Daily prayer in Ordinary Time 2026: 104, Wednesday 19 August 2026

‘For the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire labourers for his vineyard’ (Matthew 20: 1) … at work in a vineyard in Platanias near Rethymnon in Crete (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

We are continuing in Ordinary Time in the Church Calendar and this week began with the Eleventh Sunday after Trinity (Trinity XI, 16 August 2026).

Before today begins, 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 Gospel reading;

3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary;

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

‘You also go into the vineyard, and I will pay you whatever is right’ (Matthew 20: 4) … neglected vines and a lost harvest of grapes at an abandoned house on Platanias, east of Rethymnon in Crete (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Matthew 20: 1-16 (NRSVA):

[Jesus said:] 20 ‘For the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire labourers for his vineyard. 2 After agreeing with the labourers for the usual daily wage, he sent them into his vineyard. 3 When he went out about nine o’clock, he saw others standing idle in the market-place; 4 and he said to them, “You also go into the vineyard, and I will pay you whatever is right.” So they went. 5 When he went out again about noon and about three o’clock, he did the same. 6 And about five o’clock he went out and found others standing around; and he said to them, “Why are you standing here idle all day?” 7 They said to him, “Because no one has hired us.” He said to them, “You also go into the vineyard.” 8 When evening came, the owner of the vineyard said to his manager, “Call the labourers and give them their pay, beginning with the last and then going to the first.” 9 When those hired about five o’clock came, each of them received the usual daily wage. 10 Now when the first came, they thought they would receive more; but each of them also received the usual daily wage. 11 And when they received it, they grumbled against the landowner, 12 saying, “These last worked only one hour, and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the day and the scorching heat.” 13 But he replied to one of them, “Friend, I am doing you no wrong; did you not agree with me for the usual daily wage? 14 Take what belongs to you and go; I choose to give to this last the same as I give to you. 15 Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me? Or are you envious because I am generous?” 16 So the last will be first, and the first will be last.’

‘I will pay you whatever is right … Call the labourers and give them their pay …’ (see Matthew 20: 4, 8) … ‘Permanent jobs for all contract workers’ … a trade union march in Thessaloniki (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Reflections:

Covid, a stroke and personal problems meant I missed out on my regular visits to Greece … not just for the blue skies and blue seas, but also the vineyards and the olive groves, and especially my friends there. So, after an absence of some years, it was good to be back to Crete last year and the year before.

Of course, it was sad to see how a small vineyard I had known for almost 10 years in Platanias, east of Rethymnon, was uprooted and turned into a site for a development close to the beach. On the other hand, it was good to meet old friends in Rethymnon, Platanias, Panormos and Iraklion last year.

The year before, I went back to Piskopianó to meet Manoli and other friends I have known for over 30 years. When my sons were small children, he was like an uncle to them. Early one summer in the 1990s, he was excited when he rang me and realised I was returning to his village in the hills above Hersonissos, to the east of Iraklion. Gushing with enthusiasm and delight, he told me how I must come and see what he had done with the ‘graveyard’ in Piskopianó.

‘The graveyard?’

Now, I am interested in visiting churches and churchyards, and graveyards and gravestones provide rich material for social, local and family history. But a graveyard is not the first place you think your friends want you to visit on a holiday in the Mediterranean.

I asked again: ‘The graveyard?’

‘Yes, you’re going to be delighted to see how the vines are growing with new life. You remember how I trimmed back the vines and the branches and how I built new trellises. Now there is a rich crop in the grapeyard this year.’

The grapeyard! Of course. Now it makes sense.

I had shown an interest in his vines and his grapes … and a healthy interest in wine.

Now a new lesson awaited me on how to grow grapes, how to trim the vines, and how vines, like people, only make sense in clusters.

We are all workers in the vineyard, and Christ even refers to himself as the true vine. But unless we have worked in a vineyard, some of the illustrations in today’s Gospel reading (Matthew 20: 1-16) may not fully resonate with us. And this helps to understand how some of the people who are depicted in today’s parable, and many of the people who first heard it, may have missed some of the subtle points Jesus was making as he told this story.

This Parable of the Labourers in the Vineyard, despite being well-known, is found only in Saint Matthew’s Gospel.

As the story unfolds, the landowner (οἰκοδεσπότης, oikodespotés), the head of the household or the owner of the land, is revealed to be not merely the owner of the vineyard, but as the Lord (ὁ κύριος, ho kyrios).

The labourers (εργάτες, ergates) are called at five different times in the day: early in the morning, at 9 o’clock, at noon, at 3 and at 5.

There are different tasks in the grapeyard, in the vineyard. Those who come early in the morning, at sunrise, can suffer from literal burnout later in the day as the heat of the sun becomes intense.

A variety of skills is needed: those who look after the soil; those who look after other plants such as the olive trees or lemon trees that help to protect the vines; those who watch the roses for the first signs of any disease that might hit the vines; those who prune the vines; those who pick the grapes and sort them out; those who tidy up in the vineyard at the end of the day – each and everyone plays a role in producing that bottle of wine as it makes its way to the shelves of shops and to our tables.

To some of the workers – and to us, at our first reading – the landowner appears to be unfair in the way he rewards those who work on his behalf. But did you notice how this passage begins ‘… the kingdom of heaven is like …’ and that the wages stand for God’s grace?

God chooses to give the same to all: the landowner pays ‘whatever is right’ – there is no social discrimination or class distinction in the Kingdom of Heaven.

I lived in Askeaton, Co Limerick, for five years. For those five years, I was a late arrival and I was a ‘blow-in’, although the term was used with me affectionately, and I knew I was welcome. People understood I had arrived there late in the day, and I understood the parishioners had been there far longer than I ever knew.

Good partnership means mutual understanding, and can produce good fruit, not just in the vineyard, but in every aspect of life.

As people are more mobile these days, moving from city to countryside, and from provincial towns to the city, the term ‘blow-in’ may be beginning to die a slow death in many smaller towns and communities in Ireland. But I wonder whether the attitude it encapsulates is still prevalent in other aspects of Irish life.

Are newcomers to the Church equally as welcome as long-standing members of the Church, whose parents were regular parishioners before them?

How difficult is it for new churchgoers to find an invitation onto church committees, to read lessons, to be counted in, and to be seen to be counted in?

Sorcha Pollak’s column in The Irish Times, ‘New to the Parish,’ later a book, has shown how new arrivals are regularly treated rudely, from the moment they show their passports at the airport, to taking up jobs, constantly being asked, ‘But where are you really from?’

