My story of Chaim Herzog and the Levitas brothers has become a topical tale at this evening’s book launch in Dublin

The plaque unveiled by Chaim Herzog in Herzog Park, Rathgar … his Dublin childhood is recalled in one of my essays in ‘Christmas and the Irish’ edited by Professor Salvador Ryan and launched in the RIA this evening (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

I am in Dublin this evening for the launch of Professor Salvador Ryan’s new book, Childhood and the Irish, A Miscellany in the Royal Irish Academy. The book, which is being launched by RTÉ’s Miriam O’Callaghan, is published by Wordwell Books and includes two contributions from me.

One of my essays is topical this evening in a way that I never expected it to be when I was subitting my contributions to this new book. ‘In Four boys growing up in Dublin’s ‘Little Jerusalem’ and a synagogue fire’, I tell the story of how a youthful Chaim Herzog, who lived on Bloomfield Avenue, and three Levitas brothers, Max, Morry and Sol, who lived on Warren Street, all of my father’s generation, almost set fire accidentally to Lennox Street Synagogue late one Saturday 100 years ago, back in 1925.

Chaim Herzog (1918-1997), was born in Belfast but had moved to Dublin in 1919 when his father, Dr Yitzhak Herzog, became the first Chief Rabbi of Ireland. He later went to school in Wesley College, Dublin, and would become the President of Israel (1983-1993). Herzog Park in Dublin was named in his honour during one of his return visits to Dublin. He had fought against the Nazis in World War II, took part in the liberation of several Nazi concentration camps, including Bergen-Belsen, and became involved in left-wing politics as a member of the Labour Party. His son Isaac Herzog is a former leader of the Israeli Labour Party and is the present President of Israel.

The other three boys in the incident, the Levitas brothers, eventually moved to the East End of London, where they became heroes in the Battle of Cable Street in 1936 and the Spanish Civil War.

The councillors who wanted to change the name of Herzog Park at a meeting of Dublin City Council this evening, at the same time as this book is being launched, would do well to remember the true grit of these true Dubs who resisted racism and fascism all this lives. Many of them, however, continue to revere the statue in Fairview Park of the Nazi collaborator Sean Russell.

With Professor Salvador Ryan at a previous book launch in the Royal Irish Academy, Dawson Street, Dublin

The new book being launched this evening includes 80 essays from historians, folklorists, archaeologists, theologians, anthropologists, poets, novelists, artists, literature scholars and educationalists, who cast light on the lived experience of children in Ireland.

The contributions range from the scholarly to the deeply personal, with vignettes from almost every county in Ireland. This anthology offers an invaluable resource for all who are interested in the social, cultural and religious history of childhood in Ireland.

The topics include: childhood in early Irish saints’ lives; childhood in medieval Irish literature; remembering the children who died violently during the upheavals of 17th century Ireland; ‘foundlings’ and parish-based care for children in the 19th century; child prisoners; a New York Irish ‘street boy’ in the American Civil War; children and the belief in ‘changelings’; childhood disability; why Manchester City might be considered ‘Monaghan’s best youth club’; the educational experiences of Jewish children and of the children of RIC officers in early 20th century Ireland; the childhood of James Joyce; seasonal migration and childhood farm labour; the origins of the summer Gaeltacht course; the ‘sweet-shop’ culture of Irish childhood; the banbhs who went to the ball in 1930s Offaly; mid-20th century school strike; a Dublin school tour to Lourdes in 1954; childhood among the Travelling community; the evolution of First Communion rituals; a UK-based scholar’s childhood experience of learning different histories in Belfast and Dublin schools; blended family culture in contemporary Ireland; and many more.

Salvador Ryan is Professor of Ecclesiastical History at Saint Patrick’s Pontifical University, Maynooth, with an interest in religious and cultural history from the Middle Ages to the 20th century. This is the ninth book I have contributed to that he has either edited or co-edited.

Those other books include Christmas and the Irish (2023), Birth and the Irish (2021), Marriage and the Irish (2019), and Death and the Irish (2016), all from Wordwell Books; We Remember Maynooth: a College across Four Centuries (Dublin: Messenger Publications, 2020); The Cultural Reception of the Bible: explorations in theology, literature and the arts (Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2018); Treasures of Ireland, Vol III, To the Ends of the Earth (Dublin: Veritas, 2015); and Tresures of Irish Christianity, Volume II, A People of the Word (Dublin: Veritas, 2013).

He is also the editor of The Irish Theological Quarterly, to which I have contributed often, and the editor of Under Crimblin Hill, Journal of the Dunkerrin Parish History Society – I have contributed a paper to the latest volume (2026), which was launched in the Barack Obama Plaza in Moneygall last Friday night.

Among my friends, Facebook friends, and academic and clerical colleagues who are included in this new collection are Ian d’Alton, Anne Marie D’Arcy, Séamus Dooley, Crawford Gribben, Kevin Hargaden, Mark Humphries, Laurence Kirkpatrick, Michelle McGoff-McCann, Patsy McGarry, Ida Milne, Miriam Moffitt, Father Colmán Ó Clabaigh OSB, Thomas O’Loughlin, Pádraig Ó Macháin, Clodagh Tait, Natalie Wynn, and, of course, Salvador Ryan.

In ‘Within the Sound of Church Bells’, my childhood neighbour, the writer, songwriter and broadcaster Max McCoubrey, recalls many details of childhood in Dublin 6 that resonate with me.

My contributions to this book are ‘36. Four Boys Growing up in Dublin’s ‘Little Jerusalem’ (pp 153-156) and a Synagogue Fire’, and ‘39. The Children of the Holocaust who Called Ireland Home’ (pp 166-170).

I have read through some of the other essays and contributions and browsed through others at the proof-reading stages, and I am looking forward to reading many more after this evening's book lauch. But, more about this book and my two essays in the days or weeks to come. The book is out in time to include on your Christmas presents list.

• Childhood and the Irish, A Miscellany (Dublin: Wordwell Books, 2025), ISBN: 9781916742192 (paperback), xviii + 344 pp, €25. See www.wordwellbooks.com

A missed opportunity to visit Barack Obama at the launch of a history journal in Moneygall

A visit to the Barack Obama Plaza near Moneygall and Dunkerrin some years ago

Patrick Comerford

I had an invitation to the Barack Obama last night but couldn’t get there.

No, it was not an invitation to meet Barack Obama. But it was invitation to the launch of the latest issue of Under Crimblin Hill, the Historical Journal of the Dunkerrin Parish History Society, edited by my friend and colleague, Professor Salvador Ryan of Maynooth.

The Barack Obama Plaza is a motorway service area at Junction 23 on the M7 motorway in Co Tipperary, and beside the village of Moneygall, just across the county border in Co Offaly. For the five years I was living in Askeaton, Co Limerick, as priest-in-charge of the Rathkeale Group of Parishes, this had been a regular ‘pit stop’ on the road to and frame Dublin.

The Barack Obama Plaza is named after President Barack Obama, whose great-great-great-grandfather, Falmouth Kearney, lived in Moneygall and emigrated to the US in 1850. The plaza opened in 2014, and includes an Obama museum-visitor centre, a bronze bust of Barack Obama by Mark Rhodes, and life-sized bronze sculptures of Barack and Michelle Obama, also by Mark Rhodes.

