Two photographs in a journal illustrate paper on Bishop Stock

Saint Anne's Church Cappoquin … built on the initiative of Bishop Joseph Stock (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

It is a pleasure to see that two of my photographs have been used to illustrate a paper on Bishop Joseph Stock in the latest edition of Decies: Journal of the Waterford Archaeological and Historical Society.

This journal is a major source of historical, social archaeological, geographic and social information about Waterford, city and county.

The latest edition of Decies was launched during a weekend of musical celebrations that included the John Dwyer Trad Weekend. This was appropriate as one of the papers in the journal on the 75th anniversary of the founding of Waterford Music Club, and the cover of the journal shows the medallion of the club.

Some of the contributors to the journal had also been invited to give a short talk related to the article they wrote, including Cian Flaherty, who spoke about his paper on the diary of Bishop Stock, written in 1811.

My two photographs in this edition of Decies illustrate Cian Flaherty’s paper – ‘All well here’: The Diary of Bishop Joseph Stack, 1811 (pp 48-58). In his paper, he also cites my chapter, ‘Bishop Joseph Stock (ca 1740-1813) and the clergy of the Diocese of Killala during the 1798 Rising’ in Sheila Mulloy (ed), Victory or glorious defeat: biographies of participants in the Mayo rebellion of 1798 (Dublin: Original Writing, 2010).

Portrait of Stock in the Vestry of Christ Church, Delgany (copyright Patrick Comerford 2016)

My first photograph (p 48) was taken three years ago in the Vestry in Christ Church, Delgany, Co Wicklow, where the vestry walls are lined with portraits and photographs of previous rectors.

As Canon Joseph Stock was Rector of Delgany, Co Wicklow (1789-1798), at the same time as he was the Headmaster of Portora Royal School, Enniskillen (1795-1798). During that period, he was also Rector of Conwal, Co Donegal (1779-1795), Vicar of Lusk, Co Dublin (1780-1788) and Prebendary of Dysert and Kilmorleran (1793-1795).

Stock was Bishop of Killala (1798-1810) during the 1798 Rising, and despite being imprisoned in Killala Castle by the French invaders, he was regarded as a sympathiser of the United Irishmen.

Stock’s Memorial in Christ Church Waterford (copyright Patrick Comerford 2018)

My second photograph (p 57) is the monument to Bishop Stock in Christ Church Cathedral, Waterford. Joseph Stock succeeded Power le Poer Trench as Bishop of Waterford and Lismore in 1810, despite opposition from other bishops, including Archbishop William Stuart of Armagh and Archbishop William Beresford of Tuam.

Stock’s time in Waterford and Lismore was quieter and more peaceful than his time in Co Mayo. He died in Waterford on 13 August 1813, and the while marble memorial over his tomb in Christ Church Cathedral was erected by his widow.

The third photograph illustrating this paper is of Saint James’s Church, Stradbally. Stock’s diary notes his visit to this church on 11 May 1811, when the vicar was the Revd John Devereux and the curate was the Revd John Foley. Stock notes the new church that had been built in the parish, and Cian Flaherty has a particular interest in this church as he is compiling a survey of the old graveyard in Stradbally and is secretary of the Stradbally Church Ruins Committee.

But he might have equally illustrated his paper with a photograph of Saint Anne’s Church, Cappoquin, and his paper brings back many happy childhood memories of this Church of Ireland Parish Church.

Stock was back in Stradbally on 19 May and his diary notes on 20 May that he visited both Lismore and Cappoquin.

In his diary, he writes: ‘Cappoquin, a large town in the parish of Lismore, greatly in want of a church, for which [his predecessor] Bishop Trench obtained from the [Board of] First Fruits £600, not yet called for, because Sir J. Keene [Sir John Keane (1757-1829) of Cappoquin House], the landlord, and other Protestants in the neighbourhood, wish to have a church at greater cost.’ Sir J. Keene offers a subscription of £50 for a steeple and belfry; Mr Chearnley will give twenty guineas, and the Bishop the same. The Protestants resort to the neighbouring church of Affane; but the congregation diminishes from the inconvenient distance of their place of worship. Rest of the day at Cappoquin, a tolerable inn.’

While Stock was still bishop, the Dean and Chapter of Saint Carthage’s Cathedral, Lismore, agreed in 1814 to a separate area served by a perpetual curate or vicar, and the Revd George Tierney Roche, who was appointed 200 years ago in 1819.

Saint Anne’s Church was built on the same triangle of land as Saint Mary’s Roman Catholic Church in the centre of Cappoquin and was consecrated in October 1820.

Clergy who served the parish during the 19th century included John Frederick MacNeice (1866-1942), who was the curate assistant in 1895-1899. He later became Bishop of Cashel, Emly, Waterford and Lismore (1931-1934) and Bishop of Down, Connor and Dromore (1934-1942). His sons included the poet Louis MacNeice.

Saint Anne’s is a well-proportioned, modest, detached, three-bay, double-height church, with a single-bay, and a single-bay, a three-stage entrance tower built on a square plan, and a double-height lower chancel and a single-storey vestry built in 1869. The clock – the only public clock in Cappoquin – was electrified in 1968.

The church has lancet windows in the nave and at the top stage to tower, and a three-light chancel window. Inside, there are carved timber pews, a Gothic-style pulpit, a chancel arch, a decorative Gothic-style timber reredos, an open timber roof on cut-stone corbels, and a monument to Senator Sir John Keane, who died in 1956.

The last separate perpetual curate or Vicar of Cappoquin was Canon Joseph Smith O’Loughlin (1940-1956), who was also Chancellor of Lismore (1947-1956). Two years after he resigned, Cappoquin Parish was united with Lismore Cathedral Parish once again in 1958.