Over the past few years , there have been far-right riots and protests across England, in Belfast, Ballymena and Dublin, fear that has been created in the minority communities, there have been shocking attacks on places housing and sheltering asylum seekers and refugees, and there are deeply disturbing reports of racist abuse suffered by people throughout these islands.

How early do you have to have arrived in the vineyard before your labour is valued fully?

God is generous to all. This is God’s free choice. As the Lord of the vineyard asks in this morning’s Gospel reading, ‘Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me? Or are you envious because I am generous?’

Jesus begins this morning’s parable saying, ‘For the kingdom of heaven is like …’

The kingdom of God is like a place where all are welcome, where no-one is treated rudely or abusively because they are new arrivals or treated favourably because they have been here since the early days.

In the Kingdom of God, there is no discrimination, no racism; in the kingdom of God, there are no late arrivals or blow-ins.

Grapes near their harvesting time at the Hedgehog Vintage Inn in Lichfield (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Prayers (Wednesday 19 August 2026):

In Pray with the World Church, the prayer diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), the theme this week, from 16 to 22 August 2026 (pp 30-31), is ‘Hope in the Making’. This theme was introduced on Sunday with a reflection by Grace Murray, a USPG volunteer. The prayers this week come courtesy of passersby at Greenbelt Festival 2025.

The USPG Prayer Diary today (Wednesday 19 August 2026) invites us to pray:

Lord God, we pray that the cry of the Earth and the cry of the poor are heard and acted upon by those in power, so that real change may come.

The Collect of the Day:

O God, you declare your almighty power
most chiefly in showing mercy and pity:
mercifully grant to us such a measure of your grace,
that we, running the way of your commandments,
may receive your gracious promises,
and be made partakers of your heavenly treasure;
through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

The Post Communion Prayer:

Lord of all mercy,
we your faithful people have celebrated that one true sacrifice
which takes away our sins and brings pardon and peace:
by our communion
keep us firm on the foundation of the gospel
and preserve us from all sin;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Additional Collect:

God of glory,
the end of our searching,
help us to lay aside
all that prevents us from seeking your kingdom,
and to give all that we have
to gain the pearl beyond all price,
through our Saviour Jesus Christ.

Yesterday’s reflections

Continued tomorrow

Grapes on a vine in Aghios Georgios in Corfu (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

Grapes ripe for harvesting in Panormos, east of Rethymnon in Crete (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Daily prayer in Ordinary Time 2026: 77, Thursday 23 July 2026

‘You will indeed listen, but never understand, and you will indeed look, but never perceive’ (Matthew 13: 14) … street art in the Bishopgate area off Carpenter Street in Kuching (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Patrick Comerford

We are continuing in Ordinary Time in the Church and this week began with the Seventh Sunday after Trinity (Trinity VII, 19 July 2026). Yesterday was the feast of Saint Mary Magdalene, and today the Church Calendar in the Church of England in Common Worship remembers Saint Bridget of Sweden (1373), Abbess of Vadstena.

Before today begins, 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 Gospel reading;

3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary;

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

‘Seeing they do not perceive, and hearing they do not listen, nor do they understand’ (Matthew 13: 8) … street art in Iraklion (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Matthew 13: 10-17 (NRSVA):

10 Then the disciples came and asked him, ‘Why do you speak to them in parables?’ 11 He answered, ‘To you it has been given to know the secrets of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it has not been given. 12 For to those who have, more will be given, and they will have an abundance; but from those who have nothing, even what they have will be taken away. 13 The reason I speak to them in parables is that “seeing they do not perceive, and hearing they do not listen, nor do they understand.” 14 With them indeed is fulfilled the prophecy of Isaiah that says:

“You will indeed listen, but never understand,
and you will indeed look, but never perceive.
15 For this people’s heart has grown dull,
and their ears are hard of hearing,
and they have shut their eyes;
so that they might not look with their eyes,
and listen with their ears,
and understand with their heart and turn –
and I would heal them.”

16 But blessed are your eyes, for they see, and your ears, for they hear. 17 Truly I tell you, many prophets and righteous people longed to see what you see, but did not see it, and to hear what you hear, but did not hear it.’

Looking with eyes and listening with ears … street art in Rathmines, Dublin (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Reflections:

In the Gospel reading at the Eucharist today (Matthew 13: 10-17), Jesus speaks about those who seeing but do not perceive, who hearing but do not listen or understand.

Today’s reading continues from the Parables of the Kingdom and forms an interlude between the parable of the sower and its interpretation. Jesus is asked by the disciples why he speaks to the people in parables.

There seems to be an implication that Jesus is speaking clearly to his disciples, who are insiders, but in riddles to the people because they are outsiders. But this also seem to contradict the purpose of speaking in parables, which is to use helpful and familiar images to lead people to a better understanding of a deeper message. Indeed, the parable of the sower is a good example.

Perhaps once again we are dealing with the difference between ‘insiders’ and ‘outsiders’. The ‘insiders’ are those who give Jesus a ready hearing. Naturally, they are more open to hearing about the ‘mysteries’ of the Kingdom and to assimilating what they hear. The ‘outsiders’, on the other hand, are precisely so because they have closed minds and are not ready to listen.

Speaking of the ‘insiders’, Jesus says: ‘For to those who have, more will be given, and they will have an abundance, but from those who have nothing, even what they have will be taken away’ (verse 12). Those who have opened themselves to the Word of God will find themselves evermore enriched.

But those who have not even begun to accept the Word will end up in an even worse predicament than the one they are in now, for they look but do not see, they listen but do not hear or understand (verse 13).

This happens, not because the parables are difficult, but because the hearers are not prepared to listen.

Jesus then quotes from the Prophet Isaiah (9: 13), who might better understood as speaking in an audibly sarcastic tone:

“You will indeed listen, but never understand,
and you will indeed look, but never perceive.
15 For this people’s heart has grown dull,
and their ears are hard of hearing,
and they have shut their eyes;
so that they might not look with their eyes,
and listen with their ears,
and understand with their heart and turn –
and I would heal them.”

I find it disturbing when I realise someone is talking at me rather than to me, and certainly not talking with me. In a similar way it is disturbing to realise someone hears me, but is not actually listening to me.

At one stage during tense trade union negotiations many years ago, the employer’s representative responded to my presentation, saying: ‘I hear what you are saying.’

I retorted: ‘Yes, but does it just go in one ear and out the other?’