When Barack Obama visited Moneygall in 2011, he met distant relatives and drank a pint in Ollie Hayes’s Pub, where Michelle Obama tried her hand at pouring a pint.

The nearby village of Dunkerrin, Co Offaly, is just south of Roscrea and near the Co Tipperary border and junction 23 at Moneygall. Dunkerrin Parish History Society was revived in 2014 after a 25-year lapse, and launched its journal Under Crimblin Hill that year.

So, the Barack Obama Plaza was an appropriate and convenient venue for the launch of the latest edition of Under Crimblin Hill last night, when the guest speaker was local artist Philip Ryan, who launched this latest edition (volume 5, 2026).

Salvador Ryan invited me to contribute to this edition of the journal with a paper on the ‘Comerford Crown’ or ‘Ikerrin Crown’, a long-lost archaeological artefact probably dating from the Bronze Age. It was discovered in the Devil’s Bit, near Ikerrin. Co Tipperary, in 1692 and was taken to France by the Comerford family who owned it for over a century, until the mid-1790s, when it was lost during the ‘Reign of Terror’ in the aftermath of the French Revolution.

Although it has not been seen for almost 2½ centuries – perhaps even 3½ centuries – the ‘Comerford Crown’ or ‘Ikerrin Crown’ remains an object of fascination. Although its function was never ascertained and remains uncertain, it became a symbol of Irish identity in the early 19th century, and is said to informed the design in 1843 of Daniel O’Connell’s green velvet ‘Repeal Cap’.

The crown is sometimes referred to by archaeologists as the ‘Devil’s Bit Mountain gold cap.’ The ‘Milesian Crown’ was a more popular term in the 19th century because of the symbol that was based on this crown or inspired by it. Yet, despite all the speculation about the crown, it remains an enigma.

I was so sorry to miss the launch of the journal last night, but I hope to receive a copy when I meet Salvador at the launch of his latest book, Childhood and the Irish, in Dublin next week.

Meanwhile, more about the journal, the Comerford Crown, and that new book in the days or weeks to come, hopefully.

Book Review, Irish Theological Quarterly: ‘Church Going: A Stonemason’s Guide to the Churches of the British Isles’

Church Going: A Stonemason’s Guide to the Churches of the British Isles. By Andrew Ziminski. London, Profile Books, 2024. Pp. 401. Price £25 (hbk). ISBN 9781800818682.

Reviewed by: Patrick Comerford, Milton Keynes

Among the many groups on social media that I contribute to actively, “Church Crawlers Anonymous” on Facebook is mainly for people who “church crawl” and photograph churches as a hobby and for people with an interest in ecclesiology. But the reasons people have for “church crawling” as a hobby are broader than the criteria for membership. Apart from clergy, liturgists and regular churchgoers, there are people who visit churches simply because they appreciate stained glass windows or furnishings and fittings, organs and bells, the architectural as well as social and local history, monuments, old tombs or the tiles.

Their reasons are many, some may have little or no faith or beliefs, but all appreciate the heritage of old churches and their place in preserving local history and bringing it alive.

Andrew Ziminski is a stonemason, church conservator and author who lives and works in Frome, Somerset. For over 40 years, he has worked on some of the greatest cathedrals and churches in Britain, including the tower of Salisbury Cathedral and the dome of Saint Paul’s Cathedral, London. During this career, he admits, he has become “an inveterate church crawler” and says he has visited over half of the 11,000 or so churches of medieval origin in Britain and Ireland. Building on the critical acclaim of his first book, The Stonemason, he has written this second book, Church Going, as his own handbook to the architecture, fixtures, furnishings, and artworks in those churches.

Ziminski realises churches are many things to many people: they are places of worship, they are vibrant community hubs and they are oases of reflection. To know a church is to hold a key to the past that unlocks an understanding of shared history. This beautifully written and richly illustrated book is a celebration of British and Irish architectural history, in which he looks at the histories, features and furnishings of churches, from flying buttresses to rood screens, lichgates to chancels and gargoyles. He begins by inviting us to walk around the churchyard, then looking at the exterior of a church, and takes an interlude to look at the birds, bees and bats, the bells and the ancient graffiti. He then takes us inside to see the porch, the nave, roofs and vaults, and takes a second interlude, with a “Note on Purgatory,” before continuing with the font, wall paintings and furnishings, benches, pews and galleries, interior memorials, devotional and memorial chapels, the chancel arch and its furnishings, the chancel, the altar and sanctuary, the vestry, charnel houses and the apse and crypt.

A walk on the beach in Strandhill, Co. Sligo, led him to search for the reliquary of Saint Patrick’s tooth in the National Museum in Dublin. He recounts the theft and recovery of the reliquary at Saint Manchan’s Church in Boher, Co. Offaly. The “most recent and most disturbing shrine” he has seen is the head of Oliver Plunkett enshrined in Saint Peter’s Church, Drogheda: “seeing his head with its wisps of hair grinning back at you through the thick glass window at the base of the brass spire that covers him today is a moving experience, no matter what your faith is.”

He believes the “pencil-shaped bell towers of Ireland” or round towers “are perhaps Ireland’s greatest gift to architecture.” He is particularly descriptive of the towers in Clonmacnoise and Kildare, and asks why “the style of the stone-built Irish detached round tower didn’t catch on within mainland Britain.” On the other hand, the towers and spires in England that have attracted his attention include Christopher Wren’s spire on Saint Bride’s in Fleet Street in London, the inspiration for many a bride’s choice of a tiered wedding cake, and admires Nicholas Hawksmoor’s eccentric spire at Saint George’s, Bloomsbury – inspired by the Mausoleum at Halicarnassus – with its fighting lion and unicorn, an elongated pyramid, and nineteen steps leading up to a statue of George I clad in a Roman toga.

There are humorous vignettes. Once arriving at a church in Wiltshire to meet an architect to discuss lightning damage to a the spire of a village church, he was asked quizzically, “Do you know how to build a spire?” He gave the one reply he had been waiting his whole career to deliver, “Well, up to a point.” It was an appropriate response, for this book is a collection of lightning strikes. The churches Ziminski visits are chosen randomly, a choice influenced by where he has lived, worked or spent holidays. This means there are whole swathes of England that are not referred to or discussed. There are no college chapels in Cambridge or Oxford. There is not one single church in Staffordshire, with its interesting collection of collegiate churches, including Penkridge, with graffiti grooves in the stonework left behind by practicing arches. There are few references to the great cathedrals of England, with only passing references to York Minister, the largest cathedral completed in the Gothic period, or Norwich, with the largest monastic cloister in Britain, and none to Lichfield, the only medieval cathedral in England with three spires.

Of course a stonemason is going to be interested in Gallarus Oratory in Co. Kerry, with its early stonework, but he does not look at the debates about its purpose and function. How could any church crawler visiting the medieval churches and monasteries in Ireland – particularly a stonemason – neglect to visit the cathedrals in Killaloe and Clonfert or Saint Cronan’s Church in Tuamgraney?

