Daily prayer in Lent 2026: 30, Thursday 19 March 2026, Saint Joseph of Nazareth

A statue of Saint Joseph in the Shrine Church at the Anglican Shrine in Walsingham, Norfolk (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Patrick Comerford

This week began with the Fourth Sunday in Lent (Lent IV) and Mothering Sunday (15 March 2026), and the Calendar of the Church today celebrates Saint Joseph of Nazareth (19 March 2026).

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

1, reading today’s Gospel reading;

2, a short reflection;

3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary;

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

A statue of Saint Joseph in the Church of Saint Mary and All Saints, the Church of England parish church in Little Walsingham, Norfolk (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Matthew 1: 18-25 (NRSVA):

18 Now the birth of Jesus the Messiah took place in this way. When his mother Mary had been engaged to Joseph, but before they lived together, she was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit. 19 Her husband Joseph, being a righteous man and unwilling to expose her to public disgrace, planned to dismiss her quietly. 20 But just when he had resolved to do this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, ‘Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife, for the child conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. 21 She will bear a son, and you are to name him Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.’ 22 All this took place to fulfil what had been spoken by the Lord through the prophet:

23 ‘Look, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son,
and they shall name him Emmanuel’,

which means, ‘God is with us.’ 24 When Joseph awoke from sleep, he did as the angel of the Lord commanded him; he took her as his wife, 25 but had no marital relations with her until she had borne a son; and he named him Jesus.

A window by Nathaniel Westlake (1833-1921) in Saint Mary and Saint Giles Church, Stony Stratford, inspired by ‘Christ in the House of His Parents’ by the Pre-Raphaelite artist Sir John Everett Millais (Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Reflections:

Saint Joseph often goes unnoticed in Ireland as people return work after the Saint Patrick’s Day celebrations and holiday in the middle of Lent.

We have very little information about Saint Joseph in the Gospels. He figures in the two Gospels with infancy narratives, Saint Matthew and Saint Luke, but even in those accounts, he never speaks. But he responds to God’s call – he is a man of action rather than words, a doer rather than a sayer.

He is described as a τέκτων (tekton), a word traditionally translated as ‘carpenter’, although the Greek word refers to someone who works in wood, iron or stone, including builders. Saint Joseph’s specific association with woodworking is a theme in Early Christian writings, and Justin Martyr, who died ca 165, wrote that Jesus made yokes and ploughs.

On the other hand, Geza Vermes says the terms ‘carpenter’ and ‘son of a carpenter’ are used in the Talmud for a very learned man, and he suggests that a description of Saint Joseph as naggar (‘a carpenter’) could indicate that he was considered wise and highly literate in the Torah.

Until about the 17th century, Saint Joseph is often depicted in art as a man of advanced years, with grey hair, usually bearded and balding, and occasionally frail. He is presented as a comparatively marginal figure alongside Mary and Jesus, often in the background except, perhaps, when he was leading them on the flight into Egypt. More recently, he has been portrayed as a younger or even youthful man, going about his work as a carpenter, or taking part in the daily life of his family.

This later emphasis is seen in ‘Christ in the House of His Parents’ (1849–1850), a painting by the Pre-Raphaelite artist, Sir John Everett Millais (1829-1896), depicting the Holy Family in Saint Joseph’s carpentry workshop. The painting, now in the Tate Britain in London, was controversial when it was first exhibited, prompting many negative reviews, most notably one by Charles Dickens, who accused Millais of portraying Mary as an alcoholic who looks ‘so hideous in her ugliness that … she would stand out from the rest of the company as a Monster, in the vilest cabaret in France, or the lowest gin-shop in England.’

Critics also objected to the portrayal of Christ, one complaining that it was ‘painful’ to see ‘the youthful Saviour’ depicted as ‘a red-headed Jew boy.’ Dickens described him as a ‘wry-necked boy in a nightgown who seems to have received a poke playing in an adjacent gutter.’ Other critics suggested that the characters displayed signs of rickets and other disease associated with slum conditions.

But this painting brought attention to the previously obscure Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, influenced many artists, was replicated in stained-glass windows throughout these islands, and was a major contributor to the debate about Realism in the arts.

Today’s Gospel reading reminds us that Saint Joseph says ‘Yes’, even if he says it silently. He has no scripted lines, he has no dramatic parts or roles; indeed, he is mute. But he is obedient. And, like Joseph, his namesake in the Old Testament, he too is the dreamer of dreams and the doer of deeds.

Saint Joseph and the Virgin Mary are engaged, but the marriage contract has not yet been signed, she has not yet entered into his house.

If the Mosaic law had been fully observed by Joseph, Mary could have faced ‘public disgrace,’ even been stoned to death.

Joseph is righteous and observes the Law. But he is also compassionate and plans to send her away quietly, without public shame.

The angel of the Lord tells Joseph of his role: through him, God’s promises will be fulfilled in the child to be born. And Joseph names the child Jesus.

The fear of sneers, of judgmental remarks and wagging fingers, must have been running through Joseph’s mind like a nightmare. Yet the angel in Joseph’s dream promises: ‘He will save his people from their sins.’

It is not a promise of immediate reward. Saint Joseph is not offered the promise that if he behaves like this he is going to earn some Brownie points towards the forgiveness of his own sins; that God will see him as a nice guy; or even that if he lives long enough, this child may grow up, be apprenticed to him, take over the family business, and act as a future pension plan.

Instead, the promised pay-off is for others as yet unknown. The forgiveness here is spoken of in apocalyptic terms. It is more than the self-acceptance offered in psychotherapy. Instead, it is the declaration of a new future. To be forgiven is to receive a future. Forgiveness breaks the simple link between cause and effect, action and reaction, failure and disaster, rebellion and recrimination.

This hope of all the ages, the beginning of the end of all the old tyrannies, the restoration of everything that is and will be, was always meant to take place in a virgin’s womb, in the manger, on the cross.

This is Lent – a time of expectation, repentance and forgiveness. It is a time of preparation, anticipation and hope. It is a time for dreaming dreams, and putting behind us all our nightmares. The dream in this Gospel reading is the dream of Saint Joseph, not the Virgin Mary’s dream.

The Very Revd Samuel G Candler, Dean of Saint Philip’s Episcopal Cathedral in Atlanta, Georgia, suggested in a sermon many years ago: ‘We need sleep because we need to dream.’

Saint Joseph dreamed something wonderful. God would enter the world; God would be born to his new, young wife, Mary. But to believe this, Saint Joseph had to trust not only his dream, but to trust Mary, to trust the future child, to trust God.

Do you love the people you trust and trust the people you love?

To trust the Virgin Mary, Saint Joseph must have truly loved her. But trust in this predicament must have gone beyond trust. Joseph must have truly glimpsed what it is to trust God, to have hope in God, to love God, to have faith in God.

Saint Joseph dreams a dream not of his own salvation, but of the salvation of the world.

Do you trust that God is working through the people you love? Do you trust that God is working through people you find it difficult not to love but merely to like … working through God’s people for their salvation?

Saint Joseph has no speaking part; he just has a walk-on part in the Gospel story. But his actions, his obedience to God’s call, speak louder than words.

Yes, God appears over and over again, to men, women, to ‘all sorts and conditions of people.’

But do we trust them?

Can you have faith in someone else?

Can you believe their dreams?

Can you believe the dreams of those you love?

And dream their dreams too?

As Dean Candler urged in his sermon: ‘Believe in the dreams of the person you love.’

Saint Joseph depicted in a stained-glass window in Saint Joseph’s Cathedral, Kuching (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Prayers (Thursday 19 March 2026, Saint Joseph):

The theme this week (15-21 March 2026) in ‘Pray With the World Church,’ the Prayer Diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), is ‘Lament and Hope’ (pp 38-39). This theme was introduced on Sunday with a programme update by Kennedy Jones, Church Engagement and Fundraising Officer, USPG.

The USPG Prayer Diary today (Thursday 19 March 2026, Saint Joseph) invites us to pray:

We give thanks for Saint Joseph, model of care, protection, and quiet service. May we follow his example in supporting and protecting the vulnerable in our communities.