I asked for an adjournment, and from the union side we said we would return to the talks when he indicated he would not only listen to us, but engage with us and commit his side to meaningful discussions. We waited outside for 10 or 15 minutes, and felt we truly were outsiders. We were about to leave the building when we were called back inside. He had heard, and he had listened, and instead of talking to and at us, he began to talk with us. Confidence was restored, and we soon reached a settlement.

If we are prepared to see and to listen actively and to be fully engaged, both actions, seeing and listening, can make radical changes in our lives, in our attitudes, in our values and priorities, in our relationships. But too many people remain effectively blind and deaf to others.

‘They … listen with their ears, and understand with their heart and turn’ (Matthew 13: 15) … ‘Reflections of Bedford’, a sculpture by Rick Kirby on Silver Street (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Prayers (Thursday 23 July 2026):

In Pray with the World Church, the prayer diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), the theme this week, from 19 to 25 July 2026 (pp 20-21), is ‘Flood Relief in Mozambique’. This theme was introduced on Sunday with a programme update from the Revd Mauricio S Mugunhe, Executive Director Anglican Social Action, Igreja Anglicana de Moçambique e Angola (the Anglican Church of Mozambique and Angola).

The USPG prayer diary today (Thursday 23 July 2026) invites us to pray:

Lord, bring hope to the people of Iene in Mozambique, renewing homes, roads, and lives after the floods. Protect those displaced and isolated, and raise up healing, strength, and swift restoration.

The Collect of the Day:

Lord of all power and might,
the author and giver of all good things:
graft in our hearts the love of your name,
increase in us true religion,
nourish us with all goodness,
and of your great mercy keep us in the same;
through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

The Post Communion Prayer:

Lord God, whose Son is the true vine and the source of life,
ever giving himself that the world may live:
may we so receive within ourselves
the power of his death and passion
that, in his saving cup,
we may share his glory and be made perfect in his love;
for he is alive and reigns, now and for ever.

Additional Collect

Generous God,
you give us gifts and make them grow:
though our faith is small as mustard seed,
make it grow to your glory
and the flourishing of your kingdom;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Yesterday’s reflections

Continued tomorrow

‘Their ears are hard of hearing, and they have shut their’ (Matthew 13: 15) … street art near De Montfort University in Leicester (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

‘To see Durham is to see the English Sion and by doing so one may save oneself a trip to Jerusalem’

‘To see Durham is to see the English Sion’ (Symeon of Durham) … Durham Cathedral and Durham Castle stand on a peninsula shaped by the River Wear (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025; click on images for full-screen viewing)

Patrick Comerford

My visit to Durham last weekend was all too brief. We were on a family visit to York, I needed to get back to York for a family dinner, and with just a few hours to walk around I wanted to see as much as possible of the mediaeval city, with its cathedral, castle, cobbled streets, riverside walks and the third oldest university in England.

Durham has a population of about 50,000 people, and the cathedral and the castle on Palace Green, high above the River Wear have been designated a Unesco World Heritage Site.

Durham is also the home of the Durham Miners’ Gala and has a rich trade union history: the Durham coalfields developed during the Industrial Revolution, with dozens of collieries around the city. Although the coal pits are long closed, the Durham Miners’ Gala is still a major event each year.

Durham city centre has changed little over 200 years (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

The city is built on a meander of the River Wear that surrounds the centre on three sides and creates a narrow neck on the fourth. The city centre has changed little over 200 years. It is made up of the peninsula containing the cathedral, the castle and Palace Green that give the cathedral a striking position.

Durham dates back over 1,000 years to 995, when a small band of monks from Lindisfarne seeking a place that was safe from Viking raids arrived with the relics of Saint Cuthbert. The church they built eventually evolved into Durham Cathedral, regarded by Unesco as ‘the largest and most perfect monument of Norman style architecture in England.’

The 12th-century chronicler Symeon of Durham wrote: ‘To see Durham is to see the English Sion and by doing so one may save oneself a trip to Jerusalem’.

Sir Walter Scott was so inspired by the view of the cathedral from South Street that he wrote the poem ‘Harold the Dauntless’ (1817), about Saxons and Vikings and set in County Durham. Lines from the poem are carved on a stone tablet on Prebends Bridge:

Grey towers of Durham
Yet well I love thy mixed and massive piles
Half church of God, half castle ’gainst the Scot
And long to roam those venerable aisles
With records stored of deeds long since forgot.

Durham Castle above Silver Street and Framwellgate Bridge (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

The name Durham comes from dun, indicating a hill fort, and the Old Norse holme, referring to an island. But, as I recalled on Thursday evening, legends also link the name with the Dun Cow and the milkmaid who guided the monks of Lindisfarne to the strategic high peninsula that became the site of Durham cathedral.

Durham was once a buffer between warring England and Scotland, and until 1836 the city was part of the County Palatine of Durham, a semi-independent jurisdiction ruled by the prince bishops of Durham.

Mediaeval Durham became a place of pilgrimage because of its associations with Saint Cuthbert, Saint Bede the Venerable and Saint Oswald. The shrine of Saint Cuthbert at Durham Cathedral became the most important religious site in England until Saint Thomas Becket was murdered at Canterbury in 1170.

The Bishops of Durham ruled the County Palatine of Durham from Durham Castle until 1836 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Durham played an important rolw in the mediaeval wars between England and Scotland, and Durham Castle is the only Norman castle keep never to have suffered a breach. The castle on Palace Green was originally built in the 11th century, is an excellent example of early motte and bailey castles built by the Normans.

The Bishops of Durham, who lived in Durham Castle, ruled the County Palatine of Durham from 1071 to 1836 and the bishop was sometimes described as a ‘prince bishop’. The bishops had their own parliament, raised their own armies, appointed their own sheriffs and Justices, administered their own laws, levied taxes and customs duties, created fairs and markets, issued charters, collected revenue, administered the forests and minted their own coins.

The bishops’ powers were so far-reaching that the steward of Bishop Antony Bek said in 1299: ‘There are two kings in England, namely the Lord King of England, wearing a crown in sign of his regality and the Lord Bishop of Durham wearing a mitre in place of a crown’.

Bishop Cosin’s Hall on Palace Green … Bishop John Cosin began a major restoration project in the cathedral, the castle and the city in 1660 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

The castle has been in continuous use for over 900 years. It was famed for its vast Great Hall, created by Bishop Bek in the early 14th century. It was the largest great hall in England until Bishop Richard Foxe shortened it at the end of the 15th century. It is still 46 ft high and about 100 ft long.