This is an entertaining book, to dip into and out of. But it is certainly not a comprehensive guide to medieval churches in England, still less to the medieval churches of these islands. It is personal, it is amusing, it is delightful. However, I shall continue to take my Pevsner’s guides with me on every church crawling escapade.

This book review is published in the Irish Theological Quarterly (Pontifical University, Maynooth), Volume 90 Issue 2, April 2025, pp 239-240

Towcester has Roman origins and it claims to be the oldest town in Northamptonshire

Towcester in Northamptonshire, like many towns along Watling Street, has Roman origins (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Patrick Comerford

Many people know Towcester in Northamptonshire because it is close to Silverstone or because of the racecourse. Towcester is only 14 km from Stony Stratford, further north along the A5, but – despite an hourly bus link – I only visited the market town for the first time earlier this week.

Like many towns along the route of Watling Street, Towcester too has Roman origins: think of St Albans (Verulamium) in Hertfordshire, Fenny Stratford (Magiovinium) in Buckinghamshire, Mancetter (Manduessedum) near Atherstone, or Wall (Letocetum) outside Lichfield.

Towcester is a growing market town with a population of 11,500 that is growing to 20,000 with new housing. It claims to be the oldest town in Northamptonshire and one of the oldest continuously inhabited settlements in England.

As a former coaching town along Watling Street, Towcester has many similarities with Stony Stratford. But I was interested too in seeing the remains of the motte and bailey or ancient castle known as Bury Mount, visiting Saint Lawrence’s Church, which has Norman, Saxon and possibly even Roman roots, and learning a little more about the town’s associations with Charles Dickens.

Bury Mount is the site of the motte-and-bailey castle built by the Normans (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Towcester was the Roman garrison town of Lactodurum on Watling Street, and it was enclosed by a wall and a ditch. The name Towcester indicates the town’s Roman origins, referring to a Roman camp or settlement by the River Tove.

Saint Lawrence’s Church is said to stand on the site of a large Roman civic building, possibly a temple, and there was a bath house in the area too. There are two possible sites for the Battle of Watling Street, fought in 61 CE, close to the town: Church Stowe 7 km (4.3 miles) to the north, and Paulerspury, 4.8 km (3 miles) to the south.

When the Romans left in the fifth century, the area was settled by Saxons. In the ninth century, Watling Street became the frontier between the kingdom of Wessex and the Danelaw, and Towcester became a frontier town. Edward the Elder fortified Towcester in 917.

The Normans built a motte-and-bailey castle on the site in the 11th century. Bury Mount is the remains of the fortification and was renovated in 2008.

The Saracen’s Head, the best-known coaching inn in Towcester, was known to Charles Dickens as the Pomfret Arms (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Sir Richard Empson (1450-1510), who owned the Manors of Towcester and Easton Neston, was a powerful political figure in Tudor Northamptonshire. He was MP for Northamptonshire, Speaker of the House of Commons, High Steward of Cambridge University and Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster.

After John Comberford’s wife Joan Parles had died, John, his son Thomas Comberford and his daughter-in-law Dorothy (Beaumont), sold the former Parles and Comberford family estates near Towcester, including Stoke Bruerne, Shutlanger, Alderton and Wappenham, totalling about 400 acres, to Sir Richard Empson in 1504.

Empson and Edmund Dudley made Henry VII very rich when they raised taxes using extortion, harassment, and other dubious though legal means. When Henry VIII became king, he had the two arrested; they were tried in Northampton for treason in 1509 and were beheaded on Tower Hill on 17 August 1510.

Empson’s estates were later bought by Richard Fermor, and they remained with the Fermor family – later the Fermor-Hesketh family and Earls of Pomfret – until 2005. William Fermor, who inherited the estates, married Jane, a cousin of Sir Christopher Wren, in 1671, and rebuilt Easton Neston to designs by Wren’s assistant Nicholas Hawksmoor. Work started in the 1690s, and the work was completed in the late 1720s.

Meanwhile, the Monastery, once the manor house of the Comberford estate in Shutlanger, outside Towcester, had become a farmhouse on the Fermor estate. It was included in an exchange between the trustees of the 5th Earl of Pomfret and the 5th Duke of Grafton at the time of inclosure in 1844.

Figures of Venus (left) and Apollo (right) on the façade of the Saracen’s Head in Towcester, said to have come from Easton Neston (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

When the stagecoach and the mail coach were in their heyday in the 18th and early 19th centuries, Watling Street became a major coaching road between London and Holyhead and the main route to Ireland, and Towcester flourished as a major stopping point. Many coaching inns were established in Towcester, and they provided stabling facilities for travellers. The coaching inns that remain include the Saracen’s Head, alongside older pubs in Towcester such as the Brave Old Oak and the Plough.

Charles Dickens refers to Towcester in The Pickwick Papers (1837). The Saracen’s Head, which was renamed the Pomfret Arms in the 1830s, dates from the18th century but has older origins. The central carriage arch typifies these coaching inns. The round-arched window above the arch is flanked by niches holding fine lead statuettes of Venus (left) and Apollo with a harp (right). They are said to have come from Easton Neston.

Sam Weller in The Pickwick Papers recommends it as a place where a ‘very good little dinner’ could be got ready in half an hour. It returned to the name of the Saracen’s Head in 1944.

A year after Dickens published The Pickwick Papers, the coaching trade came to an abrupt halt in 1838 when the London and Birmingham Railway was opened. It by-passed Towcester and passed through Blisworth, which is four miles away but near enough to result in Towcester quickly returning to being a quiet market town.

The Town Hall was designed by the Towcester-born architect Thomas Heygate Vernon (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

The Town Hall and Corn Exchange was designed by the Towcester-born architect Thomas Heygate Vernon (1837-1888) and built in 1865. Leading figures in Towcester formed a company, issued shares and raised the capital to build the town hall, and its Italianate frontage is a reminder of their confidence and enterprise.

Towcester was linked to the national rail network in 1866 with the first of several rail routes. In time, Towcester had rail links with Blisworth (1866), Banbury (1872), Stratford-upon-Avon (1873) and Olney and Bedford (1892). But these links closed one-by-one, and goods traffic finally closed in 1964 with the Beeching cuts.

The nearest station today is in Northampton, 16 km (10 miles) away, and the site of the old railway station is now a Tesco supermarket.

The Chain Gate was built by the Fermor family in 1824 as part of the Easton Neston estate (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Towcester Racecourse on the east side of the town is a venue for both horse races and greyhound racing. It was originally part of the Easton Neston estate. The Chain Gate, today the main entrance to the racecourse, was built in 1824 and was designed in the classical style as the entrance to Easton Neston House and Park. The Roman archway which is supported by Corinthian columns and flanked with colonnades and gatehouses.

When the Empress Elizabeth of Austria (‘Sisi’), who built the the Achilleion Palace in Corfu in 1888-1891, visited England in 1876, she rented Easton Neston House, with its fine stabling for her horses. During that visit she established a race meeting of her own, when a course was laid out in Easton Neston Park and a stand erected for guests. It was the first horse race at Towcester.

After Sisi left Towcester, a meeting at the Pomfret Arms decided to repeat the steeplechase meeting and Sir Thomas Fermor-Hesketh gave a 51-year lease to hold Easter Monday races at Easton Neston Park.