The Collect:

God our Father,
who from the family of your servant David
raised up Joseph the carpenter
to be the guardian of your incarnate Son
and husband of the Blessed Virgin Mary:
give us grace to follow him
in faithful obedience to your commands;
through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

The Post Communion Prayer:

Heavenly Father,
whose Son grew in wisdom and stature in the home of Joseph the carpenter of Nazareth
and on the wood of the cross
perfected the work of the world’s salvation:
help us, strengthened by this sacrament of his passion,
to count the wisdom of the world as foolishness,
and to walk with him in simplicity and trust;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Yesterday’s Reflections

Continued Tomorrow

Saint Joseph depicted on the façade of Saint Joseph’s Church in Terenure, Dublin (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Scripture quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicised Edition copyright © 1989, 1995 National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide. http://nrsvbibles.org

Daily prayer in Advent 2025: 22, Sunday 21 December 2025, Fourth Sunday of Advent (Advent IV)

Saint Joseph with the Christ Child and the Virgin Mary in a window in Saint Mary and Saint Giles Church, Stony Stratford (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Patrick Comerford

We are in the last week of Advent, and just days away from Christmas. Today is week the Fourth Sunday of Advent (Advent IV, 21 December 2025). In addition, tonight in the Jewish calendar is also the last night in Hanukkah, which began last Sunday night (21 December 2025).

Later this morning, I hope to be involved in the Parish Eucharist in Saint Mary and Saint Giles Church, Stony Stratford (9:30 am), to read one of the lessons at the Service of Nine Lessons and Carols (4 pm), and to sing with the choir at the carol service. Meanwhile, before this busy day begins, I am taking some quiet time this early morning to give thanks, to reflect, to pray and to read in these ways:

The Fourth Sunday of Advent (Advent IV, 21 December 2025)

A statue of Saint Joseph on the façade of Saint Joseph’s Church, Terenure, Dublin (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

Matthew 1: 18-25 (NRSVA):

18 Now the birth of Jesus the Messiah took place in this way. When his mother Mary had been engaged to Joseph, but before they lived together, she was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit. 19 Her husband Joseph, being a righteous man and unwilling to expose her to public disgrace, planned to dismiss her quietly. 20 But just when he had resolved to do this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, ‘Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife, for the child conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. 21 She will bear a son, and you are to name him Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.’ 22 All this took place to fulfil what had been spoken by the Lord through the prophet:

23 ‘Look, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son,
and they shall name him Emmanuel’,

which means, ‘God is with us.’ 24 When Joseph awoke from sleep, he did as the angel of the Lord commanded him; he took her as his wife, 25 but had no marital relations with her until she had borne a son; and he named him Jesus.

A statue of Saint Joseph in the grounds of Saint Joseph’s Church, Singapore (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

Today’s Reflections:

Christmas is upon us, the last of the purple candles on the Advent Wreath, the one representing the Virgin Mary, is lit this morning. Indeed, the Virgin Mary is likely to be the main figure in many sermons today focusing on the Gospel reading.

The readings this Sunday are about choices, about obedience to God’s plans, and about the fulfilment of God’s plans for all nations. They bring us into the last week of Advent.

So often we talk about the Virgin Mary and her obedience, about Mary’s ‘Yes’ to the birth of Christ But it means Joseph is often pushed to the side of the stage.

Joseph says ‘Yes’ too, but he says it silently; he has no scripted lines; he has no dramatic part or role; he is mute; but he is obedient.

And, like the earlier Joseph, his Biblical namesake who is named in this morning’s psalm (Psalm 80: 1-7, 17-19), he too is dreamer of dreams and a doer of deeds.

As I recalled when we had a similar reading last Thursday (Matthew 1: 18-24, 18 December 2025), Saint Matthew’s nativity story lacks the romantic imagery of Saint Luke’s account, whose heady mixture of heavenly angels with earthy shepherds is missing here. Instead, the hope of all the earth takes shape under the sign of arrangements being made for a betrothal that is apparently violated. The gifts of God’s grace and the promise of God’s reign are hidden, are to be searched for and to be found in the midst of what appears be a tawdry story.

The Virgin Mary may have been a mere teenager at the time, just 14 or 15. And, like so many other teenage brides, she turns up for her wedding – pregnant! Joseph knows he could not possibly be the father. He decides to do the right thing and take off, quietly dropping out of the arrangement.

If Joseph goes ahead, then this child is going to be known in his family, among his neighbours, perhaps by everyone who needs to know, as illegitimate for the rest of his life. His critics indelicately remind him of this in Saint John’s Gospel: ‘You are indeed doing what your father does.’ They said to him, ‘We are not illegitimate children; we have one father, God himself’ (John 8: 41). The original Greek is more direct, crude and blunt: they taunt him that they were not conceived through illicit intercourse.

These fears and sneers, those social judgments and wagging fingers, must have been confronting Joseph like a nightmare. Yet the angel of Joseph’s dream makes a startling suggestion. He tells him to marry Mary, and then he is to name the child. To take on naming the child means becoming his father. And this is suggested not as a nice thing to do, a courteous thing to do, a gallant or gentlemanly sort of thing to do. Joseph is told why: ‘You are to name him Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins’ (verse 21).

It is not a promise of immediate reward. Joseph is not promised that if he does this he is going to earn points towards the forgiveness of his own sins; that God will see him as a nice guy; or even that if he lives long enough, this child may grow up, be apprenticed to him, take over the family business, and act as a future pension plan.

If Joseph is not the father of the Child Jesus, he must have wondered what the angel meant by ‘his people’ and ‘their sins.’

But the forgiveness here is spoken of in apocalyptic terms. It is the declaration of a new future. To be forgiven is to receive a future. Forgiveness breaks the simple link between cause and effect, action and reaction, failure and disaster, rebellion and recrimination.

Advent is a time of, repentance, forgiveness and expectation. It is a time of preparation, anticipation and hope. It is a time for dreaming dreams, and putting behind us all our nightmares.

Joseph dreams something wonderful. God would enter the world; God would be born to his new, young wife, Mary. But to believe this, Joseph had to trust not only his dream, but to trust Mary, to trust the future child, to trust God.

Do you love the people you trust and trust the people you love?

To trust the Virgin Mary, Joseph must have truly loved her. But trust in this predicament must have gone beyond trust. Joseph must have truly glimpsed what it is to trust God, to have hope in God, to love God, to have faith in God.

Joseph dreams a dream not of his own salvation, but of the salvation of the world.

Sometimes, like Joseph, we are supposed to trust God and then get out of the way. Do you trust that God is working through the people you love? Do you trust that God is working through people you find it difficult not to love but merely to like … working through God’s people for their salvation?

Too often we forget about poor Joseph. Every year, we tend to focus on the story of the Virgin Mary. But this year, Year A, the Lectionary asks us to focus on Saint Joseph. The annunciation occurs not just to Mary, but to Joseph too. And they both say ‘Yes.’

And Joseph says a second ‘Yes’ too later in this Gospel, when he agrees to the angel’s prompting to flee with Mary and the Christ Child to Egypt.

Joseph listens, God sends a messenger again, Joseph dreams again, and he remains true to God, he answers God’s call.

Joseph has no speaking part; he just has a walk-on part in this drama. But his actions, his obedience to God’s call, speak louder than words.

Yes, God appears over and over again, to men, women, to ‘all sorts and conditions of people.’

Joseph’s ‘Yes’ is not only a ‘Yes’ to the Christ Child but a ‘Yes’ to all children who seem unwanted and who are easily pushed to one side. Joseph’s ‘Yes’ is not only a ‘Yes’ to the Christ Child but a ‘Yes’ to the promises the Coming Christ brings to all who are marginalised and in danger today, for because of his ‘Yes’ God is among us.

We have an opportunity to echo that ‘Yes’ this Advent and this Christmas and to say ‘Yes’ to the people who cross borders, who face a dangerous ‘No’ along the way, who face violence and the dangers of human trafficking, who face racism and rejection.

This is one way we can say ‘Yes’ to the coming Christ and the coming Christmas this Advent. In saying ‘Yes’ like this, we become signs of our faith, our hope, in the promises of the coming kingdom and the promises of Christ’s coming in Advent.

The Death of Saint Joseph depicted in a tableau in a side chapel in Saint Francis Xavier Church, Gardiner Street, Dublin (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Today’s Prayers (Sunday 21 December 2025, Advent IV):

The theme this week (21 to 27 December 2025) in Pray with the World Church, the prayer diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), is ‘Love Brings Life in Tanzania’ (pp 12-13). This theme is introduced today with a Programme Update by Imran Englefield, Individual Giving Manager, USPG:

‘As we edge towards Christmas, a season of hope, waiting, and light, we will focus on the Anglican Church of Tanzania and its impactful work of bringing care, protection, and hope to mothers and babies.

