Added on 21/01/2012

Saturday 21 January 2012

Retirement of Dean of St Patrick’s
The Very Revd Dr Robert MacCarthy will retire from his post as Dean of St Patrick’s Cathedral, Dublin, and from the stipendiary ministry of the Church of Ireland next Wednesday. He will preach his final sermon as Dean at Evensong tomorrow (Sunday). The service will be streamed live at www.churchservices.tv/stpatrickscathedral.

Robert MacCarthy trained for the ministry in Ripon College, Cuddeson, Oxford, but was ordained in the Church of Ireland for the curacy of Carlow in 1979 where he served under the influential Archdeacon of Leighlin, the Ven. Andy Willis. He returned to Oxford in 1981 to join the staff of Pusey House and was a  Fellow of St Cross College, subsequently serving as curate and team vicar in the parish of Bracknell. In 1986 he returned to the Church of Ireland as Bishop’s Vicar in Kilkenny where, among other things, he actively promoted St Canice’s Library and was involved in the Kilkenny Arts Week with the late Dean of Ossory, the Very Revd Brian Harvey. Incumbencies in Castlecomer and Galway preceded his election in 1999 as Dean of St Patrick’s where he had been a canon from 1994.

His election to the deanery prompted speculation of a return to the Swiftian style of the office in contrast to the genial and unhurried style of his predecessor, Dr Maurice Stewart. In this, Dr MacCarthy did not disappoint and much has been made of his controversial statements as Dean. However, rather less has been written of his many acts of kindness, of his care for the sick and the elderly, especially those in hospital, of the generosity of his hospitality in the Deanery and of his careful stewardship of the fabric and fittings of  St Patrick’s. But then, deans, like other holders of high office in the Church, cannot, with integrity, be all things to all men. It has been seen as both a strength and weakness of Dr MacCarthy that he not tried to be so.

Next Tuesday the Standing Committee of the General Synod and the Executive Committee of the Representative Church Body will meet in Church of Ireland House, Dublin.

On Thursday the Bishop of Derry will be the keynote speaker at ‘Volunteers Transforming Community’ in the Derry & Raphoe Diocesan Office. This is a special event to highlight how volunteering and working for the common good can transform communities. It has been organized under the auspices of the Diocese of  Derry & Raphoe, the GAA, Voluntary Arts Ireland and City Church, Belfast. In St Macartin’s Cathedral, Enniskillen, here will be a lunchtime Healing Service.

On Friday evening the Archbishop of Dublin will open an exhibition, ‘Christ Church Restored’ in the Irish Architectural Archive in 45 Merrion Square, Dublin. The exhibition, which has been originated by the architectural historian, Dr Michael O’Neill, a member of the Christ Church Cathedral Culture Committee, tells the story of the restoration of the cathedral in the 1870s by the eminent architect, George Edmund Street. The exhibition has been mounted in the context of an appeal to restore the fabric of Christ Church . The most urgent concern is the tower which holds the Christ Church bells, so much an integral part of the Dublin New Year celebrations, and the first phase of the fundraising campaign will seek to raise €1million for the tower project. During February there will be a series of lunchtime lectures entitled ‘Restorations of Christ Church’. Admission to the exhibitions and the lectures is free.