Little has changed in Cappoquin since I was a child in the 1950s ... the rowing club and the boathouse are still there, so too are the clock in the tower of Saint Anne’s, the Toby Jug, Barron’s Bakery, the name over Uniacke’s, the arches of Kelleher’s SuperValu which I knew in my childhood as Russell’s, and the petrol pumps on the footpath outside Lehane’s Garage.

The Waterford Archaeological and Historical Society was founded in the mid-1950s as the Old Waterford Society. The annual journal was first known as The Old Waterford Record. This became Decies, which was first published in 1976, and is now published in November each year.

The journal Decies is edited by Peigí Devlin, and is on sale at the Book Centre, Waterford, and the Book Centre, Clonmel. In recent years, the publication of Decies has been assisted with generous subventions from Waterford City Council and Waterford County Council.

A flurry of sails as the sun sets behind the harbour in Skerries

A flurry of sails as the sun was setting at Skerries harbour late this afternoon (Photograph: Patrick Comerford 2014)

Patrick Comerford

I served as subdeacon this morning at the Cathedral Eucharist in Christ Church Cathedral celebrated by the Dean, the Very Revd Dermot Dunne.

Today, in the calendar of the Church, we celebrated the Kingship of Christ or the Feast of Christ the King. To generations of Anglicans, this Sunday has been known as “Stir-up” Sunday, and this is traditionally the day to begin preparing the mixtures for Christmas cakes and Christmas puddings.

This day marks the transition from Ordinary Time in the calendar of the Church to preparing for Advent. As we prepare for the Coming of Christ, especially his Second Coming, today’s readings remind us of the majesty of Christ and his coming in glory.

We certainly had a glimpse of the majesty and glory of God this afternoon, as we strolled along the Harbour in Skerries, and watched a flurry of sails just as the sun was beginning to set.

Unusually, there had been clear blue skies all day, and the setting sun was casting clear lights across the harbour waters and turning the evening skies into a sharp, deep blue that I often associate with Mediterranean sunsets in Greece.

I was filled with wonder as I watched what I imagine was a junior sailing class being brought safely into the harbour and then across the road into Skerries Sailing Club.

Skerries is one of the few coastal places on the east coast of Ireland with a harbour and beaches where you can see both the sunrise and the sunset.

A double espresso and marzipan chestnut filled with chocolate rum in Piccolo in Skerries (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2014)

Earlier in the afternoon, two of us had lunch in Piccolo, a new Italian café and bistro which was opened on Thomas Hand Street earlier this year by the chef Giorgio, who is from Treviso.

We finished off with two double espressos and marzipan chestnuts filled with chocolate rum surprise. It gave good reason to return to this little delight.

Clever T-shirt slogans in the Skerries Tourism and Town Information Office (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2014)

From there, we dropped into the Skerries Tourism and Town Information Office, a new enterprise by Emily Byne Diebold and David Diebold of Skerries News, who have invested years of energy and emotion into this beautiful harbour town.

This new information drop-in centre for Skerries provides information on everything Skerries has to offer, from stories and myths about Saint Patrick, his footsteps and the goats of Skerries, to restaurants, cafés, sand, sea, sunsets, seals and other places to visit.

They also stock an array of locally-made craft gifts, maps and humorously-designed T-shirts and coffee mugs … and the latest editions of Skerries News.

Later we went for that walk around the harbour, and then stepped down onto the South Strand, for a walk on the soft sand. The tide was out, dusk was beginning to close in, but the sky was still a striking, clear blue.

After that we stopped in Gerry’s to buy two bottles of wine, and I was reminded how the buyers here truly know their Italian wines.

Across the street from Gerry’s, we visited the new town gardens at Floraville, close to the Library, Saint Patrick’s Roman Catholic Church, and Olive. This once derelict site has been transformed into a place of tranquillity and peace in the centre of the town, and this afternoon it was crowded with people reading new memorial and gift plaques that have been laid in the last few days.

The former Church of Ireland parish church in Lusk towers like a mighty castle above the village (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2014)

Earlier, on our way from Christ Church Cathedral to Skerries, I stopped to visit the former Church of Ireland parish church in Lusk, which towers like a mighty fortress above the village, with its ancient round tower and a mediaeval belfry.

The round tower at Lusk is the only surviving building from a monastery said to have been founded about the year 450 by Saint Mac Cuillinn. The site is also associated with Saint Maurus. Saint Maculin is reputed to have either lived or been buried in a cave, which may explain the name Lusk, which is derived from the Gaelic word Lusca meaning a cave or underground chamber. The annals refer to the death in 497 of Saint Mac Cuillinn, who is described as both Abbot and Bishop of Lusk.

The round tower has eight storeys and a basement, which is more than any other round tower in Ireland. The monastery was plundered and destroyed by the Vikings in 827, 835 and burned again in 856, and Lusk was attacked by the neighbouring Irish in 1053, 1089, and 1135. Because Lusk was plundered and burned so many times, the Round Tower is all that survives from the early monastic foundation.

The Echlin tomb, with an epitaph borrowed from Alexander Pope, once stood inside the walls of the older, larger church in Lusk (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2014)

You can estimate how large the original monastic and mediaeval church was by standing at the graves in the churchyard of Sir Robert Echlin (1699-1757) of Kenure House, at nearby Rush, and his wife Elizabeth (1704-1782). The Echlins bought their estate from the Butlers of Ormond, and Sir Robert Echlin, who married Elizabeth Bellingham in 1727, settled in Kenure two years later in 1729. Robert died in 1757, and his wife, Elizabeth died in 1782, and their grave was once inside the church but now stands outside in the churchyard.

Elizabeth Echlin, an important 18th-century literary figure in Ireland, was the correspondent of Samuel Richardson and the author of an alternative ending to Richardson’s Clarissa (1757-1748). Her husband’s epitaph, which she composed in 1759, reads:

Here rests an honest Man without pretence,
Blest with plain Reason and with sober Sense,
Calmly he look’d on either Life and here
Saw nothing to regret or there to fear.
From Natures temp’rate feast rose satisfyd
Thank’d Heav’n that he lived, and that he dy’d.