‘When I met Dr Albert Chalinzee, the Medical Officer in Charge, I was immediately struck by his quiet strength. Mvumi Hospital serves a vast rural area with very limited resources, yet the atmosphere is one of focus and dedication. Dr Chalinzee told me how, not long ago, infection rates among mothers living with HIV were close to 50 per cent. Through the Prevention of Mother-to-Child Transmission programme, that figure has now dropped to just 0.3 per cent.

‘He spoke with pride about the mothers who now come early for care following advice led by the church, and leave holding HIV-free babies. “It has changed everything,” he said. “We are now able to treat mothers and share our stories of success.”

‘Much of the equipment is old, and the staff are stretched thin, but what keeps Mvumi going is not machinery or funding, it’s faith. Every hospital staff member I met there serves out of love for their community. As I left, I realised that Mvumi is more than a hospital; it is a backbone and safety net for a community who need it most.’

The USPG Prayer Diary today (Sunday 21 December 2025, Advent IV) invites us to pray by reading and meditating on Matthew 1: 18-25.

The Collect:

God our redeemer,
who prepared the Blessed Virgin Mary
to be the mother of your Son:
grant that, as she looked for his coming as our saviour,
so we may be ready to greet him
when he comes again as our judge;
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

The Post-Communion Prayer:

Heavenly Father,
who chose the Blessed Virgin Mary
to be the mother of the promised saviour:
fill us your servants with your grace,
that in all things we may embrace your holy will
and with her rejoice in your salvation;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Additional Collect:

Eternal God,
as Mary waited for the birth of your Son,
so we wait for his coming in glory;
bring us through the birth pangs of this present age
to see, with her, our great salvation
in Jesus Christ our Lord.

Yesterday’s Reflections

Continued Tomorrow

Saint Joseph with the Christ Child depicted in a mosaic in the pediment of Saint Joseph’s Church, Limerick (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Scripture quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicised Edition copyright © 1989, 1995 National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide. http://nrsvbibles.org

The children of the Holocaust who called Ireland home

Dublin’s first Stolpersteine or ‘stumbling stones’, recalling six Irish Holocaust victims, outside St Catherine’s National School on Donore Avenue (photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

A series of memorials in a variety of languages in Auschwitz and Birkenau commemorate the victims of the Holocaust who were murdered in the two concentration camps. Over twenty languages appear on separate plaques, representing the languages and nationalities of the victims. Although there is no plaque in Irish, it would be wrong to think that the Holocaust was something that did not affect Ireland, and I was chilled by one exhibit in Auschwitz that shows how the Nazi plan to exterminate 11 million Jews in Europe included 4,000 Jews in Ireland.

When I was growing up, the area close to Donore Avenue was still Dublin’s ‘Little Jerusalem’. When I was about eleven or twelve, friends introduced me to a schoolboys’ soccer club called Port Vale. The clubhouse was in the Donore Avenue area, but home games were played in Bushy Park in Terenure. Later, at sixteen, I had a school summer holiday placement on Donore Avenue, working as a copyholder or proofreader’s assistant at Irish Printers. Dolphin’s Barn Synagogue was around the corner on the South Circular Road, though it finally closed in 1984.

So, I was moved when the first Stolpersteine or ‘stumbling stones’ in Dublin were put in place in 2022 outside Saint Catherine’s Church of Ireland National School on Donore Avenue. The ‘Stumbling Stones’ by the German artist Gunter Demnig are memorials to victims of the Nazis, including Jews, homosexuals, Romani and the disabled. His project has spread across Europe, with more than 90,000 Stolpersteine in 1,000 or more cities in almost thirty countries.

The six stones on Donore Avenue commemorate six victims of the Holocaust, including four who were born in Dublin or spent their childhood in the city: Ettie Steinberg Gluck, who grew up in Dublin, her husband Wojteck Gluck, and their baby son Leon; and Isaac Shishi, Ephraim Saks and his sister Jeanne (Lena) Saks.

Esther or Ettie Steinberg was one of seven children of Aaron Hirsh Steinberg and his wife Bertha Roth. Ettie was born in the former Czechoslovakia in 1914 and her family moved to Dublin in 1925 when she was 11. The family lived at 28 Raymond Terrace, off South Circular Road, and the children went to school at Saint Catherine’s on Donore Avenue.

Ettie married Vogtjeck Gluck, originally from Belgium, in the Greenville Hall Synagogue on South Circular Road on 22 July 1937. She was twenty-two, he was twenty-four, and they later moved to Antwerp. As the Second World War was looming, they moved to Paris, where their son Leon was born on 28 March 1939. By 1942, they were living in an hotel in Toulouse.

When the Vichy regime began rounding up Jews in southern France, Ettie’s family back in Dublin secured visas that allowed them to travel to Northern Ireland. But when the visas arrived in Toulouse, it was too late: Ettie, Vogtjeck and Leon had been arrested the day before. As they were being transported to the death camps, Ettie wrote a final postcard to her family and threw it out a train window. A passer-by found it and eventually it reached Dublin. Ettie, her husband and their son were taken first to Drancy, a transit camp outside Paris. They were then deported on 2 September 1942 and arrived in Auschwitz two days later. It is assumed they were murdered immediately.

Isaac Shishi, whose family came to Ireland from Lithuania, was bon Isaac Seesee born on 29 January 1891 in the family home at 36 St Alban’s Road, off South Circular Road, and spent his childhood there. He was murdered along with his wife Chana and their daughter Sheine by the Nazis in Vieksniai in Lithuania in 1941.

Ephraim Saks was born Ephraim Jackson on 19 April 1915 in Greenville House on South Circular Road, later the site of the Greenville Hall synagogue. His sister Jeanne (Lena) Saks was born on 2 February 1918. They too spent their childhood on St Alban’s Road. The family remained in Dublin throughout the First World War, but then moved to Antwerp. Ephraim was arrested in Paris in 1939 and was murdered in Auschwitz on 24 August 1942. Lena was taken captive in Antwerp and was murdered in Auschwits in 1942 or 1943. Their brother Jakob, who was born in Leeds in 1906, also spent his childhood in Dublin; he too perished in the Holocaust.

Many Holocaust refugees and survivors came as children to live in Ireland. Tomi Reichental, who was born in Bratislava, Slovakia, in 1935 and Suzi Diamond, who was born near Debrecen in Hungary in 1942, have both addressed Holocaust Memorial Day services in Dublin.

Geoffrey (Günther) Phillips was born in Germany in 1925, and was 13 when he escaped on the Kindertransports to England in 1938. He moved to Ireland in 1951 with his wife Phyllis (Moore) and their three sons. He set up a textiles factory in Dublin, and died in 2011.

Rosel Siev was twelve when Hitler came to power. She escaped from Germany to England, but almost all her family died in the Holocaust. When she was a widow, Rosel married a widowed Irish solicitor, Stanley Siev, and they lived in Rathgar, Dublin, until 2012 when they moved to Manchester. Stanley died in 2014. Rosel’s sister Laura was saved by Oskar Schindler and is included on the scroll of names at the end of the film Schindler’s List.

Inge Radford (1936-2016), who was born in Vienna, escaped to England on the Kindertransports in 1939 at the age of three, and later moved to Belfast. Her widowed mother and five of her brothers were murdered in the Holocaust. Inge was a social worker, a probation officer, and worked in the Royal Victoria Hospital, Belfast. Her husband, Professor Colin Buchanan Radford, was dean of the Faculty of Arts at the Queen’s University of Belfast. Inge lived in Northern Ireland until she died in 2016.

Edith Zinn-Collis was brought to Ireland as a child in 1946 with her brother Zoltan by Dr Bob Collis. She lived in Wicklow and died in 2012. Her brother, Zoltan Zinn-Collis was born around 1940 in Czechoslovakia and was sent to Ravensbruck and Bergen Belsen with his sister and brothers. He died in 2012.

Doris Segal was born Dorathea (Dorli) Klepperova in Czechoslovakia in 1932 and escaped to Ireland with her parents in 1939 when she was seven. She later lived in Dublin and married Jack Segal in 1958. They lived in Terenure and she died in 2018.