The city remained loyal to Charles I in the English Civil War, from 1642 until the king’s execution in 1649, and he visited Durham three times during his reign. But the castle suffered considerable damage during the Commonwealth. Cromwell sold the castle to the Lord Mayor of London shortly, and the cathedral was closed in 1650 and used to hold 3,000 Scottish prisoners after the Battle of Dunbar.

John Cosin, one of the great Caroline Divines, became Bishop of Durham (1660-1672) after the restoration and began a major restoration project in the cathedral, the castle and the city.

There were plans in the 18th century to transform Durham into a seaport by digging a canal or altering the course of the river. Nothing came of the plans, however, although the statue of Neptune in the Market Place is a reminder of these maritime ambitions and possibilities.

The statue of Neptune in the Market Place is a reminder of the plans to make Durham a seaport (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

The Municipal Corporations Act 1835 gave governing power of the town to an elected body. All other aspects of the Bishop’s temporal powers were abolished by the Durham (County Palatine) Act 1836 . The last bishop to rule the palatinate, Bishop William Van Mildert, founded Durham University in 1832. It was one of the first universities to open in England for more than 600 years, and is England’s third oldest, after Oxford and Cambridge.

The bishop moved to Auckland Castle and Durham Castle became University College, the first college in the new university. Durham University was founded in 1832. Bishop Hatfield’s Hall, later Hatfield College, was added in 1846, specifically for the sons of poorer families. Durham University ranks in the top 200 of the world’s universities.

The Industrial Revolution also placed the city at the heart of the coalfields, the county’s main industry until the 1970s. Practically every village around the city had a coal mine and, although these have since disappeared as part of the regional decline in heavy industry, the traditions, heritage and community spirit are still evident. The first Durham Miners' Gala was attended by 5,000 miners in 1871, and it remains the largest socialist trade union event in the world.

Durham was not bombed during World War II, although one raid on the night of 30 May 1942 did give rise to the local legend of ‘Saint Cuthbert’s Mist’. According to the legend, the Luftwaffe tried to target Durham, but was thwarted when Saint Cuthbert created a mist that covered both the castle and cathedral, sparing them from bombing.

Palace Green, in front of the cathedral and the castle … Durham was not bombed during World War II (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Durham is a hilly city, said to be built on seven hills, like Rome and Constantinople. The steep riverbanks are densely wooded, adding to the picturesque beauty of the city. The cathedral and castle stand on the most central and prominent position high above the Wear and dominate the skyline. The Bailey is almost entirely owned and occupied by the university and the cathedral.

The River Wear forms a peninsula that encloses the centre Durham on three sides. The Market Place at the base of the peninsula remains the venue for regular markets and the Market Place and surrounding streets form the heart of commercial and shopping life in the city.

Three old roads lead off the Market Place: Saddler Street heads south-east, towards Elvet Bridge, the Bailey and Prebends Bridge. Elvet Bridge leads to the Elvet area of the city and the south; Prebends Bridge is smaller and provides access from the Bailey to south Durham. Heading west, Silver Street leads out of the Market Place towards Framwellgate Bridge and North Road, the other main shopping area of the city.

The old commercial heart of the city encompasses the peninsula on three sides, following the River Wear, and much of the original mediaeval street plan remains intact in the area close to the cathedral and the Market Place.

Durham Market Place, with Durham Town Hall, the Guildhall and Saint Nicholas Church (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Durham Market Place, with its impressive array of buildings and sculptures, is first mentioned in 1040, the heads of Scottish marauders were displayed on poles around the Market Place. Saint Nicholas Church was built in 1133, and part of its former churchyard lies beneath the Market Place.

Durham Town Hall is on the west side of the Market Place. The earliest part of the complex of buildings is the Guildhall which dates from 1665. The town hall, at the rear, was opened in 1851, at the same time as the indoor market.

The statue of Neptune is the oldest statue in the Market Place. It was made of stone covered in lead in 1729, and is a reminder of the plans to make Durham a port. It had a pant or drinking vessel, but was moved in 1923 when the water was no longer needed. Neptune was returned by popular demand in 1991, but the pant did not come with him.

The equestrian statue of Lord Londonderry by Raphael Monti in the Market Place (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

The equestrian statue in the Market Place is of Charles William Vane Tempest Stewart (1778-1854), 3rd Marquis of Londonderry. He was born in Mary Street, Dublin, was involved as a young man in suppressing the 1798 Rising in Ireland, and was later a commander under the Duke of Wellington in the Napoleonic Wars.

He married the very wealthy Lady Frances Anne Vane-Tempest and took her name too, and only inherited his family title after Lord Castlereagh, his half-brother and the childless second marquis, died by suicide. He opposed the Mines and Collieries Act and wanted women, girls and boys under 10 to continue working in his pits.

He was one of the 10 richest people in the United Kingdom, yet during the Irish Famine evicted many of his tenants. He advised his tenants ‘to help themselves and heaven will help them’, and suggested only the most ‘supine and inert’ among them could be ‘suffering in any serious degree under the failure of the potato’.

After he died, his widow raised subscriptions for a statue by Raphael Monti (1818-1881), who used a new technique of electroplating copper over a plaster base. The statue was unveiled in 1861, but the larger-than-life work was not popular in Durham and people wanted it moved. Nobody wanted it anywhere else, the cathedral clergy rejected plans to place it on Palace Green, and so it stayed in the Market Place, although it has been moved from its original setting.

In the narrow cobbled streets beneath Durham Cathedral and Durham Castle (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

I arrived in Durham on the train from York, crossing over the Victorian railway viaduct on North Road, high above the city, and walked along the banks of the River Wear to Durham Cathedral, Durham Castle and the city centre.

A path runs alongside the south bank or cathedral side for the entire length of the stretch available for rowing. Durham Regatta has been held on the River Wear in Durham since 1834. It is the second oldest regatta in Britain and is often referred to as ‘the Henley of the North’.

More than 2 km of the River Wear can be rowed on, stretching from Durham University Boat Club boathouse at Maiden Castle in the east to the weir next to Durham School Boat Club boathouse in the west. This includes the 700 metres ‘short course’ straight used for most Durham Regatta races, the 1,800 metres ‘long course’ that includes navigation through the arches of Elvet Bridge, reputed to be the narrowest row through bridge in Europe, and 1,000 metres and 2,000 metres measured distances.