Three years later, while she was hunting in Co Kildare in 1879, Sisi strayed on her horse into the grounds of Saint Patrick’s College, Maynooth. There she encountered the Acting President of Maynooth, William Walsh, a future Archbishop of Dublin. On her return to Ireland a year later, Sisi presented the college with a statue of Saint George and she later donated a set of vestments of gold cloth, decorated with gold and green shamrocks and the coats of arms of Austria, Hungary and Bavaria. While she was visiting Geneva, Sisi was assassinated at the Beau Rivage Hotel on 10 September 1898 by an Italian anarchist Luigi Luccheni. She was 61.

The Easton Neston estate was sold by the Hesketh family in 2005 to the Russian oligarch Leon Max, who was born Leonid Maksovich Rodovinsky.

Towcester is bypassed by the A43, but traffic on the A5 still passes through the town centre (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Although Towcester is now by-passed by the A43, traffic along the A5 still passes directly through the town centre. Towcester is twinned with Zhydachiv in the Lviv region in west Ukraine.

Towcester has sent five ambulance, filled with medical supplies and other aid, to Ukraine, and I heard this week about how the town is sending a sixth ambulance to charity workers in Lviv. The ambulances are filled with essential items, including warm clothing, blankets and disability aids.

The initiative is led by Saint Lawrence Church in Towcester and the Tove Benefice, which have been working to acquire and fill ambulances with supplies for Ukrainian paramedics. The Tove Benefice and the local Rotary Club continue to work to raise money through various events, including a Vicarage Fete and Open Gardens, selling ribbons and sunflowers, a concert and hosting families.

In Saint Lawrence’s Church on Monday, I saw yet another ambulance being filled with medical equipment. The ambulance is due to leave Towcester next Sunday (23 March), when Steve Challen from the Tove Benefice and Alex Donaldson begin a 1,350-mile drive to Lviv.

But more about Saint Lawrence’s Church in Towcester on another day, hopefully.

Signs of hope for Ukraine … Bansky-style street art in Whitton’s Lane in Towcester (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

A Saint Patrick’s Day ‘virtual tour’ of a dozen churches and cathedrals dedicated to Saint Patrick

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

Patrick Comerford

Today is Saint Patrick’s Day [17 March], and this afternoon I am allowing my mind’s eye to travel on a ‘virtual tour’, revisiting a dozen cathedrals and churches dedicated to Saint Patrick.

To mark Saint Patrick’s Day two years ago, I offered a similar ‘virtual tour’ to a dozen cathedrals and churches in Ireland dedicated to Saint Patrick: Saint Patrick’s Cathedral, Dublin; the two Saint Patrick’s Cathedrals in Armagh; the Saint Patrick’s Cathedrals in Trim, Co Meath, and in Cavan; the two Saint Patrick’s Churches in Donabate, Co Dublin; and Saint Patrick’s Church in Dalkey, Co Dublin, Wicklow Town, Ballysteen, Co Limerick, and Waterford City; and the ruins of Saint Patrick’s Church, at the end of High Street, where I once lived in Wexford.

In today’s ‘virtual tour’ with Saint Patrick, I am returning to two cathedrals or pro-cathedrals in Ireland, the college chapel where I graduated, the two churches where my both sets of grandparents were married, two churches in Co Limerick, where I lived for five years, a church in Skerries where I did ‘Sunday duty’ during a vacancy many years ago, a church in Co Kilkenny where another Canon Comerford was once parish priest, and three churches named after Saint Patrick that I have visited within the last six months or in Belfast, London and Sarawak.

1, Saint Patrick’s Cathedral, Skibbereen, Co Cork:

Saint Patrick’s on North Street, Skibbereen, Co Cork … is it a cathedral, or is it a parish church? (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Saint Patrick’s Cathedral on North Street, Skibbereen, West Cork, is the 200-year-old Roman Catholic parish church in Skibbereen. It is often referred to as the cathedral of the Diocese of Ross, although Cork and Ross is now a united diocese.

The foundation stone was laid in 1825, and the church was designed as a plain Greek Revival T-plan church by the Revd Michael Augustine Riordan, a priest-architect from Doneraile, Co Cork.

A plaque on the west gable is inscribed: Deo Opt Max et Beato Patritio Parochus Populusque extruere AD 1825 Venite adoremus et procidamus ante Deum (‘To the great glory of Almighty God and the Blessed Patrick, the parish priest and people built this church in AD 1825. Come let us adore and fall down before God’).

George Coppinger Ashlin gave the cathedral the splendour it retains to this day (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

The most significant improvement to Saint Patrick’s was carried out in the early 1880s, when Bishop William Fitzgerald commissioned AWN Pugin’s son-in-law, the Cork-born architect George Coppinger Ashlin (1837-1921), to design a radical modernisation of the church. Ashlin was also the architect of Saint Colman’s Cathedral, Cobh, for the Diocese of Cloyne.

Ashlin gave the cathedral the splendour it displays to this day, and reconfigured the church in the shape of a Latin cross. The east wall behind the original High Altar was opened; a semi-circular apse was added; the apse was embellished by three stained-glass windows; the High Altar, dedicated to the memory of Bishop Michael O’Hea (1858-1876), and the Marian Altar, supplied by Pearse and Sharpe of Dublin, were erected.

The arcade of three arches above the sanctuary and two dividing the transepts from the nave, the polished pillars of granite, the coffered ceiling which they support, all date from 1882-1883.

The white marble altar rail was the work of Pearse and Sharp of Dublin; James Pearse was the father of the 1916 leader Padraig Pearse. The wrought iron panels, with their floral and leaflet decoration, were the work of Eugene McCarthy of Skibbereen.

The High Altar was consecrated on the first Sunday in May 1883 and the reconstructed church was blessed and re-opened.

2, Saint Patrick’s Pro-Cathedral, Dundalk, Co Louth:

Saint Patrick’s Pro-Cathedral, Dundalk, Co Louth … Thomas Duff modelled the exterior on the Chapel of King’s College, Cambridge (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Modern Dundalk was first laid out by James Hamilton, 1st Earl of Clanbrassil, in the mid-18th century. Around the same time, Dundalk Grammar School was founded as a Charter School in 1739. The town continued to grow and prosper in the 18th and 19th centuries, thanks to the patronage of the Jocelyn family, Earls of Roden, the industrial revolution and the arrival of the railway.

The growing Roman Catholic population was becoming more prosperity, and the architecture of their new churches reflects their growing confidence. The principal Roman Catholic church is Saint Patrick’s, known locally as the Pro-Cathedral. It was designed by the Newry architect Thomas Duff (1792-1848), who modelled the interior on Exeter Cathedral, where Richard FitzRalph of Dundalk was consecrated bishop, and the exterior on King’s College Chapel in Cambridge – it is curious to note that the Vicar of Dundalk at the time, the Revd Elias Thackeray, was a former Fellow of King’s College.

Thomas Turner’s entry curtain at Saint Patrick’s in Perpendicular Gothic (1850) was inspired by the curtain at King’s College, Cambridge (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Building work on Saint Patrick’s began in 1834. The travel writer and Church of Ireland clergyman, the Revd Caesar Otway, met Duff in Cambridge the following year making drawings of King’s College Chapel for his new designs. At the same time, Duff also designed the Methodist Church in Jocelyn Street (1834) in the Greek revival or classical style, and the Presbyterian Church across the street (1839) in the Tudor Gothic style.