Jan Kaminski was born in Poland in 1932. At the age of ten, he escaped a round-up of local Jews, fled into the forests and spent the war on the run. He survived but his entire family perished. He lived most of his life in Dublin and died in 2019.

Dr Ernst Scheyer (1890-1958) brought his son and daughter to Dublin from Germany in the late 1930s. He was rounded up after Krtistallnacht and spent almost a month in Sachsenhausen, a concentration camp near Berlin. He arrived in Dublin on 14 January 1939, and the Scheyer family made their home at 67 Kenilworth Square. He later taught German at Saint Columba’s College, Rathfarnham, and in Trinity College Dublin.

His daughter Renate married another refugee, Robert Weil (1924-1989), in 1948. It was the first wedding in the newly-established Progressive Jewish Synagogue in Dublin. Robert Weil had arrived in Ireland in 1939 as a young Jewish refugee. He went to school at Newtown in Waterford, studied at TCD, and became a teacher of modern languages, especially German, in Belfast.

The Holocaust touched every family in Europe. We should remember that there was a hardly a family that did not lose cousins, neighbours, friends, work colleagues or school friends.

Detail on one of the stumbling stones (photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Sources and further reading:

‘Ireland and the Holocaust’, Holocaust Education Ireland, available at https://www.holocausteducationireland.org/ireland-and-the-holocaust (accessed 1 June 2025).

‘Stumbling stones’ in memory of Irish Holocaust victims unveiled, RTÉ News, 1 June 2022, available at https://www.rte.ie/news/2022/0601/1302393-stumbling-stones/ (accessed 1 June 2025)

Ronan McGreevy, Bryan O’Brien, ‘Stumbling stones’ unveiled in Dublin to remember Irish Holocaust victims, The Irish Times, 1 June 2022 , available at: https://www.irishtimes.com/history/2022/06/01/stumbling-stones-unveiled-in-dublin-to-remember-irish-holocaust-victims/ (accessed 1 June 2025).

Biographical note (p 340)

Patrick Comerford is an Anglican priest and a former professor in Trinity College Dublin and the Church of Ireland Theological Institute. He lives in retirement in Milton Keynes

This essay was published as ‘The children of the Holocaust who called Ireland home, pp 166-170, Chapter 39 in Childhood and the Irish, A miscellany, ed Salvador Ryan (Dublin: Wordwell, 2025), xviii + 344 pp, ISBN: 978-1-916742-19-2, lauched at the Royal Irish Academy, Dublin, earlier this month week (1 December 2025)

With Professor Salvador Ryan (editor, second from left) and some of the other contributors at the launch of ‘Childhood and the Irish, A miscellany’ in the Royal Irish Academy, Dublin, last week (1 December 2025)

The planned demolition of Terenure synagogue is the loss of another of my childhood landmarks

Terenure Synagogue on Rathfarnham Road was built in 1952-1953 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

I have often said in jest that I was born between a synagogue and a laundry and across the road from a cinema.

But Terenure Laundry – still celebrated in trade union lore for a 14-week strike led by Mai Clifford – closed soon after I was born on Rathfarnham Road. The site at 14-18 Rathfarnham Road was later the premises of the Sunday World, and now it’s the site of Lidl in Terenure.

The Classic Cinema was at 11-13 Rathfarnham Road, across the road from both the laundry and the synagogue. It opened in 1938, and when it closed in 1976, Albert Kelly transferred the name of the Classic to the former Kenilworth Cinema in Harold’s Cross – but it too is long gone.

Now it looks as though the third landmark that defined that stretch of Rathfarnham Road where I was born is about to disappear too, and that Dublin’s largest synagogue is soon to be demolished.

Gordon Deegan reported in The Irish Times yesterday (18 September 2025) that An Coimisiún Pleanála (ACP), the Irish Planning Commission, has approved a plan to demolish Dublin’s largest synagogue to make way for a 60-unit apartment scheme.

The Dublin Hebrew Congregation endorses the redevelopment, but the plan has been opposed by some local residents who say the area would is going to lose an important historical landmark. ACP has granted planning permission to Granbrind Terenure Ltd for the apartment block scheme on the 0.54 ha site on Rathfarnham Road, Terenure, where the synagogue and has been since 1952.

ACP granted planning permission after concluding that the proposal ‘would provide for a compact and sustainable form of urban development at a highly accessible location, would not seriously injure the visual or residential amenities of the area and would not adversely impact the character of the area.’

A letter on behalf of the Dublin Hebrew Congregation in July 2024 gave full support to the application. The signatories to the letter include the Chief Rabbi of Ireland, the Very Revd Yoni Wieder, whose inauguration had taken place in the synagogue two months earlier.

Dublin City Council granted planning permission for the scheme in April, but the development was stalled after an appeal by the Terenure Residents’ Association, Wasdale Park residents and Greenmount Lawns residents.

The residents who oppose the demolition of the synagogue site say the landmark building with its five Stars of David and stained-glass windows would be a huge loss to the history of the Jewish community living in the area. They argue the proposed apartment blocks would result be an overbearing and intrusive presence and overshadow adjoining properties.

As part of a 105-page inspector’s report, the ACP inspector Ms Mary Kennelly agreed ‘that the demolition of these buildings is appropriate’. She said the synagogue building ‘is not a protected structure and has not been assessed as being of architectural or historical significance and is unsuitable for repurposing and reuse’.

She also said it was intended to reuse the stained-glass windows in a future synagogue site and it was accepted these would not be suitable for use in other community buildings. Ms Kennelly said the proposed demolition and redevelopment of the site would benefit the community. A report said the new development would provide new housing units in an area of such high population growth, and within close proximity of the city centre.

A spokesperson for the Dublin Hebrew Congregation told The Irish Times last year it planned to move to a more suitably sized facility as the space was too large for its needs.

Five Stars of David over 10 squared panels on Terenure Synagogue facing onto Rathfarnham Road (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

The synagogue is a distinctive building in the Terenure and Rathfarnham areas of south Dublin, clearly visible and identifiable with windows with five Stars of David over 10 squared panels. It was designed by the architect Wilfred Cantwell (1921-2000) and was dedicated in 1953.

I had been born a few doors away, at No 28 Rathfarnham Road, and lived part of my childhood at No 104 Rathfarnham Road. My father was born in Rathmines and spent his childhood in Terenure. Although my parents lived for much of their life in Harold’s Cross, they later lived in Rathfarnham Wood.

The Terenure synagogue at No 32-34 Rathfarnham Road was designed by the Irish architect Wilfred Cantwell and dates back to a meeting in 1936, when it was agreed to set up a synagogue in the Rathmines, Rathgar or Terenure area to cater for families in those suburbs who found it was too far to walk on Saturdays to the synagogues on Adelaide Road or at Greenville Hall on the South Circular Road.

The shul started in rented rooms at 6 Grosvenor Place, Rathmines, and moved when No 52 Grosvenor Road was bought in 1940. At Rosh Hashanah, 4 October 1948, the congregation moved from Rathmines to a Nissen hut in the grounds of ‘Leoville’ on Rathfarnham Road, bought a few years earlier for £1,490 on behalf of the congregation by Woulfe Freedman and Erwin Goldwater.

Building work on the new synagogue began in August 1952, shortly after I was born, and it was completed and dedicated on 30 August 1953.

During his career, the architect Wilfrid Cantwell worked with Michael Scott, alongside Kevin Roche, Kevin Fox and Robin Walker, and worked on Bus Arús, Dublin. He later worked with JN Kidney before setting up his own practice (1947-1975). He attained distinction in the area of church architecture, particularly in the years immediately after Vatican II. From 1976 until he retired in 1993, he specialised as a consultant in church design.

Cantwell said his new synagogue in Terenure met the committee’s specifications for a building that would ‘cost less than half the normal place, look as if it cost the full amount and be an example of good modern design.’ It was praised for its ‘original, modern, commanding and attractive design.’

The ‘master builder’ of the synagogue was the Dublin timber merchant Sam Noyek, who built the synagogue with a capacity for 600 people.

Terenure Synagogue was supported by or attracted a number of Jewish families to this part of Terenure and Rathfarnham, including the Leon, Citron, Lazarus, Gafson, Khan and Davis families who lived on Rathfarnham Road.