There are many boating clubs, including Durham Amateur Rowing Club, founded in 1860 and is one of the country’s oldest clubs, Durham University Boat Club, and 16 college clubs, as well as school clubs.

The Victorian railway viaduct on North Road, high above the city, is one of over 630 listed buildings in Durham (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

In addition to Durham Cathedral and Durham Castle, the city has over 630 listed buildings. The Grade I listed buildings include the Chorister School, Crook Hall, Durham Castle, Durham Cathedral, and four bridges. The Grade II* listed buildings include Bishop Cosin’s Hall, Palace Green, Cosin’s Library, now part of University Library, Palace Green, the Railway viaduct on North Road, and the Town Hall and Guildhall on Market Place.

As well as visiting the cathedral, other listed churches and former churches I managed to see last weekend include Saint Margaret of Antioch, Crossgate; Saint Mary-le-Bow, now Durham Heritage Centre; Saint Godric’s Roman Catholic Church; and Saint Nicholas Church.

But more about Durham Cathedral and those four other churches in the days to come, hopefully.

Climbing the steps leading to Durham Railway Station (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

The future of sculptures by Epstein and Meadows seems unclear as the TUC sells off Congress House

Congress House on Great Russell Street, London, built in 1958, is being dold by the TUC (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Patrick Comerford

The future of two famous and favourite sculptures in Bloomsbury seems uncertain as the TUC (Trades Union Congress) moved to the final stages of selling off Congress House on Great Russell Street, close to the British Museum.

The TUC agreed last year to sell off Congress House after reports showed major work was needed if the building it was to keep up with environmental standards. The TUC is looking for a new modern home for the trade union movement.

The TUC appointed Newmark (formerly Gerard Eve) to manage the sale and a competitive tender process. Congress House was viewed 100 times and 10 bids from prospective buyers were narrowed down to three bids before he TUC has agreed on 28 June to prepare heads of agreement for a sale.

Already the basement and other storage spaces have been cleared, significant documents have been transferred to the TUC archives at Warwick, and a project is in hand to preserve the history of Congress House.

The sale of Congress House, a Grade II listed building with ca 138,000 sq ft across six floors, has also meant the closure of Congress Centre, a well-known London venue, on 4 July and redundancy negotiations with many staff members.

‘The Spirit of Brotherhood’ by Bernard Meadows at Congress House in London (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Congress House has been the TUC headquarters since 1958, and Congress Centre appeared in popular television shows such as Killing Eve and Netflix’s The Crown.

David du Roi Aberdeen won an architectural competition to design the new TUC headquarters in Great Russell Street in 1948. Staff began to move into the offices in 1956. Congress House was officially opened on 27 March 1958 along with the unveiling of a giant pietà-style statue of a woman cradling her dead son. Carved in situ in the internal courtyard by Sir Jacob Epstein, it was commissioned as a memorial to trade unionists who had died in the two world wars.

Epstein had previously cast a bronze portrait of the TUC General Secretary Ernest Bevin, commissioned in 1943. Although he was invited by the TUC General Secretary to enter the competition he refused. But he agreed to take on a paid commission, and argued that he should be paid for his labour.

The Pietà sculpture by Jacob Epstein at Congress House (Photograph: Matt Brown / Wikipedia / CCL 2.0)

The scale of the installation means the final piece looks very different from the original model. It was described in a contemporary TUC internal document as ‘a memorial for the dead and an act of faith for the living’.

The front of the building is dominated by ‘The Spirit of Brotherhood’, a bronze sculpture by Bernard Meadows representing the spirit of trade unionism with the strong helping the weak. It was cast section by section by skilled craftsmen. It shows two semi-clad male figures, one standing over the other; one figure is sitting helpless on the ground while the other is stretching out to help him.

Bernard Meadows (1915-2005) was associated at an different stages in his career with Henry Moore, and was also part of the Geometry of Fear school, a loose-knit group of sculptors whose prominence was established at the 1952 Venice Biennale.

Meadows was born in Norwich in 1915, and educated at the City of Norwich School. After training as an accountant, he attended Norwich School of Art and in 1936 became Henry Moore's first assistant at his studio in Kent, and took part in the first Surrealist exhibition in London that year. He moved to Chalk Farm on 1937, assisting Moore in his studio at Hampstead, and he studied at the Royal College of Art and at the Courtauld Institute.

At the outbreak of World War II, Meadows registered as a conscientious objector. But when Nazi Germany invaded the Soviet Union in 1941, he withdrew his objection and was called up to the Royal Air Force.

After World War II, he returned to Moore’s studio and helped him with his marble sculpture ‘Three Standing Figures’ (1947) and his bronze ‘Family Group’ (1949). He found acclaims with an elm figure exhibited in the open air sculpture exhibition at Battersea Park in 1951, alongside the Festival of Britain, which went to the Tate Gallery.

Meadows exhibited in the British Pavilion at the Venice Biennale a year later, with Anthony Caro, Lynn Chadwick and Eduardo Paolozzi. Their angular styles, contrasted with the rounded work of Henry Moore and Barbara Hepworth gave them the name of the ‘Geometry of Fear.’ His edgy pieces often based on animals and seemingly carved from shrapnel could imply Cold War menace.

His first solo exhibition was at Gimpel Fils in 1957, with four more in the decade to 1967, and he also exhibited at the Venice Biennale in 1964.

Meadows was a Professor of Sculpture at the Royal College of Art for 20 years, from 1960 to 1980. He returned to assist Henry Moore again at Perry Green, Hertfordshire, from 1977, after Moore’s health started to fail. After Moore died in 1986, he became an acting director of the Henry Moore Foundation. He died in London in 2005.

‘The Spirit of Brotherhood’ by Bernard Meadows at Congress House represents the spirit of trade unionism with the strong helping the weak (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Congress House was one of the earliest post-war buildings in Britain to be listed at Grade II*, in 1988. The design by the London-born architect David Du Roi Aberdeen was chosen because it was explicitly modern. He employed real craftsmen who had a great passion for their work and used eclectic materials. All the labourers and craftsmen on site had to be a member of a trade union to work there.

Congress House is a significant post-war building in Bloomsbury and one of the great physical testaments of the British labour movement. It was designed to be light and airy and very different from the pre-war 1930s architecture found in many public buildings.

The building was 14 years in the making, its existence mandated by a resolution passed in 1944 calling for a new centre of the organised workforce, a proud space that could not only honour the ‘supreme sacrifice’ trade unionists had made ‘in the successful prosecution of the war to overthrow the yoke of Nazi domination and the annihilation of the Nazi creed’, but also to encourage cultural development, training and participation among working people.