The lines of this epitaph were appropriated by Lady Echlin from two of Alexander Pope’s best epitaphs, the first two lines from that on a Mr Corbett, and the last four from that of a Mr Elijah Fenton.

When the old, ruined church was pulled down in the early 19th century, the smaller church in the Gothic or early English style was built in 1847 against the east wall of the belfry, and the new church was licensed for public worship on 13 October 1847.

However, the church is Lusk finally closed after Divine Service 55 years ago on the last Sunday in December, 1959. The church now houses the Lusk Heritage Centre, and the belfry houses an exhibition on mediaeval churches of North County Dublin.

This afternoon’s sunset in Skerries Harbour (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2014)

The past few days have been cold and wet, I had to visit my GP on Thursday for another B12 injection, and the wet and cold weather have been aggravating my symptoms of sarcoidosis in my lungs and in my joints.

But under the blue skies of Fingal this afternoon, and as I watched the sunset in Skerries and walked along the beach, I knew this was good for my physical well-being and my spiritual health. This evening, I know that sarcoidosis can never deprive me of the pleasures of life, and that while I may have sarcoidosis, sarcoidosis will never have me.

Walking on the beach in Skerries this afternoon (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2014)>br />

‘Don’t wait for the storm to pass, Learn to dance in the rain’

‘Lord of beauty, thine the splendour, shown in earth and sky and sea ... Lord of wisdom, whom obeying, mighty waters ebb and flow’ … autumn evening lights at Skerries Harbour this evening (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2014)

Patrick Comerford

The heavy rains on Friday and Saturday, and the grey clouds that covered the east coast throughout today has confirmed that the prolonged extension of late summer has come to an end and that we are into the advanced days of autumn.

There were signs of autumn everywhere today, from the Harvest decorations at the base of the pulpit and at the West Door in Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin, this morning to the pumpkins on display in an organic grocer’s shop in Skerries this afternoon.

Canon David Moynan was the preacher at the Harvest Thanksgiving in the cathedral this morning, the Revd Garth Bunting presided at the Eucharist, and I was deacon, reading the Gospel (Matthew 21: 33-46) and assisting at the administration of Holy Communion.

In Christ Church Cathedral before the Cathedral Eucharist and Thanksgiving for Harvest this morning (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2014)

The Mass setting, sung by the Cathedral Choir, was Missa brevis Sancti Joannis de Deo written in 1775 by Joseph Haydn (1732-1809) for the Barmherzige Brüder in Kismarton, Hungary (now Eisenstadt in Austria), where Saint John of God was the patron saint. It is sometimes known as the Kleine Orgelmesse or “Little Organ Mass” because of the extensive organ solo between Sanctus and Benedictus.

The solo Benedictus was particularly moving this morning. It is the high point of the Mass and in short contrast to the way other texts are treated by Haydn. Being a missa brevis, several parts of the text are set simultaneously in different voices. When this Mass was sung in Salzburg, Haydn’s textual compression was unacceptable, and so his brother Michael Haydn expanded Gloria.

As you might expect, we sang a number of traditional harvest hymns, including Henry Alford’s ‘Come, ye thankful people, come,’ Cyril Alington’s ‘Lord of beauty, thine the splendour,’ and ‘We plough the fields and scatter’ by Matthias Claudius and Jane M. Campbell.

Two ice creams drizzled with double espressos at ‘Storm in a Teacup’ in Skerries this afternoon (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2014)

Later, four of us had lunch in the Larder in Parliament Street, before two of us headed on out to Skerries for a walk around the Harbour, ice cream in ‘Storm in a Teacup,’ and a walk along the beach.

It was almost three months since I had been in Skerries. This afternoon, there was an exceptionally low tide in the Harbour, and as I looked out at the yachts and boats moored in the low tide and on the sandbanks I was reminded of words from Cyril Alington in our Offertory Hymn this morning:

Lord of beauty, thine the splendour,
Shown in earth and sky and sea ...

Lord of wisdom, whom obeying,
Mighty waters ebb and flow …

At ‘Storm in a Teacup,’ we had too ice creams, drizzled with double espressos and cinnamon, and sat outside in the wind looking at the sea below the Lifeboat station. And I thought once again of the words from Henry Alford that we sang in the processional hymn:

All is safely gathered in,
Ere the winter storms begin.

Advice for the approaching autumn and winter weather in ‘Storm in a Teacup’ in Skerries (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2014)

Inside, in ‘Storm in a Teacup,’ among the humorous hand-painted signs, one reads:

Don’t wait for the storm to pass
Learn to dance in the rain

Walking on the sandy beach at low tide in Skerries this afternoon (Potograph: Patrick Comerford, 2014)

But the rain held off for the rest of the afternoon, and taking the opportunity provided by the low tide, we had a long walk on the long soft sand on the South Beach, before returning for a stroll through the streets of Skerries and back to the Harbour and Red Island.

On the way back through Rush and Lusk, we stopped to look at the Rush and Lusk Railway Station, which is half-way between both towns and is a hidden treasure of Victorian architecture.

The Victorian railway station between Rush and Lusk (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2014)

The station opened on 25 May 1844. But the building itself is a detached five-bay single-storey railway station, built ca1850, with a gabled entrance bay and a three-bay single-storey extension to the left-hand side. The timber canopies with decorative eaves are supported by red brick walls to both platforms, and these are linked by a cast-iron pedestrian bridge.

The promised or threatened rains held off all the way back to south Dublin. As autumn moves towards winter, I must take to heart those signs in ‘Storm in a Teacup’ and learn to enjoy all seasons … and even to dance in the rain.

Meanwhile, I am back in Christ Church Cathedral next Sunday [12 October 2014] as the preacher at the Cathedral Eucharist and the canon-in-residence.