In typical Dublin wit, some members of the Adelaide Road synagogue, which was regarded as more middle class, referred to the new synagogue opposite the Classic Cinema as the ‘cinema-gogue.’

A Church of Ireland Interfaith Conference visiting Terenure Synagogue on Rathfarnham Road, Dublin

The shul was set on fire on Wednesday 9 February 1966. Several Siffrei Torah were destroyed, and the shul itself was very badly damaged. The Nissen hut that had been turned into a function hall was quickly converted back into a shul, and no Shabbat services were missed.

The newly refurbished synagogue was rededicated on Sunday 26 May 1968. Its features include the striking stained-glass windows on the north and south walls by Stanley Tomlin, who began his career in the Harry Clarke Studios in 1932.

At extraordinary meetings of the Terenure and Adelaide Road congregations in January 1999, the two congregations agreed to merge. It was agreed that the Adelaide Road Synagogue would be sold, and that some of the proceeds of the sale would be used to build a new synagogue complex, including a new mikveh and a community centre, on the grounds at Rathfarnham Road.

From then on, the Terenure Synagogue hosted the members of the former synagogue on Adelaide Road. This arrangements continued until 15 December 2004, when both congregations held simultaneous extraordinary general meetings and agreed to merge as the new Dublin Hebrew Congregation.

The agreed new synagogue was never built, and Terenure Synagogue is the only major Orthodox synagogue in the Republic of Ireland.

Maurice Cohen, chair of the Jewish Representative Council of Ireland, said the decision to sell the Terenure synagogue is not so much ‘a story of decline’ as one of changing patterns of practice among Jews in Ireland. ‘As with most religions, attendance at services is not as great as it used to be,’ he told Patsy McGarry of The Irish Times in May 2023.

Indeed, despite widespread reports of decline, the Jewish population in Ireland is growing. The 2022 census shows there were 2,193 Jewish people in Ireland, a drop since the figure of 2,557 in 2016. But both figures are higher than the figure of 1,984 in 2011, and other statistics show the Jewish population in Ireland may even be higher.

The Institute for Jewish Population Research, which uses four key definitions to describe the size of the Jewish population in different countries, offers these figures for the Jewish population in Ireland: the ‘core’ Jewish population, 2,700; population with Jewish parents, 3,348; enlarged Jewish population, 3,966; the ‘Law of Return’ Jewish population, 4,644.

Much of the steady increase is attributed to employees of multinational companies working in Ireland. Maurice Cohen said at the time, however, that the upkeep of the Terenure synagogue is ‘very expensive’ and figures for attendance at services ‘have gone down dramatically.’ This is exacerbated as ‘the older generation passes away while younger people were less likely to attend. It is an issue Judaism is debating.’

Shabbat Shalom, שבת שלום‎

The former Kodak building in Rathmines remains an outstanding example of Art Deco architecture in Dublin

The Kodak Building has been a landmark building on the corner of Lower Rathmines Road and Blackberry Lane for almost a century (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Patrick Comerford

When I was staying in Rathmines last week during a very brief family visit to Dublin, I took another look at some interesting late 19th and early 20th century buildings in Rathmines, including the former YMCA building on Rathmines Road, Kensington Lodge around the corner from it on Grove Park, the former Belfast Bank on a prominent corner with Rathgar Road, and the former Kodak building, a listed Art Deco building.

For almost a century, the Kodak Building or Kodak House has been a landmark building on the corner of Lower Rathmines Road and Blackberry Lane and when it was built its design marked an important ‘modern’ moment in Irish architecture. It was designed by the architects Donnelly, Moore and Keatinge in 1930 and built in 1932 and was originally the factory and warehouse for Kodak Ireland.

Art Deco emerged as a design aesthetic in France in the early 20th century and was widely popularised in the 1920s and 1930s. It informed the design of many iconic 20th century iconic buildings, including the Empire State Building in New York.

Many examples of art deco architecture Dublin have been lost, including the Theatre Royal. But others have survived, including the Kodak Building and two other significant Art Deco buildings in Rathmines: the Stella Cinema, designed by Higginbotham and Stafford in 1923; and the Post Office on Upper Rathmines Road, designed by William Henry Howard Cooke (1881-1977), built in 1932-1934, and opened in 1935.

The founder of Kodak, George Eastman, ran ‘an image-conscious company’ and wanted the company’s building in Dublin to disguise the ‘raw factory’ within. Kodak hired Donnelly Moore and Keatinge, a partnership formed by Robert Donnelly, James Moore and William Sedgwick Keatinge in 1925. The new building was built by McLaughlin & Harvey.

One critical commentator said the building looks like ‘a stray project from Miami Beach that found itself cast adrift in Dublin’. On the other hand, when the Twentieth Century Society named the Kodak Building as its ‘building of the month’ in August 2019, it said that ‘the building itself, despite having its once-cream render painted white, still stands out against Dublin’s traditional red brick streets’.

Donnelly Moore and Keatinge designed a building that is made of concrete and supported by a steel structural grid, with horizontal steel windows that were embedded in the concrete walls, and with ‘a squat but imposing tower with vertical slit windows as its central feature’. It was said to ‘conjur[e up] a sense of defensive space as well as abiding by the symmetrical classical language of pediment, pilaster and entablature.’

Some of the machine-age ornamentation of Kodak House remains intact, including the vertical lines on the tower, the zig-zags facing the street, the strong lines leading to the parapet and the ziggurat-type finial. Other art deco touches include the vertical lines on the tower, the stacked antenna-like rectangles, the small areas of fluting around the parapet and the pilasters or projecting columns, and the minimal ornament.

On each street façade, the tower recedes behind the screen, symmetrical with multi-pane windows set deep between the thick, plain pilasters. The zigzag textures and plain bands framing the windows add further texture, and the windows are an indication of its past as a factory.

The partnership of Donnelly Moore and Keatinge lasted until 1937, when the three architects went their separate ways, forming their own practices. One of the original architects, William Sedgewick Keatinge (1887-1964), made alterations modifications to the building in 1949-1951.

The building remained the Kodak headquarters in Ireland for 50 years before they moved to Dun Laoghaire in 1982. Kodak sold the building to Quirke Lynch Ltd that continued the photographic processing business for almost two more decades.

Quirke Lynch decided to concentrate their photographic processing operation to the ground floor only in 1997 and major renovations were undertaken to restore the upper floor and the roof of the building.

Paul Keogh Architects carried out a complete refurbishment of the building in 1999. While the exterior is faithful to the original design, there have been some interventions in the interior, such as a new roof with a curved northlight that allowed a mezzanine level to be added inside. The renovation was recognised with an RIAI award and a Glen Dimplex Design award in 2002.

Kodak House now houses an advertising agency and other businesses. It is an outstanding example of Art Deco architecture in Dublin and is a List 2 building in the Dublin City development plan. Despite having its once-cream render painted white, it still stands out against Dublin’s traditional red brick streets. It remains one of the brightest, most unusual 20th century buildings in Dublin.

Art Deco did not have a huge impact in Ireland, although the style had its moments, and the Carlton and Savoy cinemas on O’Connell Street and the Tivoli Cinema in Francis Street used Art Deco.

Other buildings in the Art Deco style in Dublin include the Department of Business, Enterprise and Innovation at 23 Kildare Street, designed by James Rupert Boyd Barrett; the Gas Building on D’Olier Street, now home to School of Nursing and Midwifery of Trinity College Dublin; the DIT building on Cathal Brugha Street; the former Deluxe Cinema on Camden Street; and the bathing shelters along the Bull Wall in Dollymount, designed by Herbert Simms.

Art Deco housing designs included: Chancery House, a housing development near the Four Courts designed by Herbert Simms; the houses built in 1938 on Wasdale Park, between Terenure and Rathgar; and an Art Deco house on the Templeogue Road once known as Konstanz and built in 1939 for Stephen Carroll Held – it is known in Templeogue and Terenure as the ‘German house’ because Hermann Gortz, a Nazi spy, used it as a safe house during World War II.

But more about these Art Deco houses and buildings, hopefully, after another visit to Dublin.