Its curved glass, lightness and open space resembles many of Le Corbusier’s unrealised design sketches. The wood was donated by fraternal unions from across the globe, while the street facings were shaped from Cornwall granite slabs as a gesture of solidarity with Cornish communities confronting souring economic prospects.

Much of the wood for the panelling was donated from trade unions and labour movements around the world, while the Cornish granite was sourced from a variety of quarries in order to help relieve unemployment in those areas.

All the construction work was completed and overseen by union members: even the Royal Horse Guards who were invited to perform a fanfare at the formal opening were made members of the Musicians’ Union for the occasion.

The end of Congress House is seen by many as a symbolic moment of selling off the family silver at a time where many unions are struggling to maintain relevance and the leading structures of the trade union movement seem to be losing their sense of direction.

The existence of the building was purely determined by union workers democratically mandating it, physically constructing it, aesthetically shaping it, and appealing to union workers from across the world for assistance in its realisation. Now it may soon fall into the hands of private developers, and no-one seems to be expressing concern for the future of the works by Epstein and Meadows.

What is the future for ‘The Spirit of Brotherhood’ by Bernard Meadows at Congress House? (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Daily prayer in Ordinary Time 2025: 76, Thursday 24 July 2025

Looking with eyes and listening with ears … street art in Rathmines, Dublin (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

Patrick Comerford

We are continuing in Ordinary Time in the Church and this week began with the Fifth Sunday after Trinity (Trinity V, 20 July 2025).

Before today begins, 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 Gospel reading;

3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary;

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

‘Seeing they do not perceive, and hearing they do not listen, nor do they understand’ (Matthew 13: 8) … street art in Iraklion (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Matthew 13: 10-17 (NRSVA):

10 Then the disciples came and asked him, ‘Why do you speak to them in parables?’ 11 He answered, ‘To you it has been given to know the secrets of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it has not been given. 12 For to those who have, more will be given, and they will have an abundance; but from those who have nothing, even what they have will be taken away. 13 The reason I speak to them in parables is that “seeing they do not perceive, and hearing they do not listen, nor do they understand.” 14 With them indeed is fulfilled the prophecy of Isaiah that says:

“You will indeed listen, but never understand,
and you will indeed look, but never perceive.
15 For this people’s heart has grown dull,
and their ears are hard of hearing,
and they have shut their eyes;
so that they might not look with their eyes,
and listen with their ears,
and understand with their heart and turn –
and I would heal them.”

16 But blessed are your eyes, for they see, and your ears, for they hear. 17 Truly I tell you, many prophets and righteous people longed to see what you see, but did not see it, and to hear what you hear, but did not hear it.’

‘They … listen with their ears, and understand with their heart and turn’ (Matthew 13: 15) … ‘Reflections of Bedford’, a sculpture by Rick Kirby on Silver Street (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

This morning’s reflection:

In the Gospel reading at the Eucharist yesterday (Matthew 13: 1-9), the quotation from Jesus began and ended with the word ‘Listen.’ In this morning’s reading, he speaks about those who seeing but do not perceive, who hearing but do not listen or understand.

Today’s reading continues from the Parables of the Kingdom and forms an interlude between the parable of the sower and its interpretation. Jesus is asked by the disciples why he speaks to the people in parables.

There seems to be an implication that Jesus is speaking clearly to his disciples, who are insiders, but in riddles to the people because they are outsiders. But this also seem to contradict the purpose of speaking in parables, which is to use helpful and familiar images to lead people to a better understanding of a deeper message. Indeed, the parable of the sower is a good example.

Perhaps once again we are dealing with the difference between ‘insiders’ and ‘outsiders’. The ‘insiders’ are those who give Jesus a ready hearing. Naturally, they are more open to hearing about the ‘mysteries’ of the Kingdom and to assimilating what they hear. The ‘outsiders’, on the other hand, are precisely so because they have closed minds and are not ready to listen.

Speaking of the ‘insiders’, Jesus says: ‘For to those who have, more will be given, and they will have an abundance, but from those who have nothing, even what they have will be taken away’ (verse 12). Those who have opened themselves to the Word of God will find themselves evermore enriched.

But those who have not even begun to accept the Word will end up in an even worse predicament than the one they are in now, for they look but do not see, they listen but do not hear or understand (verse 13).

This happens, not because the parables are difficult, but because the hearers are not prepared to listen.

Jesus then quotes from the Prophet Isaiah (9: 13), who might better understood as speaking in an audibly sarcastic tone:

“You will indeed listen, but never understand,
and you will indeed look, but never perceive.
15 For this people’s heart has grown dull,
and their ears are hard of hearing,
and they have shut their eyes;
so that they might not look with their eyes,
and listen with their ears,
and understand with their heart and turn –
and I would heal them.”

I find it disturbing when I realise someone is talking at me rather than to me, and certainly not talking with me. In a similar way it is disturbing to realise someone hears me, but is not actually listening to me.

At one stage during tense trade union negotiations many years ago, the employer’s representative responded to my presentation, saying: ‘I hear what you are saying.’

I retorted: ‘Yes, but does it just go in one ear and out the other?’

I asked for an adjournment, and from the union side we said we would return to the talks when he indicated he would not only listen to us, but engage with us and commit his side to meaningful discussions. We waited outside for 10 or 15 minutes, and felt we truly were outsiders. We were about to leave the building when we were called back inside. He had heard, and he had listened, and instead of talking to and at us, he began to talk with us. Confidence was restored, and we soon reached a settlement.

If we are prepared to see and to listen actively and to be fully engaged, both actions can make radical changes in our lives, in our attitudes, in our values and priorities, in our relationships. But too many people remain effectively blind and deaf.

‘Lord God, we pray for the House of the Epiphany, bless its mission in training clergy and laity’ (USPG Prayer Diary, 24 July 2025) … the House of the Epiphany, Kuching (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

Today’s Prayers (Thursday 24 July 2025):

The theme this week (20 to 26 July) in Pray with the World Church, the prayer diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), is ‘Diversity in Sarawak’ (pp 20-21). I introduced this theme on Sunday with reflections from Sarawak and the Diocese of Kuching.

The USPG prayer diary today (Thursday 24 July 2025) invites us to pray:

Lord God, we pray for the House of the Epiphany, bless its mission in training clergy and laity. We pray too for diocesan schools, including Saint Thomas’s and Saint Mary’s in Kuching.