Preparing for Hallowe’en … pumpkins in a greengrocer’s in Skerries this afternoon (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2014)

A challenge to the Church as winter closes in

Winter has closed in on Skerries ... the Harbour at dusk late this afternoon (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2011)

Patrick Comerford

Winter has closed in on Skerries. The clocks have gone back, darkness is closing in earlier and earlier each evening, and the rain and the winds had returned this afternoon.

Halloween had already arrived earlier in the day, with bonfire material being collected throughout Fingal in north Co Dublin – and being lit in some places. Younger teenagers were scurrying through fields, little children in costumes were holding parents’ hands as they wandered through the streets of Lusk, Rush and Skerries, building up their anticipation and expectation for the evening ahead.

One imaginative and creative mind in Lusk already had a humorous take on the evening ahead, with a flying witch crashing into a pole on her brookstick.

Halloween crash landed in Lusk this afternoon (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2011)

In Skerries, the cafés and pubs were busy, despite the wind and rain. The tide was high, and the waters in the harbour were swelling and were a mixture of grey and Joycean snot-green in colour.

Back in Olive on Strand Street, where they know how to make the best double espresso, there was still an opportunity to sit in the open, albeit under the awning, and watch the rain pour down on Strand Street.

The best double espresso ... a table at the Olive in Strand Street, Skerries, this evening (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2011)

Later, the beach at the South Strand was deserted apart from a few strollers and a dog or two, and the tide was high.

But we are never alone. Tomorrow is All Saints’ Day. If it is not celebrated appropriately in our churches, with the Eucharist, how do we explain to a younger generation what Halloween is all about?

It is the Night of the Living Dead ... for the saints are alive, and we are part of the Communion of Saints, the Church Triumphant (Ecclesia Triumphans) and the Church Militant (Ecclesia Militans) are one Churchof and are together.

Halloween, or the Eve of All Hallows, is the evening before celebrating All the Saints, All the Holy Ones in Glory, the Saints of every time and place. This is the Eve of a Great Feast of Light – the Solemnity of All Saints, the saints in glory who have “inherited the light” (Colossians 1: 12-13), whether we are alive or dead, whether we have been canonised or faded into obscurity, whether they have given heroic examples in their lives, or they are unsung and unknown. We are all with God in endless joy.

And if we cannot explain Halloween and All Saints’ Day, how can we hope to explain the greater truths of Christmas and Easter?

On my way home, I was taken aback to see Christmas lights already lit up on the facade of Saint Joseph’s Church in Terenure. Why – it’s not even Advent?

But then the Church beyond Dublin is finding it hard to make the connection between being and doing, explaining and living. As the afternoon turned to evening, the news came that the Dean of Saint Paul’s Cathedral, London, the Right Revd Graeme Knowles, has resigned.

If the dean’s resignation, and the earlier, principled resignation of Canon Giles Fraser, are not to be in vain, then Bishop Richard Chartres must quickly reverse the disastrous decisions that have been taken about the protesters camped out in Paternoster Square.

Already, the credibility of the Church is being sorely tested.

Introducing the Church of Ireland in Fingal

Holmpatrick Parish Church in Skerries traces its story back to a monastic island linked to Saint Patrick (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

Introduction:

Although I live on the south side of Dublin, I don’t understand the north Dublin/south Dublin differences, and I love this side of Dublin. I try most weekends to go for a walk on one of the beaches here – it’s usually Skerries, Donabate or Portrane, but those who read my blog know also that I can end up in Lousghshinney, Rush, Portmarnock or Malahide.

My grandparents were married in Donabate and they are buried in Saint Catherine’s, beside the ruins of the old Church of Ireland church in Portrane. So I’m happy this afternoon to accept your generous invitation and to introduce to you the Church of Ireland in the Fingal area.

The most recent census returns indicate large increases in the Church of Ireland population in every county in Ireland and every diocese in the Church of Ireland. The social statistician Malcolm Macourt, in a recent analysis of the census returns, shows how the Church of Ireland figures in the Republic of Ireland have increased from less than 85,000 in 1991 to over 115,000 in 115,000 in the 2006 census.

This represents an increase of over 46 per cent in 14 years, in less than half a generation – a 15-year period during which the population of the Republic of Ireland as a whole rose by 20 per cent to over 4.2 million.

Analysing these figures, Macourt says one contribution in the increase is an influx of immigrants from the United Kingdom – including at least 9,000 residents in the Republic who give their religion is Church of England.

The census statistics show the following figures for the members of the main churches outside the Roman Catholic tradition in the Republic of Ireland:

● Church of Ireland (including Protestant): 118,948
● Christian (unspecified): 28,028
● Presbyterian: 21,496
● Methodist: 10,768

The smaller groups that are usually classified as “Protestant” include Quakers, Baptists, Brethren, Lutheran and Moravian, but it is difficult to extrapolate any statistics and trends on their membership from those census figures.

Christians not fitting into either of these categories include:

● Orthodox: 19,994

Compare these figures with the figures for other groups:

● Muslims: 31,779
● Others: 54,033

The “Others” may include Jews, Buddhists and Baha’is, but they may also include smaller Protestant groups too.

The census returns show some phenomenal rises since 1991:

● Orthodox (+2814%);
● Muslims (+394%)
● Jews (13%).

Similarly, there have been rises in the statistics for the other Protestant churches or traditions, such as: Church of Ireland (+29%); Presbyterian (+55%). The popular perception of a Protestant decline has been arrested if not reversed. But, to be honest, we do not know why.

The Church of Ireland is the Church of:

● Jonathan Swift, the author of Gulliver’s Travels and Drapier’s Letters and Dean of Saint Patrick’s Cathedral, Dublin. He is said to have pursued his love affairs with Stella at Portrane Castle, so that for many people there it is now known as Stella’s Castle or Stella’s Tower.
● George Berkeley, the philosopher and Bishop of Cloyne.
● Hymn writers such as Henry Lyte from Co Wexford, who wrote Abide with me, and Mrs Cecil Alexander, a bishop’s wife from Derry, who wrote All things bright and beautiful and also translated Saint Patrick’s Breastplate.

