Irish Times Notes12 Aug 23

Church of Ireland Notes from ‘The Irish Times’

Heritage Week

One of the realities of Church of Ireland life is that most churches are closed outside the hours of worship. A small, often scattered population and the fear of leaving an open building unsupervised means that many churches and their contents are rarely seen by the wider public. And there is much to see. Michael O’Neill’s recent book, An Architectural History of the Church of Ireland (available from https://store.ireland.anglican.org) has pointed up many of the Church’s architectural gems while David Lawrence’s splendid Gloine website (www.gloine.ie) has made available the rich heritage of stained glass.

But, of course there is no substitute for seeing the real thing and Heritage Week, which is under way, provides opportunities to visit many churches which are normally closed to visitors.

In Dublin, Christ Church cathedral is offering lunchtime tours at 1pm. On Monday Stuart Kinsella will give a tour of the cathedral, on Tuesday Rory Treanor will lead a tour of St Michan’s and on Wednesday Michael O’Neill will give a tour of Sr Werburgh’s. Places for these tours and for bell ringing and workshops must be booked at ruth.kenny@christchurch.ie

In St Patrick’s cathedral there will be lunchtime lectures at 1.15pm by Clark Brydon, Dr Ann–Maria Walsh, Aaron Hoey, Adrian le Harivel, and Dean Wiliam Morton. At 2pm there will be tours, while on Monday evening at 6.30pm Albert Fenton will give a lecture in the Order of Str Patrick on the 240th anniversary of its founding. For information about how to book, please visit the events page on the Cathedral website – www.stpatrickscathedral.ie

In north Co. Dublin the remarkable medieval church of St Doulagh at Balgriffen will be open today (Saturday) from 2pm to 6pm. This evening (Saturday) in Tashinny church. Co. Longford, Neil Moxham will give a lecture about the history of the church, the Gore family association, the Jan van Nost carved Annaly monument, and recent early Christian discoveries in the graveyard.

One of the things that draws people to churches in music. This evening at 7pm Simon Harden will give an organ recital in St Brigid’s cathedral, Kildare. In St Patrick’s cathedral there will be organ recitals at 7pm on Wednesday and Friday and on Thursday there will be a lunchtime recital in St Ann’s church, Dublin, where Jisun Min, Andrew Sheeran, Giammaria Tesei, Sokol Koka, and Adam Collins will perform Mendelssohn’s String Quartet No. 2 in A minor, Op. 13 and Schumann’s Piano Quintet in E flat, Op. 44.  Summer Music at Sandford continues in Sandford parish church, Ranelagh, on Friday at 1.10pm when pianist, Barbara Grzybek, will play music by Scriabin, Chopin and Prokofiev. In St Barrahane’s church, Castletownshend, Co. Cork, at 8pm, there will be a recital by pianist, John O’Conor, who will play works by Hayden, Schubert, Field, Scriabin and Beethoven.

Tomorrow (Sunday) morning the Bishop of Cork, Cloyne & Ross, Dr Paul Colton, will preach at the 150th anniversary of the consecration on this day in 1873, by Bishop John Gregg, of the Church of St Matthew, Aughadown.

The Church of Ireland’s central staff in Belfast, working for departments of the RCB and the General Synod, have moved to 18–22 Hill Street, in the city’s Cathedral Quarter, following the vacation of Church of Ireland House on Donegall Street. Members of staff working in the following areas are currently located at this new address – Board of Education (NI) & Transferor Representatives’ Council, Church of Ireland Press Office, Church of Ireland Youth Department, Safeguarding Office (NI) & Access NI vetting.