The Collect:

Almighty and everlasting God,
by whose Spirit the whole body of the Church
is governed and sanctified:
hear our prayer which we offer for all your faithful people,
that in their vocation and ministry
they may serve you in holiness and truth
to the glory of your name;
through our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

The Post-Communion Prayer:

Grant, O Lord, we beseech you,
that the course of this world may be so peaceably ordered
by your governance,
that your Church may joyfully serve you in all godly quietness;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Additional Collect:

Almighty God,
send down upon your Church
the riches of your Spirit,
and kindle in all who minister the gospel
your countless gifts of grace;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Collect on the Eve of James:

Merciful God,
whose holy apostle Saint James,
leaving his father and all that he had,
was obedient to the calling of your Son Jesus Christ
and followed him even to death:
help us, forsaking the false attractions of the world,
to be ready at all times to answer your call without delay;
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.

Yesterday’s reflection

Continued tomorrow

‘Lord God, we pray for … diocesan schools, including Saint Thomas’s and Saint Mary’s in Kuching’ (USPG Prayer Diary, 24 July 2025) … Saint Mary’s School, Kuching (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

Coming to terms with memories of my father, Stephen Comerford, 20 years after he died

Stephen Edward Comerford (1918-2004) died 20 years ago in December 2004 (Photograph: Comerford family collection)

Patrick Comerford

When death comes at Christmas-tide to a family it has a searing impact that can never be erased or forgotten. The death of my eldest brother, Stephen Comerford, at the age of 24, 54 years ago, just a week before Christmas on 18 December 1970, had an emotional impact on my parents that I can never forget. They had celebated their 25th wedding anniversary just three months earlier.

Steve’s death came just four days after my father’s 52nd birthday, which may have compounded my parents’ grief.

This week has also marked the 20th anniversary of the death of my father, Stephen Edward Comerford (1918-2004), who died shortly after Christmas 20 years ago.

My father was born on 14 December 1918 at 7 Swanville Place, Rathmines, a neat end-of-terrace house off Lower Rathmines Road, behind the Stella Cinema and close to Leinster Square, Leinster Road and Rathmines Town Hall.

Stephen was the youngest in a large family, with a half-sister and two half-brothers (one already deceased) and two older brothers and an older sister. He was named Stephen both because he was born so close to Christmas Day and Saint Stephen’s Day (26 September) and also after his father, Stephen Edward Comerford (1867-1921).

Stephen Edward Comerford was born on 14 December 1918 at 7 Swanville Terrace, Rathmines (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

My grandfather was also born close to Christmas Day and Saint Stephen’s Day, on 28 December 1867, at 7 Redmond’s Hill, between Camden Street, Wexford Street and Aungier Street, Dublin, and he was baptised soon after in Saint Andrew’s Church. Later, he lived on Upper Beechwood Avenue and at Old Mountpleasant in Ranelagh, before moving to Rathmines.

My grandfather was in the Royal Dublin Fusiliers during World War I, but was sent home in May 1916 – in the days immediately after the Easter Rising in Dublin – after contracting malaria in Thessaloniki. That malaria eventually killed him, and he died shortly after my father’s second birthday, on 21 January 1921.

My father grew up without any real memories of his own father, and spent his childhood years first in Rathmines and then in Ashdale Park, Terenure. As he was growing up, he was close to both his mother’s family, the Lynders family in Portrane, north Co Dublin, and to his Comerford cousins in the Clanbrassil Street and ‘Little Jerusalem’ area of Dublin, between Clanbrassil Street and Camden Street.

2 Old Mountpleasant, Ranelagh, where my grandfather lived before moving to Rathmines (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

He went to school in Dublin, and throughout his childhood days was familiar with the narrow streets of ‘Little Jerusalem’. There his childhood friends included the Levitas brothers, who lived on Longwood Avenue and Warren Street in Portobello, and whose family attended the Lennox Street synagogue, one of the many small synagogues in the area.

One Saturday evening in the mid-1920s, the synagogue almost went up in smoke. It was not, however, attempted arson. Four boys had been anxious to bring the Sabbath to a speedy conclusion in order to resume playing on the street. So they came back into the synagogue to hastily say the final prayers, and accidentally knocked over a candle that set a cloth alight. Fortunately, it was quickly extinguished. The ‘culprits’ were three brothers – Max, Maurice and Sol Levitas – and Chaim Herzog. The Levitas brothers later became heroes of the Battle of Cable Street in the East End of London in 1936; the fourth boy was Chaim Herzog – the Chief Rabbi’s son and a future President of Israel.

Other childhood and school friends and contemporaries who he shared memories of with me included Dr Kevin O’Flanagan (1919-2006) who played both rugby and soccer for Ireland, Johnny Carey (1919-1995), also an Irish international footballer, the actor Jack MacGowran (1918-1973), the writer Cornelius Ryan (1920-1974), former Taoiseach Liam Cosgrave (1920-2017), and the RAF flying ace and war hero Paddy Finnucane (1920-1942).

During those schooldays, my father also travelled by boat to Italy, in what turned out to be a lengthy odyssey for the Boy Scouts he was part of, and in adulthood he continued to recall how the ship had passed through the Straits of Gibraltar and stopped off in Spain.

When he left school, he began a career in the insurance sector with the London and Lancashire, first working as an insurance clerk at the London and Lancashire office on College Green, Dublin. In those years immediately prior to the outbreak of World War II, he also become actively involved in An Óige, the Irish Youth Hostel Association, founded in 1931 by Thekla Beere, Shane Bodkin and Terry Trench.

The founders of An Óige were inspired by the success of the Youth Hostel Association in England, founded the previous year, and the Jugendherbergen in Germany, and were motivated by inter-war efforts to promote peace among young people on these islands and in Germany. My father had a particular interest in An Óige’s early youth hostels at Lough Dan, near Roundwood, and in Glencree, Co Wicklow. He was also a keen rugby player.

At the outbreak of World War II, the 11 Cavalry Squadron LDF (Local Defence Forces), later the 11 Cavalry (FCA) Regiment, was formed, with Captain JN Farrell forming a Cyclist Squadron based in McKee Barracks with cyclists from Dublin clubs. Shortly after, my father joinned the 42nd (An Oige) Cyclist Squadron when it was formed. It was led by Aidan Pender, later editor of the Evening Herald and the Irish Independent, and alongside my father the other members included his childhood friend George Kerr, a journalist and later assistant news editor of the Irish Press, Brendan O’Shea, Sean O’Briain, Jim Dillon and Stan O’Grady.