The Church of Ireland and its members were intimately associated with the Gaelic revival and the literary renaissance of the late 19th and early 20th century.

The Church Ireland is the Church of great poets, dramatists and literary figures, including Nobel Prize winners. Think of:

● Sean O’Casey
● George Bernard Shaw
● W.B. Yeats
● Samuel Beckett

In the past, the members of the Church of Ireland have included:

● 1798: Lord Edward FitzGerald; Archibald Hamilton Rowan; Henry Monroe and Betsy Grey at the Battle of Ballinahinch; the Grogans and the Boxwells in Wexford.
● 1803: Robert Emmet and Thomas Russell.
● Later: William Smith O’Brien; Charles Stewart Parnell.
● 1916: Countess Markievicz and Sean O’Casey were both born into Church of Ireland families. And we should not forget that in 1916 too the Irish Citizens’ Army took its name at a meeting in the rooms of a Fellow of Trinity College Dublin who was a priest in the Church of Ireland.
● 1921/1922: Ernest Blythe and Erskine Childers were on opposing sides in the Irish civil war.
● 1937: Douglas Hyde, first President of Ireland, was the son of a Church of Ireland rector.
● Today, members of the Church of Ireland can be found in all political parties. And, given that we are on the north side of Dublin, I should point out that many of the members of U2 were brought up in Church of Ireland families on this side of Dublin.

Despite the RTÉ soapbox image of the Church of Ireland, not all of us are plumy rectors or from the landed gentry. There are strong working class parishes in Dublin in Finglas, Irishtown and Tallaght, for example; and the backbone of many rural parishes is the same as Roman Catholic parishes: small shopkeepers, small farmers, people like your parents, and people like you.

Getting to know your neighbour is always a good idea. Good neighbours are essential.

The large number of Church of Ireland parishes in the area covered by membership of this rotary club, are in parish groupings across area cross the Fingal, South Dublin and city boundaries. They are not just the churches. They are also part of the story and the history of Fingal.

They are centred on:

● Castleknock, which includes Castleknock (Saint Brigid), Mulhuddart (Saint Thomas), and Clonsilla (Saint Mary).
● Holmpatrick, which includes Holmpatrick (Skerries), Kenure (Rush), and Balbriggan (Saint George’s), but also Includes the ancient church sites of Baldongan, Balrothery, and Balscadden.
● Howth, which includes Baldoyle, whose manor and lands were given by King Sitric towards the founding of Christ Church Cathedral.
● Malahide, which includes Malahide (Saint Andrew’s) and Balgriffin (Saint Doulough’s), but also includes Portmarnock.
● Swords, which includes Swords (Saint Columba’s), Donabate (Saint Patrick’s) and Kilsallaghan (Saint David), and also includes Portrane.
● Santry (Saint Pappan), Finglas (Saint Canice) and Glasnevin (Saint Mobhi), which includes the old parish of Cloghran (Swords), including the site of the airport and this hotel, which was united with Santry in 1876; the church was closed at the end of the 19th century and was demolished in 1944.
● Drumcondra and North Strand.
● The inner city parishes of Saint George’s and Saint Thomas’s, Saint Michan’s and All Saints’ Garngegorman, which are part of the Chrust Church Cathedral group, and Saint Laurence’s in Chapleizod complete the Church of Ireland presence on the northside, alongside.

Many old parish churches have gone in parish reorganisation, and with church closures. But some of the churches stand on sites that have been in continuous use as places of worship and sacred places since monastic and pre-Norman times, reflected in the names of parish churches in Swords, Santry, Finglas, and other places.

Some of the churches in Fingal that I think are worth visiting, if you have not visited them before include:

The Hamilton monument in Holmpatrick Church, recalling a remarkable man and a remarkable family story (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2010)

● Saint Patrick’s, Donabate, with its mediaeval, castle-like tower, its late mediaeval grave slabs in the porch, and the magnificent, stuccoed private gallery of the Cobbe family of Newbridge House, replete with private fireplace.
● Saint Doulough’s in Balgriffin, one of the finest mediaeval churches – not only in Fingal but in Ireland.
● Holmpatrick in Skerries, which is in direct continuity with a church and monastery on the Skerries rocks that claimed a foundation dating back to Saint Patrick. It has an engaging monument to the prolific James Hamilton, the ruins of Saint Patrick’s Monastery, and an interesting mediaeval tower and grave-slabs.
● Saint Columba’s, Swords – with its pre-Norman monastic ruins and round tower.
● Kenure in Rush – a perfect example of an estate church, built by the Palmer family.
● Balrothery and Lusk – now closed but still in two of the most interesting locations in Fingal, and with commanding presences.

The former Church of Ireland parish church towers like a mighty castle above the village of Lusk (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

The stories of two interesting clerics

I could tell two interesting tales about clerics from the 18th century who left ther legacy in Fingal.

Archbishop Charles Cobbe (1686-1765), who first built Newbridge House in Donabate, first came to Ireland in 1717 as chaplain to his cousin – the Lord Lieutenant, the Duke of Bolton. Despite a limited intellectual capacity he enjoyed rapid promotion through three minor bishoprics and became Archbishop of Dublin in 1742. Some years earlier, he had bought much of the Donabate and Portrane peninsula in 1736 for £5,526 5s 6d.

At one time, it was said, there were only two freeholding families in the Peninsula, the Cobbes of Newbridge House, and my grandmother’s family, the Lynders family of Portrane,

Archbishop Cobbe’s portraits in the hall of Newbridge House and the Chapter House in Christ Church Cathedral show him wearing a long grey wig and the robes of a bishop. His guests at Newbridge House included the great Methodist preacher John Wesley. When the archbishop died in 1765 at the age of 79, it was said he was “the eldest bishop in the Christian Church.” He was buried in Saint Patrick’s Church, Donabate.