Duff died in 1848 following a stroke after his daughter’s death. Thomas Turner’s entry curtain in Perpendicular Gothic, inspired by the curtain at King’s College, Cambridge, was erected two years later. But the Famine disrupted work at Saint Patrick’s, and did not resume until 1860. The church was completed by JJ McCarthy, the ‘Irish Pugin,’ who designed the high altar, the reredos and the Gothic sedilia in Caen stone. Pugin’s son-in-law, George Coppinger Ashlin, designed the Italian mosaics in the chancel by Oppenheimer and the pulpit. The stained glass is by Mayer and Earley, who had worked on many of Pugin’s churches in Dublin. Ashlin’s later tower was modelled on Gloucester Cathedral, although it interrupts the grand Cambridge-like main façade.

3, Saint Patrick’s College Chapel, Maynooth, Co Kildare:

The chapel at Saint Patrick’s College, Maynooth, Co Kildare (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

I received my BD in theology from the Pontifical University in the chapel in Saint Patrick’s College, Maynooth, Co Kildare, in 1987. Later, I was a post-graduate student in history at Maynooth, and I spent a day on a retreat in the chapel before my ordination as priest in 2001. Since then, I have been a visiting lecturer in Maynooth, co-chaired conferences, contributed chapters, papers and book reviews to books and journals edited in Maynooth, and I was involved in organising a retreat for students from the Church of Ireland Theological Institute (CITI) in Maynooth in 2016.

Those books include a recent history of Maynooth, We Remember Maynooth: A College across Four Centuries, edited by Salvador Ryan and John-Paul Sheridan (Dublin: Messenger Publishing, 2020).

Inside the chapel at Saint Patrick’s College, Maynooth, Co Kildare … I received my BD in the chapel in 1987 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

The chapel, built by public subscription, was designed by the architect JJ McCarthy, the foundation stone was laid in 1875, and the chapel opened on 24 June 1891.

It is in French 14th-century Gothic style, and is more ornate than AWN Pugin’s college buildings in Maynooth. The interior was designed by the architect William Hague, the stained glass windows are by Mayer of Munich, Lavers and Westlake of London and Cox Buckley of London and Youghal, and NHC Westlake designed the Pre-Raphaelite style Stations of the Cross and the ceiling panels.

The carved oak choir-stalls that fill the whole church were produced by Connollys of Dominick Street, Dublin. Many of the mosaics are in Italian glass by the Earley Studios of Camden Street, Dublin.

4, Saint Patrick’s Church, Donabate, Co Dublin:

Saint Patrick’s Church, Donabate … George Luke O’Connor was inspired by Pugin’s cathedral in Birmingham (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

My paternal grandparents, Stephen Comerford (1867-1921) of Rathmines and Bridget Lynders (1875-1948) of Portrane, were married in Saint Patrick’s Church, Donabate, on 7 February 1905. The witnesses at their wedding were her cousin Lawrence McMahon and her younger sister Mary Anne Lynders (1879-1956), who later married John Sheehan.

Saint Patrick’s Church, Donabate, was designed by the Dublin architect George Luke O’Connor, for the Very Revd W Magill, PP, and was consecrated by Archbishop Walsh of Dublin on 9 August 1903.

O’Connor designed many churches, schools and cinemas, and it always strikes me that his church in Donabate is strongly influenced by Pugin’s designs for Birmingham Cathedral.

Inside Saint Patrick’s Church, Donabate, Co Dublin (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

This is a Gothic, gable-fronted cruciform church with an apse and tower. The family tradition is that much of the work in the church interior is my grandfather’s work. The high altar, erected in 1906, is the work of Patrick Tomlin & Sons of Grantham Place. The canted apse has a painted ceiling.

This red brick church is built in English garden wall bond. The features include decorative buttressing, limestone dressing and string courses, terracotta details in the eaves, pointed arched doors with limestone surrounds, the exposed timber truss, barrel vaulted ceiling, tongue and grooved timber doors with elaborate cast-iron hinges, cast-iron pillars, marble columns, encaustic tiles, the ornate rose west window, lancet windows and the Harry Clarke stained glass.

5, Saint Patrick’s Church, Millstreet, Co Cork:

Saint Patrick’s Church, Millstreet, was designed by the priest-architect Michael Augustine Riordan (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Saint Patrick’s Church is an imposing feature on the streets of Millstreet, and its fine façade marks out the church as the most accomplished historic building in the town. The church, built in 1833-1835, was designed by the Revd Michael Augustine Riordan (1783-1848), a priest-architect from Doneraile who founded the South Presentation Monastery (1828) in Cork, and whose best-known work is probably Saint Patrick’s Cathedral, Skibbereen.

My maternal grandparents, Thomas Michael ‘Corduroy’ Murphy (1882-1949), later of Mackay, Queensland, Australia, and Maria Crowley (1882-1953) of Millstreet, were married in Saint Patrick’s 110 years ago, on 3 March 1915.

The west front porch has a timber panelled double-leaf door, stepped-profile carved limestone surround with plinths and Celtic interlace decoration in relief. Above the door, the carved limestone pediment has a cross finial, and a render, relief panel has a crucifixion scene between an image of the Good Shepherd and a scene of Saint Patrick baptising Saint Aonghus at Cashel.

The east front porch has a moulded archivolt with scroll keystone, all set into a carved limestone doorcase with carved limestone panelled pilasters, decorative capitals and a carved limestone open-bed pediment with cross finial. Above the timber panelled double-leaf doors, the tympanum has a render scene depicting an outdoor Mass, perhaps at a penal rock.

The carving above the west porch door (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Saint Patrick’s Church has a window attributed to Harry Clarke and two windows by Clement Watson & Co of Youghal and erected by the Crowley in memory of my maternal great-grandparents Denis and Margaret Crowley, who are buried in the churchyard outside.

Saint Oliver Plunket is depicted in a window with the inscription: ‘Erected to the memory of Denis and Margaret Crowley of Millstreet by their son Cornelius. 1944.’ Facing it, a a second window depicts the Apparition at Lourdes and has the same wording.

Denis Crowley died on 8 March 1912 at Drishane Rectory, Liscahane, Millstreet, the home of his son Con Crowley, later of Finnstown House, Lucan, Co Dublin – so, you could say, I was the third generation in four in my family to live in a rectory. Margaret Crowley died at the home of her daughter, my grandmother Maria Murphy, on Main Street, Millstreet, on 9 March 1923.

6, Saint Patrick’s Church, Clare Street, Limerick:

Saint Patrick’s graveyard, Limerick … the site of a mediaeval church dedicated to Saint Patrick (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

There were five parishes in the mediaeval city of Limerick: Saint John’s, Saint Mary’s, Saint Michael’s, Saint Munchin’s and Saint Patrick’s. As one of these five original mediaeval parishes, Saint Patrick’s once included the old parishes of Ballysimon, Derrygalvin and Kilmurry (now Monaleen).

