. Legend has it that for this crime Bodhbh Dearg punished Aoife by transforming her into an air demon.

Throughout their 300 years on Lough Derravaragh, great crowds frequently camped on the shore to listen to the singing of the swans. Later, on the Sea of Moyle, and finally, on the Bay of Erris, the four swan-children went through great sufferings.

During their final days on the Bay of Erris, they learnt of Saint Patrick, who had come to Ireland to spread the Christian faith. As Saint Caemhoch, one of Saint Patrick’s disciples prayed with them, their feathers fell away and they were restored to their human form. They were now three old feeble men and an old woman. Saint Caemhoch baptised them before they died. They were buried together in the one grave as they wished.

Sunset seen from the shores of Lough Owel, near Mullingar, Co Westmeath (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2019)

An early morning trek to see the flamingos on Korission Lagoon

Early morning by the shores of Korission Lagoon near Agios Georgios in south-west Corfu, with a line of flamingos in the distance (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2019)

Patrick Comerford

I got up early in the morning yesterday, to avoid the heat of the sun later in the day, and walked the 40-minutestrek to Korission Lagoon, a coastal lagoon just 3 or 4 km from Agios Georgios, where I am staying in this part of south-west Corfu.

The lagoon is separated from the Ionian Sea by the beach at Issos and Chalikouna. It has a surface area of 427 ha and drains into the sea through a channel that divides the beach in half.

The lagoon was created by the sand dunes that cut the lake’s basin off from the sea between 140,000 and 250,000 years ago.

Korission Lagoon and the surrounding areas are protected by the Natura 2000 Treaty. The protected area includes the nearby coastal areas, an unusual forest of prickly juniper Juniperus phoenicea, which is known as cedar, in addition to many sand dunes that rise to heights above 15 metres.

There are also small reed beds and groves of tamarisk, white water lilies (Nymphaea alba) and 14 different species of orchid in the dunes.

Over 126 species of birds have been recorded in the lagoon, including great cormorants, Eurasian wigeons, great egrets and greater flamingo. A white line of flamingos lined the opposite shore as I watched them early on Saturday morning [31 August 2019], but they were too far away to catch any details on the camera of my iPhone.

Early morning at the shore of the lagoon (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2019)

I grew up not knowing the names of trees or birds, small creatures or plants. But I understand there are also many species of butterfly at the lagoon, as well as the Jersey tiger moth (Euplagia quadripunctaria).

The Corfu dwarf goby is endemic to the lagoon and its surrounding springs. Other fish species found in the waters of the lagoon include the Mediterranean killifish (Aphanius fasciatus) and the Epiros minnow (Pelasgus thesproticus).

Reptiles in the area include the chelonians Hermann’s tortoise (Testudo hermanni), the European pond turtle (Emys orbicularis) and the Balkan pond turtle (Mauremys rivulata), while among the snake species recorded are the javelin sand boa (Eryx jaculus) and the four-lined snake (Elaphe quatuorlineata). The mammals present include greater horseshoe bats (Rhinolophus ferrumequinum), long-fingered bats (Myotis capaccinii) and, possibly, European otters (Lutra lutra).

Korission Lagoon and the area around form an area that is archaeologically significant too. Geologists have found a tool said to be between 950,000 and 750,000 years old, the oldest known prehistoric artefact discovered in Greece.

Another find is said to be a large part of the right lower jaw of a hippopotamus. Other small bone fragments were found near the outflow of the lagoon. In all, 160 stone artefacts and 61 bone fragments have been found in the area around Korission Lagoon. These finds point to the need for further archaeological explorations of the area and the needs to protect it.

Before we left, we found a small taverna in a secluded spot that we thought of returning to some evening. As we walked back to Agios Georgios, the run was rising higher and the temperatures were rising too. But it was not too late to stop and enjoy breakfast close to the beach.

Tranquil rural Corfu in the early morning (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2019)

A missing sandwich at Lough Gur and a glass of wine in Cambridge

A glass of white wine on a summer afternoon on King’s Parade, Cambridge (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2019)

Patrick Comerford

Last week, I spent a little quiet time on King’s Parade in Cambridge, enjoying the summer sunshine, the view of King’s College Chapel, the passing pleasures of families celebrating graduations, and lingering over a welcome glass of white wine.

The wine list at the Cambridge Chop House is quite unique in Cambridge as it focuses on the Languedoc-Roussillon region of France. They have visited the region many times and have met most of the wine makers on their list.

But this restaurant had another unique feature: in the men’s rooms downstairs, they were playing soundtracks of Blackadder.

In ‘Ink and Incapability,’ the second episode of the third series (1987), Blackadder and Baldrick are supposed to be rewriting a lost manuscript of Samuel Johnson’s Dictionary.

I walked in to hear this exchange:

Blackadder: Now, Baldrick, go to the kitchen and make me something quick and simple to eat, would you? Two slices of bread with something in between.

Baldrick: What, like Gerald, Lord Sandwich had the other day?

Blackadder: Yes, a few rounds of geralds.

Playing recordings of Blackadder on a loop in any restaurant or bar is one way to leave a long queue outside the men’s rooms. But I still had that glass of summer wine on King’s Parade to pay attention to.

