The Church of Ireland
News Briefing

CHURCH OF IRELAND NOTES
For Saturday 2nd November 2002

From: The RCB Library
Email: RCB Library

New Writings in Church History

In the preface to the recently published book on the laity of the Church of Ireland, the editors noted that from the middle of the 1990s historical interest in the Church of Ireland had quickened perceptibly. The appearance of substantial works on the Church's history, as evidence of this interest, has been sporadic for serious scholarly research can be a slow process and is not always amenable to the production of a structured publications programme. However, recent months have witnessed a new outburst of publication of which the book on the laity is but the latest.

The Laity of the Church of Ireland 1000-2000 (Four Courts Press) has been edited by Dr Raymond Gillespie and the Revd Dr W.G. Neely bringing together contributions from distinguished academics and churchmen. It is a particularly challenging project in that it eschews the traditional approaches of institutional and narrative history in favour of attempting to describe what it meant to be a lay person in the Church of Ireland at different points in the Church's history.

A similar publication but with a larger theme is Christianity in Ireland. Revisiting the Story (Columba Press) edited by the Revd Dr Brendan Bradshaw and Dr Daire Keogh. Among the sequences in this edition likely to be of particular interest to Church of Ireland readers are Raymond Gillespie's article on "The religion of the protestant laity in early modern Ireland" and Dr Kenneth Milne's essay on "The Church of Ireland since partition".

A publication of a different nature is Dr Anthony Malcomson's comprehensive study entitled Archbishop Charles Agar. Churchmanship and Politics in Ireland 1760-1810 (Four Courts Press). As the title implies this is not merely an episcopal biography (Agar was successively Bishop of Clonfert, Bishop of Kilmore, Archbishop of Cashel and Archbishop of Dublin), although it is that, but also a study of the complex interweaving of the church and politics.

A more well known churchman, Jonathan Swift, is the subject of a recently published book by Christopher J. Fauske. Swift and the Church of Ireland (Irish Academic Press) is the first of two Irish ecclesiastical studies by the author whose William King and the Anglican Irish Context will be published by Four Courts Press early next year.

Tomorrow (Sunday) morning the Annual Citizenship Service will be held in Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin, where the Archbishop of Dublin, the Most Revd John Neill, will preach before the Lord Mayor and members of the City Council. Another example of city and cathedral cooperation will take place on Tuesday when the second series of autumn lunchtime history lectures begins in City Hall. The series theme is "Dublin City in the Troubled Times, 1913-1922" and the first speaker will be the journalist and historian, Mr Padraig Yates, on "Dublin and the 1913 Lockout".

The Bishop of Tuam, Dr Richard Henderson, will preach in St George's Church, Tubbercurry, at a Service of Thanksgiving for 150 years of St George's School which closed earlier this year. The music will be provided by the choir and organist of Seapatrick parish, Banbridge, Co. Down, with which the school formed a a link some years ago.

A service of thanksgiving on the 40th anniversary of the consecration of St Molua's parish Belfast, where the rector is the Revd David Humphries, will be held in the church at 6.30pm, when the preacher will be the Rt. Revd Harold Miller, Bishop of Down and Dromore.

On Monday in Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin, an Electoral College will meet to choose the next Bishop of Cashel, Ossory and Ferns in succession to the Most Revd John Neill.

On Wednesday evening in St Patrick's Church, Broughshane, the area ministry of healing service will be held, when the preacher will be the Very Revd John Bond, Dean of Connor. In Dublin a dream auction in aid of the restoration of All Saints Church, Phibsborough, Dublin, will begin in the parish hall at 7pm (for details of previews, contact 086 8305248).