Saint Patrick’s Well in Singland was once in a small field but is now surrounded by housing estates. It is half-way along Saint Patrick’s Road, on the west side, at the bottom of the hill on which Saint Brigid’s Church stands.

Local lore claims that this well is where Saint Patrick baptised Cairtheann, the son of Blatt and the Chief of the Dál gCais, in the year 440 CE. According to the legend, when Saint Patrick was building his church, he could not find any water to help in the project. He prayed for water and the well sprang up.

It is claimed that the print of his feet can be seen on one of the rocks at the well, and there was supposed to be a rocky bed where Saint Patrick slept. It is claimed that the water cures sore eyes, although looking into the well this week the water looks more likely to cause infections than to cure anything.

Saint Patrick’s Well at Singland in Limerick … the statue was erected in 1904 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

A statue of Saint Patrick was erected at the well in 1904 by the priests and parishioners, and a plaque behind the statue lists their names. But over a century later, while the grass and the paths around the well are well maintained, the water in the well is filthy and Saint Patrick’s mitre has been broken, not standing the test of time over more than a century.

On the top of the hill, Saint Patrick’s Church may have stood on the site of Saint Patrick’s Graveyard, next to Saint Brigid’s Church, which dates from the 1970s.

Saint Patrick’s civil parish was situated on both banks of the River Shannon and was distributed over three baronies in Co Limerick and Co Clare: Bunratty Lower, Clanwilliam and the barony of the City of Limerick.

There was a church on the site in Singland from at the mediaeval period. But it was in ruins by the 17th century. The Down Survey Map of 1683 shows a round tower on the site, but this had fallen by the early 19th century.

By 1711, Saint Nicholas’s Parish in the Roman Catholic Church had been joined with Saint Patrick’s. The Harold family built a church in Pennywell in 1750 to serve the needs of Roman Catholics in this area.

Meanwhile, the old Saint Patrick’s graveyard continued in use. The oldest identified headstone was erected by John Sexton for his parents who died in 1770 and 1771. The tombs include the crumbling and part-shattered tomb of John Young (1746-1813), Bishop of Limerick (1796-1813).

7, Saint Patrick’s Church, Clare Street, Limerick:

Inside Saint Patrick’s Church on Clare Street, Limerick (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Saint Patrick’s Church on Clare Street, Limerick, was built over 200 years ago in 1816, and replaced a Penal Chapel on the Rhebogue Road. The church was built while Father Patrick McGrath was Parish Priest. Bishop Charles Tuohy of Limerick, dedicated it to Saint Patrick on 25 August 1816.

It is a simple, but well-built example of a pre-Emancipation church and it claims to be the oldest purpose-built Catholic church in Limerick City that is still in use. It is a simple nave and transept or T-plan, gable-fronted stone church with a bell-cote and a wooden ceiling. The ceiling is high and large wooden beams hold up the ceiling of the church. The church was renovated in 1835.

With its good masonry and fine roof, it is an important part of the streetscape in this area of Limerick. The central window at the front gable has stone moulding. Below is an ogee-headed front entrance with a clustered, carved limestone bull-nose moulding surmounted by pinnacles with replacement stone finials. Inside the church, there is an elaborate timber roof with a groin vault.

The statue of Saint Patrick in Saint Patrick’s Church, Limerick (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Inside the church, there is a stained-glass window of Saint Patrick over the main entrance to the church, and stained-glass windows depicting the Sacred Heart, Saint Joseph, the Immaculate Heart of Mary, Saint Brigid and Saint Ita.

There is a large crucifix on the stone wall above the high altar, and the reredos, donated by the Presentation Sisters has six statues, three male saints and three female saints: Saint Columba, Saint Munchin, Saint Patrick, Saint Bridget, Saint Ita and Saint Lelia. The front of the altar is carved with a Judgment scene and a mosaic on the floor in front of the altar depicts the Lamb of God with a flag. To the right of the altar there is a large, colourful statue of Saint Patrick.

To meet the needs of the growing population in the area, Bishop Henry Murphy created the new parish of Monaleen in 1971 from the area in the west of Saint Patrick’s parish. Saint Brigid’s Church, on the hill off the N7, was dedicated by Bishop Jeremiah Newman in 1975.

The old graveyard at Saint Patrick’s, on the hill beside Saint Brigid’s, is now closed to burials. Saint Patrick’s Church celebrated its bicentenary in 2016.

8, Holmpatrick Church, Skerries, Co Dublin:

Holmpatrick Church and the wetlands at Kybe Pond in Skerries, Co Dublin (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

When I was living in Co Dublin, Skerries was one of my favourite choices for a beach walk. I have known Skerries since my teens, and around 2010-2011, during a vacancy, I was privileged to do ‘Sunday duty’ in Holmpatrick Church, and to speak at Lenten talks. I also organised a number of Ash Wednesday retreats in Skerries for CITI staff and students.

Holmpatrick Parish Church is a Gothic Revival, pre-disestablishment church, built in 1867. It has an ornate interior, with neo-mediaeval decoration, and interesting stained glass windows, especially those on the balcony.

The Church was designed by the architect and artist James Edward Rogers (1838-1896) was consecrated on 2 September 1868. The limestone came from the Milverton quarries, near Skerries, and Walter Doolin was the contractor. Other churches by Rogers include Saint Mary’s Church, Howth; Kenure Church and the nearby Rectory in Rush, Co Dublin, built for Sir Roger Palmer (1832-1910) of Kenure Park; Kilfergus Church, Glin, Co Limerick; Saint Patrick’s Church, Kilcock, Co Kildare; Kilkeedy Church, Clarina, Co Limerick; Saint Columba's Church, Omagh, Co Tyrone; as well as the former Saint Bartholomew’s Vicarage and the parochial hall in Ballsbridge.

Looking across to the towers and spires of Holmpatrick from Skerries Mills (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Holmpatrick Church has some memorial tablets from an older church that stood nearby. One describes James Hamilton of Holmpatrick as a ‘gentleman who during a long and most active life displayed that zealous energy and ingenious integrity that forms a useful and virtuous man … He died the 20th of October 1800, in the 73rd year of his age … Of the uncommonly numerous offspring of thirty six children he was survived by eight sons and eight daughters.’

I think he gave new meaning to ‘zealous energy’! Hamilton’s descendants include Richard Branson, but with his ‘uncommonly numerous’ 36 children born 2½ centuries ago, Hamilton must be the ancestor of thousands upon thousands of people living in Ireland today.

Behind the church stand the ruins of an earlier church built in 1722 by the Hamilton family after they acquired Holmpatrick from the Earls of Thomond in 1720. When the church was demolished in the 1860s, the square tower was left standing – supposedly as a landmark for ships, although it is also a reminder of the mediaeval monastic past of this site.

Local lore says that when Saint Patrick was expelled from Wicklow he moved to Saint Patrick’s Island off Skerries in 432 CE. Legend says that one day, while Saint Patrick was on shore buying groceries, the people of Skerries rowed over to his island where he kept a goat for milk, stole the goat, took her back to the mainland and ate her. When Saint Patrick returned he was angry, and with one great step he bounded from his island to Red Island. There he questioned the local people, and when they denied their theft he took away their powers of speech. They could only bleat like goats, until they eventually admitted their crime.