The charming interior of Saint Patrick’s Church in Donabate (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2010)

The Revd Anthony Tanner, who was the Vicar of Holmpatrick and Balscadden at the beginning of the 18th century, came to a sorry end when he was brutally murdered nearby in Loughshinny in 1741.

Tanner is said to have owned most of the land around Loughshinny when he married Alice Cannon from Popeshall in November 1740. Six months later, on 3 May 1741, after dining with his friend, Sir Robert Echlin of Kenure House – whose monument in Lusk churchyard is worth looking at in – Tanner was returning home to his house in Lougshinny and was crossing a stile when he was attacked. The vicar’s younger brother, William Tanner, was accused of employing a poor fisherman, James Cappogue, to carry out the deed. William hoped that with his brother’s death he would inherit his lands in Loughshinny. But he did not know that the vicar’s newly-wed wife, Alice, was already four months pregnant – their daughter, Margaret, was born in October 1741.

William Tanner and James Cappogue were tried and convicted for murder. Cappogue was sentenced to be hanged drawn and quartered, and was executed in Saint Stephen’s Green on 4 November, just weeks after baby Margaret was born. However, William Tanner managed to draw out the proceedings. He went to court no less than 10 times until eventually he was discharged and released.

Margaret Tanner later inherited her father’s lands in Loughshinny. She married John Dempsey, a local lawyer. The Dempsey family were proprietors of Loughshinny in 1762, at the time the local copper mines were developed. They were also involved in the early attempts to build a pier at Loughshinny.

For many years, a large stone house stood at the entrance to the farmyard where Tanner was murdered. However, the house was demolished in the early 1940s to make way for the present-day farmhouse, the farmyard is private property and entry is prohibited. But the murder of Anthony Tanner is still remembered in Loughshinny.

Schools and clergy

The East Window in Kenure Parish Church, Rush (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2010)

But the parishes are not just the churches, and the history, they are also the school. One of the largest national schools in Fingal is attached to Saint George’s Parish in Balbriggan, and has one of the highest proportion of children who are foreign born or born to immigrants.

And the parishes are not just the churches, the history and the schools, they also include the clergy.

In the Church of Ireland today, we are facing many of the same problems the other churches are facing: maybe not celibacy, but certainly sexuality, vocations and authority. What is the role of the Rector today? It is as pressing a question as: what is the role of the parish priest?

It presents itself in different ways: at one time in the past, villages and towns like Balbriggan, Rush, Lusk and Donabate might have expected to have their own resident rector. Today, their rectors live in Skerries or Swords. A rector shared by many churches and villages finds it difficult to be part and parcel of everyday life in that village.

Exciting times in ministry

On other hand, we are now at an exciting time in ministry in the Church of Ireland. We have 19 full-time students about to move from first year to second year in the Church of Ireland Theological Institute, preparing for ordination and parish ministry in a year’s time, along with another five part-time students moving into their final year and preparing to work as worker priests. They will be joined by more part-time and full-time students later this month.

They are male and female, from a diverse social background, from North and South. It is a healthy situation.

But it does not leave room for complacency. We have a large number of people who leave the full-time ministry of the Church of Ireland each year.

Nor does our healthy situation, and the fact that are clergy are male and female and are free to marry mean that we have no problems about sexuality, or problems about the behaviour of clergy. The fact that these problems are not of the same magnitude, nor that they receive extensive and quizzical coverage in media, does not mean they do not exist for the Church of Ireland.

And if I say that by and large, my colleagues, my fellow priests in the Church of Ireland, are wonderful people to work with, I have to say the same about my colleagues in the other churches too, including the Roman Catholic Church. Dublin Airport taxi drivers – who are often a litmus test of what people think and say – are generally surprised when I say Catholic priests are not my rivals but my colleagues, and my friends. Last week, during a conference on Interfaith relations, it was just so natural for Archbishop Neill and Archbishop Martin to sit together at dinner, their friendship is far deeper that polite ecumenism and co-operation.

In the churches, we think in terms of co-operation rather than competition – we are not in business, we are serving the Kingdom of God. And for that reason, the Church of Ireland parishes in Fingal, as any other part of Ireland, are not just the churches, the history, the schools, and the clergy, but are first and foremost the people.

And the people who make up the Church of Ireland in this area are as mixed as the people you know are. There are the old, long established families, in every social group, that we all know in this area … Families that have been living here for generations, in some cases even for centuries. And there are new suburban parishioners in places like Malahide, Swords, Donabate, Skerries and Balbriggan. They have their needs, expressed especially in the need for schools, but they are indistinguishable from their neighbours.

No longer do names, places of education, political loyalty or accents play a role in identifying or distinguishing members of different churches in this part of Ireland. No longer are there separate tennis clubs, rugby clubs or sailing clubs. Although, I often have to ask how much of this in past was also a myth, and I think particularly of the stories of cricket in the Donabate/Portrane peninsula or the story of sailing in Skerries.

Problems and issues:

Some of the problems, challenges and issues we are dealing with in the Church of Ireland at present include:

● Unemployment
● The impact on families of the collapse of businesses and the changes in farming
● Immigration, integration and racism
● Secularisation and antipathy
● Church attendance and commitment
● Loss of denominational identity
● Loss of sense of community

With the President of the Rotary Club of Dublin Fingal, Gerry Fitzmaurice after today’s lunch (Photograph: Pat McGonagle, 2010)

The local Church of Ireland parish church is first and foremost a place of worship for a local Christian community. But please see it too as a resource, part of the wider but local community identity, a focus for your area, your village. As business people, the parishioners and clergy are your partners, your neighbours, your customers, but most of all your friends.

The rector is available for advice, and for help, I know the church is available for celebration – not just for the parish but for you and for the wider community. You will be welcome for celebrations like carol services and for moments of crisis, even for prayer without proselytism.