Kodak House remains an outstanding example of Art Deco architecture in Dublin Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Marking the anniversaries of James Comerford (1775-1825) from Bunclody, a witness to the events in the 1798 Rising

James Comerford (1775-1825) … believed to be a miniature portrait by John Comerford of my great-great-grandfather (Comerford Family Collection)

Patrick Comerford

I have been writing in recent weeks and months about key anniversaries this year in the history of the Comerford and Comberford families, including the tercentenary of the Comberford plaque, erected by Joseph Comerford in Saint Editha’s Church (1 April 2025); the tercentenary of the formal issuing in Spain of the death certificate of Major-General John Comerford on 18 May 1725; and the possible anniversary of Nicholas Comberford's map that named the Bay or Mexico or Gulf of Mexico in the mid-17th century.

I should also have noted that this year marks the 200th anniversary of the death in 1825 and the 250th anniversary of the birth in 1775 of my great-great-grandfather, James Comerford (1775-1825), of Ballyminane, Newtownbarry (Bunclody), Co Wexford.

When I was growing up, two aunts who lived in my grandmother’s house in Terenure reminded me on many occasions that I would grow up being able to say my grandfather could say his grandfather witnessed the events in 1798 in the Killanne and Bunclody areas of north-west Co Wexford.

They said he had seen the executions on Wexford Bridge, and had subsequently hidden by the banks of the Slaney near Bunclody to save his own life before the Rising came to end. When I was in my early 40s, I was presented with a hollowed walking stick with a blade that was said to be his during that eventful and revolutionary era.

I was told too that his portrait had been painted by the Kilkenny-born miniaturist John Comerford, who had also painted James’s uncle and aunt, James Comerford (1720-1809) and Anne (Langton) Comerford when he was their guest at the Butterslip in Kilkenny. However, many of the stories I was told about James, although part of oral tradition in the family, were without documentary support or evidence that could be verified in primary sources.

James Comerford, my grandfather’s grandfather, was born ca 1775, a son of Edmond Comerford (1722-1788), who in turn was a son of William Comerford of Langton House, The Butterslip, Kilkenny. Edmund may have moved to the Newtownbarry (Bunclody) area in north Co Wexford through connections with his aunt, Margaret O’Neal (ca 1705-1763), and other members of the Comerford family living in the area.

James Comerford, my grandfather’s grandfather, may have been named after Edmond Comerford’s brother, James Comerford of the Butterslip, Kilkenny.

By the 1790s, James Comerford was employed by Thomas Bates of Lermount or Lyrmount House, at Askinvillar, near Killanne, Co Wexford. James knew many of the local people in the Killanne and Kiltealy who were active in the 1798 Rising.

After the 1798 Rising, as James Cummerford, he was called as a witness in the trial of three rebels from the Killanne and Kiltealy area in Newtownbarry (Bunclody) on 5 November 1798. The evidence at the court martial stated that James knew the prisoners and had frequently seen them associating with the rebels, armed with firearms.

James Comerford, whose portrait was painted by the Kilkenny-born miniaturist John Comerford around 1808 [see Comerford Profiles 13: John Comerford (1770-1832), artist],was 50 when died on 6 November 1825. He is buried in the Church of Ireland churchyard at Saint Colman’s Church, Templeshanbo, Co Wexford with his father Edmond, his son Richard and his brother Thomas.

The grave of James Comerford (1775-1825) in Templeshanbo, where he is buried with his father, Edmond Comerford, and his son Richard Comerford (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

James Comerford was the father of:

1, Richard Comerford (ca 1796-1848), of Newtownbarry.
2, Robert Comerford (ca 1806-1864), of Wexford and Newtownbarry.
3, Michael Comerford (ca 1808-1868), of Ryland Lower, Newtownbarry, who is buried in Saint Colman’s Church of Ireland churchyard, Templeshanbo.
4, James Comerford (ca 1817-1902), of Wexford and Dublin, my great-grandfather.
5, Catherine, who married Philip Murphy of Mullawn, Kiltealy. In 1868, she erected a gravestone in Templeshanbo for her brother Michael and her uncle Thomas Comerford.
6?, Ellen, who married Michael Rowe in Saint Aidan’s, Enniscorthy on 24 September 1847. They first lived in Enniscorthy and later in Newtownbarry.

The brothers Richard, Robert and later James Comerford, my great-grandfather, worked throughout Co Wexford on the Gothic Revival churches built in the 1830s, 1840s and 1850s by the Wexford-born architect Richard Pierce and the English architect, Augustus Welby Northmore Pugin. These churches included Saint Aidan’s Cathedral, Enniscorthy, Saint Peter’s College, Wexford, and Wexford’s twin churches in Rowe Street and Bride Street.

My great-great grandfather James Comerford was a first cousin and a contemporary of James Comerford (ca 1788/1789-1859) of Clohamon and Newtownbarry (Bunclody), Co Wexford, and Brown Street, Carlow. He was born ca 1788, the first son of John Comerford (1760-1823) of Clonmullen and Newtownbarry.

This James Comerford moved to Carlow, where he was a pawnbroker at 11 Brown Street, Carlow, in 1842. He also owned property close to the Methodist Church in Charlotte Street, Carlow. He died in Carlow on 2 November 1859, and was buried beside his son John J Comerford (1827-1854) at Saint Aidan’s Cathedral, Enniscorthy.

Another son, the Right Revd Michael Comerford (1831-1895), was Coadjutor Bishop of Kildare and Leighlin. An archaeologist and historian of repute, he was a co-founder of the Ossory Archaeological Society and author of the definitive history of the Diocese of Kildare and Leighlin.

This James Comerford had another interesting link with the 1798 Rising: his eldest sister Eleanor (1783-1841) married James Whitty (1775-1863) of Tomgarrow, a first cousin of the rebel priest Father John Murphy of Boolavogue (1753-1798).

Kyle Glebe in Oulart Village … James Comerford was killed here on 27 May 1798; his widow Elizabeth and their children were then taken to Castle Annesley and on to Wexford Town (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

These two James Comerfords, first cousins, were namesakes and contemporaries of James Comerford (ca 1763-1798), one of the first people killed during the 1798 Rising in Co Wexford. This James Comerford was one of the four Protestants killed in the attack on Kyle Glebe in Oulart Village, along with Samuel Judd, Thomas Earl and Joseph Aston after the Rector of Kilmuckridge, the Revd Robert Burrowes, was murdered in front of the house prior to the Battle of Oulart Hill on Sunday 27 May 1798.

In his narrative of the 1798 Rising in Co Wexford, Sir Richard Musgrave indicates that James Comerford was a parishioner of Robert Burrowes, although the local historian, Brian Cleary from Oulart, states he was also a Yeoman.

James Comerford’s widow Elizabeth and their five children, who were at Kyle Glebe that morning, survived those horrifying events. They were probably taken with the Burrowes family to Castle Annesley, the home of the Clifford family in Kilmuckridge – Sally Clifford was a niece of Robert Burrowes.

From Castle Annesley in Kilmuckridge, it appears, the Comerford and Burrowes family were taken to Wexford town.

The ruins of Castle Annesley, behind a farmyard between Kilmuckridge and Castle Annesley (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

A Bloomsday conundrum: did my grandmother live next door to a brother of ‘old Mr Verschoyle’?

No 5 Ashdale Park, Terenure … the Comerford family were neighbours of the Verschoyle family for over 60 years (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

Today is being celebrated not only in Dublin but across the world as Bloomsday (16 June 2023), a major cultural festival even by people who have never read Ulysses. Bloomsday recalls the day in 1904 when Leopold Bloom wandered the streets of Dublin as a modern-day Odysseus and, after many adventures in his mind and in the city, found his way home on Bloomsday.

I have written often in the past about Bloomsday and links with the Comerford family, including Leopold Bloom’s birthplace on Clanbrassil Street and the neighbouring homes of family members, Molly Bloom’s reference in her soliloquy to a Comerford family party, the portraits by John Comerford linked with James Joyce’s family.

But there is another possible, though remote, link between the Comerford family and Ulysses and Bloomsday that have been brought to my attention recently by the biographer and historian Bairbre O Hogain. Her biography of the poet, dramatist and novelist, WM Letts (1882-1972), Sing in the Quiet Places of my Heart, was published last October (2024) by South Dublin Libraries.