It is said that on Red Island there is still a mark on the rock that is nothing less than Saint Patrick’s footprint. In all my visits to Skerries, I have failed to see the saint’s footprint on Red Island.

9, Saint Patrick’s Church, Ballyraggett, Co Kilkenny:

Saint Patrick’s Church, Ballyragget, Co Kilkenny, stands on the site of an earlier, Penal-era chapel (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Both Saint Patrick’s Church, the Roman Catholic parish church in Ballyragget, Co Kilkenny, and Ballyragget Castle are difficult to find, with the church at the end of a side street between the Square and Castle Street, and the castle at the end of a lane behind locked gates. The obscure location of the church is explained because it stands on the site of an earlier chapel that may have been built first during the Penal days in the 18th century.

Saint Patrick’s is an imposing large-scale church built in 1842 under the direction of William Kinsella, Bishop of Ossory (1793-1845), for Father John Foran, Parish Priest of Ballyragget, who died in 1843, to designs by William Deane Butler (ca 1794-1857).

Butler, who was also the architect of Saint Kieran’s College, Kilkenny, designed the church in the Gothic Revival style. It is similar in many details to other contemporary parish churches in the area, including Castlecomer and Freshford, representing a form of house style developed by Butler while he was the resident architect for the Diocese of Ossory.

The grave of Canon James Comerford, who died in 1948 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

The Gothic-style reredos in Caen stone was designed in 1869 by Pugin’s son-in-law, George Coppinger Ashlin and depicts the Sacrifice of Abraham, the Crucifixion and the Sacrifice of Melchizedek. The front of the altar depicts the worship of the Lamb on the Throne (see Revelation 4). The mosaic work in the sanctuary is by Ludwig Oppenheimer Ltd (1915).

The church was renovated in 1924 and again in 1983-1985, and some new windows were added after 2000.

Because the church saw few interior alterations after the Second Vatican Council (1963-1965), it retains its rich interior scheme, with high quality carpentry, decorative plasterwork, and stained-glass windows.

The churchyard on the north side of the church has many cut-limestone Celtic High Cross-style gravestones dating back to 1842, including the grave of Canon James Comerford, Parish Priest of Ballyragget, who died on 12 June 1948 at the age of 69.

10, Saint Patrick’s Church, Donegall Street, Belfast:

Saint Patrick’s Church on Donegall Road, Belfast, was built in the 1870s, replacing a church built in 1815 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

Saint Patrick’s Church on Donegall Street, Belfast, is a Victorian gem and an oasis of peace in the heart of the city and it is part of community life in the city centre. The church serves a large local resident community and a thriving population in the Cathedral Quarter, the city’s cultural and social heartland, and the students and staff in the neighbouring Belfast campus of Ulster University, along with a busy hospital, a large primary school, and residential and care homes.

The first church on the site was built in 1815, the year of the Battle of Waterloo, and it was the second Catholic church built in Belfast since the Reformation. The present Saint Patrick’s Church, the second on the site, was designed in the Gothic Revival style by Timothy Hevey (1846-1878) and Mortimer Thomspon. It is said the church was built ‘by the pennies of the poor’.

Two of the six windows in the south transept illustrating the life and mission of Saint Patrick (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

The original windows in the right transept were destroyed by an explosion during the ‘Troubles’, but six newly-installed windows illustrate the life and mission of Saint Patrick.

The church has a triptych by Sir John Lavery, who was baptised in the older, smaller church. He painted ‘The Madonna Of The Lakes’ (1919), with his second wife, Hazel Trudeau, as the model for the Virgin Mary and his daughter Eileen and step-daughter Helen as models for Saint Patrick and Saint Brigid.

The triptych originally stood on an altar designed by Edwin Lutyens, a friend of Lavery, and was illuminated by two candlesticks by Lutyens. Both the altar and the candlesticks were lost during reordering works out in the 1960s and 1970s, and the frame around the triptych, decorated with Celtic knotwork, remains the only Lutyens-designed artefact in Northern Ireland.

11, Saint Patrick’s Church, Soho:

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

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

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

Father Arthur O’Leary (1729-1802), a celebrated Irish Capuchin preacher from Fanlobbus, Dunmanway, Co Cork, is the founding figure of this church.

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

The present church on Soho Square was designed by John Kelly of Leeds and was built in 1891-1893. The church was built in the Italian Renaissance style. The main entrance has a Roman-style porch with Corinthian columns. Above the entrance is the inscription: Ut Christiani ita et Romani sitis (‘Be ye Christians as those of the Roman Church’), a quotation from the writings of Saint Patrick.

Many alterations have been made to Kelly’s church since it was built, and Saint Patrick’s Church was renovated and refurbished at a cost of £4 million in 2010-2011. Today, only a handful of resident Catholics remains in the parish. Hundreds of people continue to attend Saint Patrick’s Church, but they are mostly visitors, tourists and people working in the area. The church also attracts immigrants and migrant workers from across London, and Mass is regularly celebrated in both Spanish and Portuguese.

12, Saint Patrick’s Church, Semadang, Sarawak:

Saint Patrick’s Chapel (left), in orange and white, and Saint Patrick’s School (right), in green and white, beneath the mountain in Semadang, south of Kuching (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

Saint Patrick’s Chapel, a mission chapel in Semadang, dates back to the 1930s, and neighbouring Saint Patrick’s School dates from 1953. They are among the churches, chapels and schools in the Diocese of Kuching that I visited Father Jeffry Renos Nawie during a recent visit to Sarawak.

Semadang is about a 1½-hour drive south from Kuching, half-way between Kuching and the border with Indonesia, and just a few miles north of the Equator. The Sarawak River in this area is known as the River Semadang (Sungai Semadang).

Two villages in the area, Kampung Semadang and Kampung Danu, are home to the Bidayuh community.

Saint Patrick’s Chapel, Semadang, was first built in the 1930s and was rebuilt and dedicated in 2009 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

Saint Patrick’s Church is in striking, bright orange and white colours, and the school beside it is in bright, striking green and white colours, so that the whole site looked to this Irish visitor like a bright eye-catching display of green, white and orange.

Perhaps the colour scheme is nothing more than coincidence, and I imagine few other visitors notice the vivid and colourful combination or make a mental association with the Irish flag.

Saint Patrick’s Chapel dates from the 1930s, and was probably given its name by missionaries from the Anglican mission agency SPG (now USPG, United Society Partners in the Gospel). The present church building was consecrated on 3 May 2009 by Bishop Bolly Lapok of Kuching. Bishop Bolly also became the Archbishop of the Church of the Province of South East Asia in 2012 and was installed in Saint Thomas’s Cathedral, Kuching. He retired in 2017.

The present priest-in-charge of Saint Patrick’s is the Revd Kamor Diah. Parishioners told me how Saint Patrick’s has a congregation of about 200 on Sundays, but these numbers can reach 800 at major festivals and celebrations.