Of course, there was no Gerald, Lord Sandwich, and the Cambridge Chop House is not the sort of place to include sandwiches on its menu.

But the sandwich owes its name to John Montagu (1718-1792), 4th Earl of Sandwich, who inherited large estates on the shores of Lough Gur, Co Limerick, including Bourchier’s Castle.

Bourchier’s Castle is a ruined five-storey tower house on the shores of Lough Gur, Co Limerick (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2019)

I had spent the previous Saturday afternoon visiting Lough Gur, 10 km south of Limerick. Admittedly, we had brought no sandwiches with us, but Lough Gur has a visitors’ centre, with a car park and picnic area, though no café or restaurant.

Beside the picnic area on the lake shore, Bourchier’s Castle is a ruined five-storey tower house. It was also known as Castle Doon and guarded the northern approach to Knockadoon on Lough Gur.

Bourchier’s Castle was built in the 16th century by Sir George Bourchier (1535-1605), a son of John Bourchier (1499-1561), 2nd Earl of Bath. The family benefitted from royal patronage, and John Bourchier was a cousin of Anne Seymour, Duchess of Somerset and sister-in-law of two queens, Jane Seymour and Catherine Parr.

Sir George Bourchier acquired 18,000 acres in Co Limerick from the estates of the Earls of Desmond by Elizabeth I in 1583. He was MP for King’s County (Offaly) in 1585-1586, and he built his castle at Lough Gur in 1586.

George Bourchier had a large family, including two sons buried in Saint Canice’s Cathedral, Kilkenny. His vast estates in Co Armagh and Co Limerick were inherited eventually by his fifth son, Henry Bourchier (1587-1654).

Henry Bourchier was educated at Trinity College Dublin (BA 1605, MA 1610), and was elected a fellow of the college in 1606. Although a distant heir, he became the 5th Earl of Bath in 1636 at the death of his first cousin once removed, Edward Bourchier (1590-1636), 4th Earl of Bath. During the English Civil War in the 1640s, Henry was a royalist and was jailed for his support for Charles I.

Henry died in 1654, and was buried in Tavistock, Devon. He had no male heirs, and his large estates in Ireland and England passed to his wife, Lady Rachael Fane (1613-1680), a daughter of Francis Fane, 1st Earl of Westmorland. The Co Limerick estate alone, which spilled over into Co Tipperary, covered 12,800 acres (52 sq km) and included the manors of Lough Gur and Glenogra.

As Dowager Countess of Bath, Rachael Fane was a formidable woman. One writer says, ‘She was a great lady and a busybody, and her cloud of kinsfolk held her in fear as their patroness and suzerain … a masterful woman, she lived feared and respected by her numerous kindred whom she advanced by her interest at court.’

She secured her husband’s Irish estates for her nephew, Sir Henry Fane (1650-1706), as his guardian. His son, Charles Fane (1676-1744), was MP for Killybegs (1715-1719). On the strength of his large estates in Co Limerick and Co Armagh, including Lough Gur, he was given the titles of Viscount Fane and Baron Loughguyre [sic] in 1719.

The estates and titles, including Lough Gur, passed to Charles Fane’s son, Charles Fane (1708-1766), 2nd Viscount Fane, a Whig MP and British ambassador in Florence. But this Charles Fane had no male heirs either, and when he died his Irish estates were divided between two sisters: Mary Fane who married Jerome de Salis (1709-1794), 2nd Count de Salis; and Dorothy Fane who married John Montagu (1718-1792), 4th Earl of Sandwich.

John Montagu was a direct descendant of Sir Sidney Montagu, whose brother James Montagu (1568-1618), was the first Master of Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge, and later Dean of Lichfield and Bishop of Bath and Well.

But John Montagu was known as one of the most corrupt and immoral politicians of his age. It was he – and not Blackadder’s Gerald – who gave his name to the humble sandwich and to the Sandwich Islands. But part of the Blackadder joke is that the word sandwich is not included in Johnson’s Dictionary, which was published in 1755.

There is no public access to Bourchier’s Castle on the shores of Lough Gur, Co Limerick (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2019)

At the time of Griffith’s Valuation, the Earl of Sandwich held lands in the parishes of Ballinlough, Glenogra and Tullabracky, Co Limerick. The Limerick estates of the Earl of Sandwich amounted to 3,844 acres in the 1870s, while the Count de Salis owned over 4,000 acres in Co Limerick and 3,663 acres in Co Armagh.

Other branches of the Bourchier family lived nearby at Kilcullane, Baggotstown and Maidenhall, Co Limerick. James David Bourchier (1850-1920) from Baggotstown, Co Limerick, was a journalist and political activist. He was active in the cause of Bulgarian independence and the unification of Crete with the modern Greek state. He has given his name to a street and a metro station in Sofia, and to other landmarks throughout Bulgaria.

The Sandwich Islands have since been renamed Hawaii, but the humble sandwich remains. Even if it’s not on the menu at the Cambridge Chop House, I must take a sandwich with me to Lough Gur on another weekend, and spend more time exploring the archaeological sites around the lake and close to Bourchier’s Castle.

A summer afternoon on the shores of Lough Gur, Co Limerick (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2019; click on image for full-screen view)