Get to know us. We will be happy to get to know you.

Canon Patrick Comerford is Director of Spiritual Formation, the Church of Ireland Theological Institute, and a Canon of Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin. This essay is based on notes prepared for an address at a lunch of the Rotary Club of Dublin Fingal in the Clarion Hotel, Dublin Airport, on Monday 6 September 2010.

A visit to Lusk and a walk on the beach in Skerries

The moon above the beach in Skerries on Sunday afternoon ... these beach walks in Skerries are good for my physical well-being and my spiritual health (Photograph: Patrick Comerford 2009)

Patrick Comerford

On Sunday morning, I was in Christ Church Cathedral for the Cathedral Eucharist. After all the wonderful services and liturgies in the lead-up to Christmas, this was a very quiet Eucharist, celebrated by the Dean, the Very Revd Dermot Dunne.

Reserved ... just for me (Photograph: Patrick Cometrford, 2009)

Someone had placed a reserved sign for me on a cone in the parking place on the south side of the chapter house normally reserved for the canon-in-residence. But the canon-in-residence and preacher this Sunday was the Dean’s Vicar, Canon Mark Gardner, who is about to move to the Saint Patrick’s Cathedral Group of Parishes.

The congregation was small and, because there was no choir, there was seating for everyone in the chapter stalls, while the clergy took our places in the sanctuary. After coffee in the crypt, I headed off to Skerries for lunch and a much-needed walk on the beach. But on the way I stopped for the first time in the village of Lusk, four miles north of Swords, to look at the former Church of Ireland parish church, which was closed exactly 50 years ago this week and which now houses Lusk Heritage Centre.

A towering church

The former Church of Ireland parish church towers like a mighty castle above the village of Lusk (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2009)

The former parish church in Lusk towers like a mighty castle above the village, and the buildings on the site include 19th century church, the ancient round tower and a mediaeval belfry. Together, they form a unit, although they were built over a period of about 1400 years.

The round tower at Lusk is the only surviving building from a monastery founded about the year 450 by Saint Mac Cuillinn. The site is also associated with Saint Maurus. Saint Maculin is reputed to have either lived or been buried in a cave, which may explain the name Lusk, which is derived from the Gaelic word Lusca meaning a cave or underground chamber. The annals refer to the death in 497 of Saint Mac Cuillinn, who is described as both Abbot and Bishop of Lusk.

Cassan, a learned scribe who was known as the chronographer of Lusk, was the Abbot of Lusk when he died in 695. In 695 or 696 a grand synod was convened at Lusk by Saint Adamnanus, at which all the principal prelates of the Ireland were present.

Although the round tower is not the tallest in Ireland, it has eight storeys and a basement, which is more than any other round tower. But the size of the round towers did not defend Lusk against successive waves of attackers and invaders, both Irish and Viking.

The monastery was plundered and destroyed by the Vikings in 827, 835 and burned again in 856, when the monastery and town of Lusk were razed in a fire. Lusk was attacked by the neighbouring Irish in 1053, in 1089, the Irish burned down the church again with 180 people inside. In 1135, Lusk Abbey and town were burned and the surrounding countryside of Fingal was laid waste by Donal Mac Murrogh O Melaghlin in revenge for the murder of his brother, Prince Conor of Meath.

In mediaeval times, the parish consisted of a rectory and vicarage: the rectory was divided into two portions, one was held by the Archdeacon of Dublin by the Precentor of Saint Patrick’s Cathedral, Dublin, the other by the Treasurer of the cathedral, and each as Prebendary of Lusk, would appoint t their own Vicar of Lusk.

The mediaeval Prebendaries of Lusk probably never visited the parish, leaving the pastoral and liturgical work to their vicars. Those prebendaries of Lusk included Walter Scamel, who became Bishop of Salisbury in 1284, and James de Hispania (of Spain), a nephew of Queen of Eleanor of England.

Mediaeval embellishments

Because Lusk was plundered and burned so many times, the only remnant of the early monastic foundation is the Round Tower. The round tower is about 27 metres high and retains its original conical cap. There are nine storeys including the basement. The flat-headed doorway is now less than a metre above ground level.

The ancient Round Tower in Lusk is attached to a square tower built in the 15th or 16th century (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2009)

The Round Tower is attached to a square tower built in the 15th or 16th century with three matching round towers at its corners. This belfry is thought to date from about 1500. The round tower was cleverly incorporated into the design of the belfry with three corner turrets and the round tower making the fourth. Although built against the round tower, it is obvious that the round tower and the belfry are separate from each other.

As the belfry was being built, the Precentor of Saint Patrick’s Cathedral, Canon Thomas Rochfort, took an unusually hands-on approach to his responsibilities as Rector of Lusk. In 1502, he donated a large alabaster high altar to the church, with three images – one of Christ, placed in the centre, with Saint Maculin of Lusk on his right and Saint Patrick on his left. The church also had an altar dedicated to Saint Catharine.

In front of the altar in the south aisle was the elaborate 16th century double effigy of Sir Christopher Barnewall and his wife Marion Sharl (1589). The other tombs in Lusk included James Bermingham (1527), with his effigy in chain armour, although these are now said to be in the belfry.

‘Decayed and ruinous’

At the Visitation of 1615, there were reports of the “Church and Chancel in good repair.” By 1630, however, Archbishop Lancelot Bulkeley reported that “the Church for the most part is decayed and ruinous, the Chancel is in remarkably good repair, and will be made better this summer.” In addition, he found that “all the parishioners were recusants, and none come to church except the Lord Chief Baron and his family, and a few more.”

By the 17th century, it appears the Precentor and the Treasurer were able to agree on appointing one and the same person as Vicar of Lusk, and the Vicars of Lusk were often also Vicars of Donabate or of Baldongan.