Visiting Saint Patrick’s School in Semadang, beside Saint Patrick’s Chapel (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

Daily prayer in Ordinary Time 2024: 43, 21 June 2024

The icon of Saint John the Forerunner or Saint John the Baptist in the new iconostasis in the Greek Orthodox Church in Stony Stratford (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

Patrick Comerford

This week began with the Third Sunday after Trinity (Trinity III, 16 June 2024). Before today begins (21 June 2024), I am taking some quiet time this morning to give thanks, for reflection, prayer and reading in these ways:

1, today’s Gospel reading;

2, a reflection on the icons in the new iconostasis or icon stand in the Greek Orthodox Church in Stony Stratford.

3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary;

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

Saint John’s head on a platter … a detail in the icon of Saint John the Forerunner in the new iconostasis in Stony Stratford (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

Matthew 6: 19-23 (NRSVUE):

[Jesus said:] 19 “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust consume and where thieves break in and steal, 20 but store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust consumes and where thieves do not break in and steal. 21 For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

22 “The eye is the lamp of the body. So if your eye is healthy, your whole body will be full of light, 23 but if your eye is unhealthy, your whole body will be full of darkness. If, then, the light in you is darkness, how great is the darkness!”

Μετανοεῖτε, ἤγγικεν γὰρ ἡ βασιλεία τῶν οὐρανῶν (‘Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near’), Matthew 3: 2 … the scroll in the icon of Saint John the Forerunner in Stony Stratford (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

The Stony Stratford iconostasis 6: Saint John the Forerunner (Saint John the Baptist):

Over the last few weeks, I have been watching the building and installation of the new iconostasis or icon screen in the Greek Orthodox Church in Stony Stratford. In my prayer diary over these weeks, I am reflecting on this new iconostasis, and the theological meaning and liturgical significance of its icons and decorations.

The lower, first tier of a traditional iconostasis is sometimes called Sovereign. On the right side of the Royal Doors or Beautiful Gates facing forward is an icon of Christ, often as the Pantokrator, representing his second coming, and on the left is an icon of the Theotokos (the Virgin Mary), symbolising the incarnation. It is another way of saying all things take place between Christ’s first coming and his second coming.

Other icons on this tier usually include depictions of the patron saint or feast day of the church, Saint John the Baptist, one or more of the Four Evangelists, and so on.

The six icons on the lower, first tier of the iconostasis in Stony Stratford depict Christ to the right of the Royal Doors or Beautiful Gates, as seen from the nave of the church, and the Theotokos or Virgin Mary to the left. All six icons depict (from left to right): the Dormition, Saint Stylianos, the Theotokos, Christ Pantocrator, Saint John the Baptist and Saint Ambrosios.

Saint John the Baptist is generally known in the Orthodox Church as Saint John the Forerunner or Saint John Prodromos (Ἰωάννης ὁ πρόδρομος), and is venerated as the last of the prophets proclaiming the coming of the Messiah. He preached in the wilderness, proclaimed the coming of the kingdom, baptised Christ in the Jordan, and finally was beheaded on the orders of Herod.

The icon of Saint John the Forerunner in the iconostasis in Stony Stratford follows the traditional style of this icon, encompassing all of this aspects of the tradition in one image.

This particular style developed in the 15th and 16th centuries in Greek-speaking countries. It is also found in some Balkan countries too, including Romania, Bulgaria, Serbia and North Macedonian, probably through Byzantine influences in these areas.

For Western eyes, a most striking part of the icon the wings given to the figure of Saint John. They symbolise his role as a divine messenger (see Mark 1: 2) or evangelos (ευάγγελος), a Greek word with the same root as ἄγγελος (angelos) or ‘angel’ – εὐ- (good) + ἄγγελος = ευάγγελος (evangelos, messenger, angel).

In Orthodox piety, ascetic saints are often described as living the radically non-worldly angelic life, and so these wings also recognise Saint John as the archetype of this desert living.

Saint John is also shown living in the wilderness, wearing animal skins, with an unkempt beard and long hair. An axe at the foot of a tree in the right-hand bottom corner of the icon refers to his prophetic warning: ‘Even now the axe is lying at the root of the trees; therefore every tree that does not bear good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire’ (Matthew 3: 10).

In the bottom left corner of the icon in Stony Stratford, Saint John’s head is seen on a platter, as it was presented to Herod’s step-daughter (see Matthew 14: 3-12).

In the icon in the Stony Stratford iconostasis, Saint John has his right hand raised in the shape of a priestly blessing, but in other, similar icons he may be holding a cross – the cross of martyrdom.

In his left hand, he is holding an unfurled scroll with the words: Μετανοεῖτε, ἤγγικεν γὰρ ἡ βασιλεία τῶν οὐρανῶν (‘Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near’ or ‘Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand’), Matthew 3: 2.

The green robe over Saint John’s camel-skin clothing symbolises earthliness, recalling how he lived in the wilderness. Later saints who lived in the wilderness are depicted in green for the same reason, and are sometimes known as ‘Green Martyrs’, for they are martyrs or witness to the faith, not by shedding their blood but in their ascetic struggle.

The Orthodox Church remembers the birth of Saint John the Forerunner next Monday (24 June) and his beheading on 29 August. His principal feast day is on 7 January, and there are at least three other feast days, on 24 February, 23 September and 12 October.

Prodromos (Πρόδρομος) can be found as a given name among boys and men in Greece, and is often chosen as a name by monks: Bishop Prodromos (Xenakis) has been the Metropolitan of Rethymnon since 2022. When he followed a postgraduate programme in Biblical Theology in Saint Patrick’s College, Maynooth, in 2010-2012, he visited the Church of Ireland Theological Institute and took part in the life of the Greek community in Dublin.

The three icons to the right on the lower, first tier of the iconostasis in Stony Stratford depict (from left) Christ Pantocrator, Saint John the Forerunner and Saint Ambrosios (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

Today’s Prayers (Friday 21 June 2024):

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 ‘Windrush Day.’ This theme was introduced on Sunday with reflections by the Right Revd Dr Rosemarie Mallett, Bishop of Croydon.

The USPG Prayer Diary today (Friday 21 June 2024) invites us to pray:

Lord, may we seek to discover the gifts and talents of all so that they be encouraged and enabled to offer those to God and the building up of his Kingdom.

The Collect:

Almighty God,
you have broken the tyranny of sin
and have sent the Spirit of your Son into our hearts
whereby we call you Father:
give us grace to dedicate our freedom to your service,
that we and all creation may be brought
to the glorious liberty of the children of God;
through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

Post Communion Prayer:

O God, whose beauty is beyond our imagining
and whose power we cannot comprehend:
show us your glory as far as we can grasp it,
and shield us from knowing more than we can bear
until we may look upon you without fear;
through Jesus Christ our Saviour.

Additional Collect:

God our saviour,
look on this wounded world
in pity and in power;
hold us fast to your promises of peace
won for us by your Son,
our Saviour Jesus Christ.

The lower, first tier of the iconostasis in Stony Stratford, with the central doors open during the Divine Liturgy and the icon of Saint John the Forerunner second from the right (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

Saturday’s introduction to the Stony Stratford iconostasis

Yesterday’s reflection

Continued tomorrow

With Metropolitan Prodromos (Xenakis) of Rethymnon when he visited the Church of Ireland Theological Institute as a student with Dr Katerina Pekridou, now the Dialogue Secretary of the Conference of European Churches

Scripture quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version, Updated Edition copyright © 2021, National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.