For many decades, my widowed grandmother Bridget (Lynders) Comerfords and her children lived at No 5 Ashdale Park, Terenure. No 6 next door, at the end of the terrace, was known as ‘Derrybeg’ and was the home of Sydney Augustine Verschoyle (1883-1974) and his family: his wife Julia née Branigan (1880-1967), and his daughter, Clare Verschoyle (1910-2004). Clare’s mother Rose (McGarry), who was Sydney’s first wife, had died a year after Clare was born, and Sydney Verschoyle and Julia Branigan were married in 1914.

Sydney Verschoyle was born in Clontarf and had worked as a telephone electrician. He died on 4 November 1974, Julia had died on 20 August 1967, Clare died on 23 September 2004 at the age of 93, and they are buried in Goldenbridge Cemetery.

The Verschoyle family was descended from Dutch Huguenot brothers who had moved to Dublin on 16th or 17th century. Family members included a large number of Church of Ireland clergy, including a Bishop of Killala and a Bishop of Kilmore.

Bishop Hamilton Verschoyle of Kilmore was the grandfather of the novelist and playwright Moira Verschoyle (1903-1985), from Castletroy, Limerick, and Brian Goold-Verschoyle (1912-1942), a member of the Communist Party of Ireland who fought in the Spanish Civil War and who was one of the three Irish people killed during the Great Purge ordered by Stalin.

The family was also related to Countess Markievicz of the Irish Citizen Army. Dermot Bolger has told the stories of Countess Markievicz and the Goold-Verschoyle family in his book The Family of Paradise Pier.

The Bloomsday Festival on 11-16 June 2025 celebrates 121 years of Bloomsday

My grandmother’s neighbour, Sydney Verschoyle, is named as Sidney Verschoyle in Virginia Mason’s book on the Verschoyle families. James Joyce refers in Ulysses to ‘old Mr. Verschoyle with the ear trumpet loves old Mrs. Verschoyle with the turned-in eye’. Bairbre O Hogain suggests says that this ‘old Mr Verschoyle’ is Sydney’s brother Arthur, and that Arthur Verschoyle and his wife once lived near James Joyce.

The ‘Cyclops’ episode, which is known for its boisterous, patriotic, and often cynical tone. The narrator is mockingly listing different kinds of love, and the Verschoyles are among the examples. One is hard of hearing, the other is hard of sight, providing contrasting physical disabilities and emphasising the unusual pairing, with the overall effect of creating a sense of irony and humour. Joyce offers the Verschoyles as an example of how love can exist despite physical limitations and imperfections, and that it can be found even in the most unexpected places.

The passage highlights the pervasive theme of love in, even among seemingly unlikely or less-than-perfect couples. It is part of a larger passage about love and relationships, emphasising that ‘Love loves to love love’. This is what Joyce had to say about ‘old Mr Verschoyle’ in Ulysses:

Love loves to love love. Nurse loves the new chemist. Constable 14 A loves Mary Kelly. Gerty Mac Dowell loves the boy that has the bicycle. M.B. loves a fair gentleman. Li Chi Han lovey up kissy Cha Pu Chow. Jumbo, the elephant, loves Alice, the elephant. Old Mr Verschoyle with the ear trumpet loves old Mrs Verschoyle with the turnedin eye. The man in the brown macintosh loves a lady who is dead. His Majesty the King loves Her Majesty the Queen. Mrs Norman W. Tupper loves officer Taylor. You love a certain person. And this person loves that other person because everybody loves somebody but God loves everybody.

If Bairbre O Hogain and Virginia Mason are right in identifying ‘Old Mr Verschoyle with the ear trumpet’ with Arthur Verschoyle, then he may not have been all that old at the time of that first Bloomsday in 1904, and he was not yet married.

Arthur Verschoyle, the son of Charles and Sarah (White) Verschoyle, was born on 21 March 1881 at 88 Heytesbury Street, Dublin; Sydney Verschoyle was born Sidney Augustine Verschoyle, the son of Charles and Sarah (White) Verschoyle, on 6 August 1883 at Seaview Terrace, Clontarf. So Arthur was hardly ‘Old Mr Verschoyle’ at the age of 23 on that Bloomsday, Charles was only 21, and neither was married at the time of Leopold Bloom’s first odyssey.

On the other hand, Sydney and Arthur had their own insights into love and relationships. The brothers were married a day after each other in the same church: Arthur Verschoyle of Benburb Street married Mary Agnes Kelly of Aughrim Villas in Aughrim Street Church in Dublin on 29 April 1908; a day earlier, on 28 April 1908, Sydney Verschoyle and Rose McGarry married in Aughrim Street.

Perhaps ‘Old Mr Verschoyle with the ear trumpet’ was their father, Charles Verschoyle (1852-1827), who was originally from the South Circular Road area, near ‘Little Jerusalem’ with many residents who till come to life in Ulysses. Charles was a Sanitary Official with Dublin Corporation and the Superintendent of Dublin Corporation Artisans Dwelling, a large lodging house at 56 Benburb Street with over 100 male and female residents in one of the most deprived streets in Dublin.

They were certainly related to William Henry Foster Verschoyle (1860-1943), who was the father of two sons had were killed in World War I: Lieutenant Francis Stuart Verschoyle, was 19 when he was killed on 25 April 1915 in the Second Battles of Ypres, three days after the Germans launched the first ever poison gas attack; Captain (William) Arthur Verschoyle was 27 when he was killed in action at Arras in France on 11 April 1917 – his body was never recovered. They are named on the war memorials in Taney Church, Dundrum. Their mother is said to have died of a broken heart.

A third son, the Revd George John Foster Verschoyle (1889-1954), was the curate of Saint George’s, Dublin (1915-1925), a church that features prominently in Ulysses, and of Taney parish (1925-1930), and then Rector of Ardamine and Kiltennel, Co Wexford.

Their widowed father married the war poet, poet, dramatist, novelist and children’s writer, married the poet Winifred Letts (1882-1972) in Saint Stephen’s Church, Dublin, on 5 May 1926.

Meanwhile, my widowed grandmother, the next-door neighbour of Sydney Verschoyle and his family, continued to live at 5 Ashdale Park, Terenure, until she died there on 25 March 1948. She was buried with my grandfather, Stephen Edward Comerford, in Saint Catherine’s Churchyard, Portrane.

Her sons Robert and Patrick Comerford, her daughter Margaret and her step-daughter May continued to live at 5 Ashdale Park, which remained in the Comerford family until 1995.

I still need to do more research on Sydney Verschoyle of 6 Ashdale Park and the possible link between his bother Arthur and Ulysses.

Christ Church Meadows in Oxford … ‘The Spires of Oxford’ is one of the war poem by Winifred Letts (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

I thought about these two sets of Verschoyle brothers and of Winfred Letts and her war poems on my two recent odysseys in Oxford, and her poem ‘The Spires of Oxford’:

The Spires of Oxford

I saw the spires of Oxford
As I was passing by,
The grey spires of Oxford
Against the pearl-grey sky.
My heart was with the Oxford men
Who went abroad to die.

The years go fast in Oxford,
The golden years and gay,
The hoary Colleges look down
On careless boys at play.
But when the bugles sounded war
They put their games away.

They left the peaceful river,
The cricket-field, the quad,
The shaven lawns of Oxford,
To seek a bloody sod—
They gave their merry youth away
For country and for God.

God rest you, happy gentlemen,
Who laid your good lives down,
Who took the khaki and the gun
Instead of cap and gown.
God bring you to a fairer place
Than even Oxford town.

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i>‘God bring you to a fairer place / Than even Oxford town’ (WH Letts) … the Bridge of Sighs and the Bodleian Library in Oxford (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Daily prayer in Lent 2025: 15, Wednesday 19 March 2025, Saint Joseph of Nazareth

Saint Joseph depicted in a stained-glass window in Saint Joseph’s Cathedral, Kuching (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

Patrick Comerford

Lent began two weeks ago on Ash Wednesday (5 March 2025), and this week began with the Second Sunday in Lent (Lent II). Today, the Calendar of the Church celebrates Saint Joseph of Nazareth.