From 1780 to 1788, the Vicar of Lusk was Joseph Stock, who later played a key role in the 1798 Rising as the Bishop of Killala who was taken prisoner by the French troops who landed in Co Mayo.

While Stock was Vicar, the antiquarian and writer Austin Cooper visited Lusk in 1783 and noted that the round tower was in good condition, although it had no floors or ladders at that time. However, Cooper also noted that the church was too large for the tiny congregation in Lusk.

Inside, two long aisles were separated by a series of seven pointed arches. But these arches were later filled up with masonry, and the eastern portion of the south aisle was the only part used for services, while almost all the windows in the rest of the church were closed up, leaving the whole of the north aisle in almost total darkness. Cooper said the north aisle “was a waste, only used as a burial place in the same manner as the churchyard; consequently it is all rubbish, bones, skulls, etc., the church is only preserved entire by a good roof covering the whole.”

Literary connections

The Echlin tomb, with an epitaph borrowed from Alexander Pope, stood inside the walls of the older, larger church in Lusk (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2009)

You can estimate how large the original monastic and mediaeval church was by standing at the graves in the churchyard of Sir Robert Echlin (1699-1757) of Kenure House, at nearby Rush, and his wife Elizabeth (1704-1782). The Echlins bought their estate from the Butlers of Ormond, and Sir Robert Echlin, who married Elizabeth Bellingham in 1727, settled in Kenure two years later in 1729. Robert died died in 1757, and his wife, Elizabeth died in 1782, a year before Cooper’s visit. Their grave was once inside the church but now stands outside in the churchyard.

Elizabeth Echlin was an important 18th-century literary figure in Ireland. She was the correspondent of Samuel Richardson and the author of an alternative ending to Richardson’s Clarissa (1757-1748). Her husband’s epitaph, which she composed in 1759, reads:

Here rests an honest Man without pretence,
Blest with plain Reason and with sober Sense,
Calmly he look’d on either Life and here
Saw nothing to regret or there to fear.
From Natures temp’rate feast rose satisfyd
Thank’d Heav’n that he lived, and that he dy’d.

The lines of this epitaph were appropriated by Lady Echlin from two of Alexander Pope’s best epitaphs, the first two lines from that on a Mr Corbett, and the last four from that of a Mr Elijah Fenton.

The end of a church

In the great storm of 1839, the roof described by Cooper was blown off the church, and the church became a gaping ruin. On 8 December 1845, parishioners of Lusk were ordered to go to church in Balrothery Church because Lusk Church was in ruins.

However, after a gap of about eight years, the church was pulled down, and a smaller church in the Gothic or early English style was built in 1847 against the east wall of the belfry as the new parish church, using materials from the ancient abbey church. During building, workers found the coffin plate of Roman Patrick Russell, Catholic Archbishop of Dublin during the reign of James II.

The new church was licensed for public worship on 13 October 1847, and two years later the canons of Saint Patrick’s transferred their incomes from the parish to the Vicar of Lusk.

The floors and ladders in the round tower were fitted in the 1860s, along with a wooden and cement roof by the Revd Dr William Reeves, who was Vicar of Lusk from 1857 to 1865. He also filled up a breach in the second storey that led to the square mediaeval bell tower, and possibly another at the level of the belfry battlements. Reeves was a much-published church historian and later became Dean of Armagh and Bishop of Down, Connor and Dromore.

Kenure or Rush was joined to Lusk in 1894, and they were united with Donabate in 1946. However, Kenure was transferred to Holmpatrick and Balbriggan, and Lusk Church was finally closed after Divine Service fifty years ago on the last Sunday in December, 1959.

The church now houses the Lusk Heritage Centre, and the belfry houses an exhibition on mediaeval churches of North County Dublin. The key to the round tower is held nearby, and I must try to see inside both the church and the towers some day.

Lunch and a beach walk

Pasta Pizza ... lunch on Sunday afternoon (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2009)

As I headed on to Skerries, it was only 1.30, but the half moon had already risen and was high above the islands off the coast. My favourite café in Skerries, the Olive, was closed, and instead I had lunch in Pasta Pizza on Strand Street.

Then it was time for that much-longed-for beach walk. The centre of Skerries may still have been snoozing off the effects of Christmas shopping, eating and drinking, but a lot of people were on the beach walking off those effects and clearing their heads.

The beach was dry, the sand was compact, the sky was as blue as a summer’s day, and a half-moon was clearly visible on Sunday afternoon in Skerries (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Despite the cold, wet weather we’ve been having for a long time, I have never seen the beach in Skerries as dry as it was yesterday afternoon, and the sand was firm and tightly packed. In crisp clear light, the islands were cut out in cardboard-like relief, and from Red Island it was possible to see as far as the Mountains of Mourne.

The setting sun casting its light across Skerries Harbour late on Sunday afternoon (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2009)

Then it was back around the Lifeboat station to the Harbour, along by the north strand, where the setting sun was casting a golden-brown hue on everything, and on to the Obelisk and into Strand Street to pick up the papers in Gerry’s and a few bottles of wine to bring to last night’s party in the Poultons.

The rising moon could be glimpsed through the trees behind and behind the spire of Holmpatrick Church (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2009)

As I was leaving Skerries, I could glimpse the rising moon behind the spire of Holmpatrick Church, while from the churchyard the windmills were clearly visible even though dusk was settling. I headed back along the coast to Rush, back into Lusk, and through Donabate onto M50 and home before heading off once again in the evening to the Rectory in Killiney.

These beach walks in Skerries are good for my physical well-being and my spiritual health. Over the past weeks, the effects of sarcoidosis on my joints have left me with pains and cramps in my legs at night, and I often wake short of breath. But I still know in Skerries that sarcoidosis can never deprive me of the pleasures of life. I may have sarcoidosis, but sarcoidosis will never have me.

The windmills in Skerries seen from Holmpatrick churchyard as dusk was settling (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2009)>br />