Some of these men had been friends and neighbours since schooldays, many remained lifelong friends, and George Kerr became my ‘uncle’ and ‘foster father’. Their regimental symbol was Pegasus, and a Pegasus trophy remained on my father’s sideboard for many years.

At the end of World War II, all members of the LDF became the new Forsa Cosanta Aituil (FCA), and the new 11 Cyclist Regiment was renamed the 11 Cavalry Regiment FCA. Many of the 11 Cyclists were commissioned almost immediately, and the FCA was integrated into the regular army structures. Stephen was promoted but turned down the offer of a full-time army commission, and continued to work in the insurance sector. In the days immediately after the war, he and my mother Ellen (Murphy), a civil servant from Millstreet, Co Cork, were married in Blackrock, Co Dublin, on 8 September 1945. They had met while she was staying in a bed-sit in the home of his half-brother Arthur Comerford on Rathgar Road.

They first lived on Putland Road, Bray, but spent much of their life in houses on Lower Kimmage Road in Harold’s Cross, and in Rathfarnham Wood, and were the parents of six children. At one time in 1950, he drove to Rome with a group of friends – I think they included George Kerr, his first cousin Patrick ‘Sonny’ Linders, and (perhaps), his brother-in-law Michael Murphy – stopping along the way in Paris, Milan, Bologna and Florence.

Back in Dublin, he continued to work with London and Lancashire, specialising in fire insurance, and becoming an insurance surveyor. London and Lancashire merged in 1960 with Royal Insurance, Britain’s largest insurance group, which became a takeover by Royal Insurance in 1962, and now part of Royal Sun Alliance. His work took him throughout Ireland and regularly to London and Liverpool.

He was also an active trade unionist, becoming a branch chair in the Guild of Insurance Officials (GIO), a union founded in 1919 – both his father and grandfather before him had also been active trade unionists. The union affiliated to the Trades Union Congress (TUC) and the Confederation of Insurance Trade Unions, and became the Union of Insurance Staffs in 1969. The following year, it merged with the Association of Scientific, Technical and Management Staffs (ASTMS), and after various mergers and amalgamations was absorbed into Unite.

His colleagues when he was a union activist in the 1960s included Noel Harris, who was also active in the Irish Anti-Apartheid Movement and who died in 2014; and Clive Jenkins (1926-1999), who once described his recreation in Who’s Who as ‘organising the middle classes’ and who was instrumental in getting Neil Kinnock nominated to the leadership of the Labour Party.

There were union conferences in seaside towns like Scarborough, Blackpool, Skegnesss or Brighton, and on one union or business trip to England he brought me back my first transistor radio so I could listen to Radio Caroline and Radio Luxembourg. Little could I, his union colleagues or his friends have imagined how my father’s political views would take a different direction in his later years.

He took advantage of his office locations on College Green and Dame Street to give the children in his family prime viewing positions for the Saint Patrick’s Day Parade in Dublin. Family holidays during summer months involved what seemed like long weeks in Kilcoole, Bettystown and Termonfeckin, on the east coast and close to golf courses – rugby had given way to a passion for golf, and he was active in the Castle Golf Club in Rathfarnham, where he seemed to spend much of his weekends and where he always seemed to win a turkey each Christmas.

My brother Steve and I joked that he had chosen to send us to school in Gormanston in the hope that as adults we would play golf with him – neither of us did. He tried to encourage me to play rugby, and I have memories of him teaching me to row on Lough Ramor in Virginia in 1967. That summer he listened with pride to broadcasts during the Six-Day War featuring his childhood friend Chaim Herzog, who was just two months older than him.

He passed on his enthusiasm for youth hostelling, and I hitch-hiked throughout England Ireland in my late teens. He never managed to persuade me to join the scouts or the FCA, but his GIO was the first union I joined after I left school. I remained an active and committed union member all my working life, in the National Union of Journalists and then the Irish Federation of University Teachers.

Former colleagues told me he paid the price for his union activism when he was denied opportunities for promotion and advancing his career. He was an insurance surveyor with Royal Insurance until he took early retirement at the age of 55 in 1974. But he continued to work as a surveyor with Donal O Buachalla and Company on Merrion Square, Dublin, where he became a director and the company secretary.

Stephen Comerford was a surveyor with Donal O Buachalla and Company on Merrion Square, Dublin, and the company secretary (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

He encouraged me to train as a chartered surveyor – although those hopes produced as much fruit as his hopes that I might play golf with him. My relationship with him as a child and as a teenager were difficult and usually fraught, though perhaps I was less than kind when I wrote about these memories a few years ago.

His boyhood voyage by ship through the Mediterranean may have given him a lifelong love of travel, visiting France, Spain, Portugal, Croatia and the US, though I failed to persuade him to visit Greece with me. He found it difficult to understand why I never continued as a chartered surveyor and instead became a journalist, first with the Wexford People and then with The Irish Times. Although his close friends George Kerr and Aidan Pender and other members of his family were journalists too, he regarded journalism as too ‘arty’. He never acknowledged my successes in The Irish Times, even when I was appointed Foreign Desk Editor, and he would constantly ask when I was ever going to get a ‘real day job’.

In a similar vein, he was critical of my high-profile involvement in the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament in the 1980s, although that may have been where his sympathies lay in the late 1950s or early 1960s. It was hurtful that he never came to my graduations, conferrings or book launches, or to milestone family events. In his final days, there was one glint of acknowledgement when I shared with him my research on Comerford family history and genealogy, and his family gathered to celebrate my parents 50th wedding anniversary in their home in Rathfarnham in 1995.

Many years later, the Royal Insurance building on College Green was acquired by Trinity College Dublin, and in my academic career I had mixed emotions when it came to attending MTh course management meetings in what probably were his offices 40 or 50 years earlier.

Stephen Edward Comerford died suddenly at the age of 86 from a rupture of an abdominal aortic aneurism at his home in Rathfarnham Wood this week 20 years ago, a few days after spending Christmas 2004 in Cork. His funeral took place in Rathfarnham and he is buried in Bohernabreena Cemetery, Co Dublin.

His gravestone says he died on 27 December 2004, but his death notice in The Irish Times says he died on 28 December 2004 – 137 years to the day since the birth of his own father in 1867. He never knew his own father, and 20 years later I wonder whether I really knew him.

My father spent his teenage and early adult years in Ashdale Park, Terenure (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)