Later this evening, I hope to join the choir rehearsals in Saint Mary and Saint Giles Church, Stony Stratford. But, before today begins, I am taking some quiet time this morning to give thanks, to reflect, to pray and to read in these ways:

1, reading today’s Gospel reading;

2, a short reflection;

3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary;

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

A statue of Saint Joseph in front of Saint Joseph’s Cathedral, Kuching (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

Matthew 1: 18-25 (NRSVA):

18 Now the birth of Jesus the Messiah took place in this way. When his mother Mary had been engaged to Joseph, but before they lived together, she was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit. 19 Her husband Joseph, being a righteous man and unwilling to expose her to public disgrace, planned to dismiss her quietly. 20 But just when he had resolved to do this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, ‘Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife, for the child conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. 21 She will bear a son, and you are to name him Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.’ 22 All this took place to fulfil what had been spoken by the Lord through the prophet:

23 ‘Look, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son,
and they shall name him Emmanuel’,

which means, ‘God is with us.’ 24 When Joseph awoke from sleep, he did as the angel of the Lord commanded him; he took her as his wife, 25 but had no marital relations with her until she had borne a son; and he named him Jesus.

A window by Nathaniel Westlake (1833-1921) in Saint Mary and Saint Giles Church, Stony Stratford, inspired by ‘Christ in the House of His Parents’ by the Pre-Raphaelite artist Sir John Everett Millais (Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Today’s Reflection:

Saint Joseph often goes unnoticed in Ireland as people return work after the Saint Patrick’s Day celebrations and holiday weekend halfway through Lent.

We have very little information about Saint Joseph in the Gospels. He figures in the two Gospels with infancy narratives, Saint Matthew and Saint Luke, but even in those accounts, he never speaks. But he responds to God’s call – he is a man of action rather than words, a doer rather than a sayer.

He is described as a τέκτων (tekton), a word traditionally translated as ‘carpenter’, although the Greek word refers to someone who works in wood, iron or stone, including builders. Saint Joseph’s specific association with woodworking is a theme in Early Christian writings, and Justin Martyr, who died ca 165, wrote that Jesus made yokes and ploughs.

On the other hand, Geza Vermes says the terms ‘carpenter’ and ‘son of a carpenter’ are used in the Talmud for a very learned man, and he suggests that a description of Saint Joseph as naggar (‘a carpenter’) could indicate that he was considered wise and highly literate in the Torah.

Until about the 17th century, Saint Joseph is often depicted in art as a man of advanced years, with grey hair, usually bearded and balding, and occasionally frail. He is presented as a comparatively marginal figure alongside Mary and Jesus, often in the background except, perhaps, when he was leading them on the flight into Egypt. More recently, he has been portrayed as a younger or even youthful man, going about his work as a carpenter, or taking part in the daily life of his family.

This later emphasis is seen in ‘Christ in the House of His Parents’ (1849–1850), a painting by the Pre-Raphaelite artist, Sir John Everett Millais (1829-1896), depicting the Holy Family in Saint Joseph’s carpentry workshop. The painting, now in the Tate Britain in London, was controversial when it was first exhibited, prompting many negative reviews, most notably one by Charles Dickens, who accused Millais of portraying Mary as an alcoholic who looks ‘so hideous in her ugliness that … she would stand out from the rest of the company as a Monster, in the vilest cabaret in France, or the lowest gin-shop in England.’

Critics also objected to the portrayal of Christ, one complaining that it was ‘painful’ to see ‘the youthful Saviour’ depicted as ‘a red-headed Jew boy.’ Dickens described him as a ‘wry-necked boy in a nightgown who seems to have received a poke playing in an adjacent gutter.’ Other critics suggested that the characters displayed signs of rickets and other disease associated with slum conditions.

But this painting brought attention to the previously obscure Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, influenced many artists, was replicated in stained-glass windows throughout these islands, and was a major contributor to the debate about Realism in the arts.

Today’s Gospel reading reminds us that Saint Joseph says ‘Yes’, even if he says it silently. He has no scripted lines, he has no dramatic parts or roles; indeed, he is mute. But he is obedient. And, like Joseph, his namesake in the Old Testament, he too is the dreamer of dreams and the doer of deeds.

Saint Joseph and the Virgin Mary are engaged, but the marriage contract has not yet been signed, she has not yet entered into his house.

If the Mosaic law had been fully observed by Joseph, Mary could have faced ‘public disgrace,’ even been stoned to death.

Joseph is righteous and observes the Law. But he is also compassionate and plans to send her away quietly, without public shame.

The angel of the Lord tells Joseph of his role: through him, God’s promises will be fulfilled in the child to be born. And Joseph names the child Jesus.

The fear of sneers, of judgmental remarks and wagging fingers, must have been running through Joseph’s mind like a nightmare. Yet the angel in Joseph’s dream promises: ‘He will save his people from their sins.’

It is not a promise of immediate reward. Saint Joseph is not offered the promise that if he behaves like this he is going to earn some Brownie points towards the forgiveness of his own sins; that God will see him as a nice guy; or even that if he lives long enough, this child may grow up, be apprenticed to him, take over the family business, and act as a future pension plan.

Instead, the promised pay-off is for others as yet unknown. The forgiveness here is spoken of in apocalyptic terms. It is more than the self-acceptance offered in psychotherapy. Instead, it is the declaration of a new future. To be forgiven is to receive a future. Forgiveness breaks the simple link between cause and effect, action and reaction, failure and disaster, rebellion and recrimination.

This hope of all the ages, the beginning of the end of all the old tyrannies, the restoration of everything that is and will be, was always meant to take place in a virgin’s womb, in the manger, on the cross.

This is Lent – a a time of expectation, repentance and forgiveness. It is a time of preparation, anticipation and hope. It is a time for dreaming dreams, and putting behind us all our nightmares. The dream in this Gospel reading is the dream of Saint Joseph, not the Virgin Mary’s dream.

The Very Revd Samuel G Candler, Dean of Saint Philip’s Episcopal Cathedral in Atlanta, Georgia, suggested in a sermon many years ago: ‘We need sleep because we need to dream.’

Saint Joseph dreamed something wonderful. God would enter the world; God would be born to his new, young wife, Mary. But to believe this, Saint Joseph had to trust not only his dream, but to trust Mary, to trust the future child, to trust God.

Do you love the people you trust and trust the people you love?

To trust the Virgin Mary, Saint Joseph must have truly loved her. But trust in this predicament must have gone beyond trust. Joseph must have truly glimpsed what it is to trust God, to have hope in God, to love God, to have faith in God.

Saint Joseph dreams a dream not of his own salvation, but of the salvation of the world.

Do you trust that God is working through the people you love? Do you trust that God is working through people you find it difficult not to love but merely to like … working through God’s people for their salvation?

Saint Joseph has no speaking part; he just has a walk-on part in the Gospel story. But his actions, his obedience to God’s call, speak louder than words.

Yes, God appears over and over again, to men, women, to ‘all sorts and conditions of people.’

But do we trust them?

Can you have faith in someone else?

Can you believe their dreams?

Can you believe the dreams of those you love?

And dream their dreams too?

As Dean Candler urged in his sermon: ‘Believe in the dreams of the person you love.’

Saint Joseph depicted on the façade of Saint Joseph’s Church in Terenure, Dublin (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

Today’s Prayers (Wednesday 19 March 2025, Saint Joseph):

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 ‘Truth: The Path to Reconciliation’. This theme was introduced on Sunday with a programme update by Rachel Weller, Communications Officer, USPG.

The USPG Prayer Diary today (Wednesday 19 March 2025, Saint Joseph) invites us to pray:

Heavenly Father, whose Son grew in wisdom and stature in the home of Joseph the carpenter of Nazareth and on the wood of the cross perfected the work of the world’s salvation: help us, strengthened by this sacrament of his passion, to count the wisdom of the world as foolishness, and to walk with him in simplicity and trust; through Jesus Christ our Lord.

The Collect:

God our Father,
who from the family of your servant David
raised up Joseph the carpenter
to be the guardian of your incarnate Son
and husband of the Blessed Virgin Mary:
give us grace to follow him
in faithful obedience to your commands;
through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

The Post Communion Prayer:

Heavenly Father,
whose Son grew in wisdom and stature in the home of Joseph the carpenter of Nazareth
and on the wood of the cross
perfected the work of the world’s salvation:
help us, strengthened by this sacrament of his passion,
to count the wisdom of the world as foolishness,
and to walk with him in simplicity and trust;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Yesterday’s Reflection

Continued Tomorrow

A statue of Saint Joseph in the grounds of Saint Joseph’s Church, Singapore (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

Scripture quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicised Edition copyright © 1989, 1995 National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide. http://nrsvbibles.org