CHURCH OF IRELAND NOTES
For Saturday 4th September 1999
From: The
RCB Library
Email: RCB Library
Centenary of Belfast Cathedral
Tomorrow (Sunday) in St Anne's Cathedral, Belfast, the Archbishop of
Armagh, Dr Robin Eames, will be the preacher at a Service of
Thanksgiving to mark the centenary of the foundation of the cathedral.
The service will also be a thanksgiving for the completion of a £2
million refurbishment programme which has included the landscaping of
the precincts, repairs to the windows, re-wiring, and the laying of a
marble pavement in the quire. St Anne's Cathedral is in many ways a
mirror image of Belfast City Hall testifying in stone to the social and
economic development of Belfast in the late nineteenth century. It was
built on the site of the late eighteenth century parish church of St
Anne which continued as a place of worship as the new cathedral was
erected around it. The foundation stone was laid on 6 September 1899 and
by the end of September 1903 the work was sufficiently far advanced to
demolish the old parish church.
The style of the new cathedral was Hiberno-Romanesque which it was
believed would make it easier to build in stages. And so it was to be -
the nave was completed in 1904, the west front in 1927, the apse and
ambulatory in the 1950s, and the transepts in 1974 and 1981.
Today (Saturday) in Arklow the Centenary Flower Festival in St
Saviour's parish church continues. It will close tomorrow (Sunday) with
an Ecumenical Harvest Thanksgiving Service at which the preacher will be
the Archdeacon of Glendalough, the Ven. Edgar Swann.
Tomorrow (Sunday) BBC Radio Ulster will broadcast Morning Service
conducted by Canon Noel Batty, Rector of St Finian's Church, Cregagh, in
Belfast, while at 6.00 p.m. on Dublin South Community Radio (FM 104.9)
programme "Vision" there will be an interview with the
Dean-Elect of St Patrick's Cathedral, Dr Robert MacCarthy. In Christ
Church Cathedral, Dublin the Cathedral Choir, under the direction of
Mark Duley, returns to duty after a summer break which included a
successful tour to New Zealand. There will be an Open Day at St
Patrick's Church, Enniskerry, with a varied programme of worship, music,
talks and exhibitions.
In Belfast on Tuesday the Archbishop of Armagh will address a meeting
of Anglican Communication Officers from Britain and Ireland in Queen's
University and on Wednesday he will be in Dundee to preside at the
meeting of the Anglican Communion Finance Committee.
On Thursday the Bishop of Meath and Kildare, Dr Richard Clarke, will
be at St Deniol's Library, Hawarden, North Wales, to speak at a five day
course on "The Future of the Church - Anglicanism in a Post-Modern
World". The title of Dr Clarke's lecture will be "Lambeth,
Virginia, and the Anglican Image".
Monday is the beginning of National Heritage Week when there will be
much on offer from the Church of Ireland. The two Dublin cathedrals,
together with those in Leighlin, Killaloe, Cork, Kilkenny, Waterford,
Ferns will offer guided tours, while there will be exhibitions in
Marsh's Library in Dublin and the Bolton Library in Cashel. In Dublin
there will be a series of events highlighting the role of St Audeon's
Church in Cornmarket, and the Vicar of St Audeon's, Canon John Crawford,
will give a talk in St Patrick's Cathedral on Wednesday evening on
"The Parishes of St Patrick's Cathedral". In the Dublin Civic
Museum, 58 South William Street, the Representative Church Body
Library's exhibition "Dublin City Churches
Re-visited", which celebrates the history of the Church of
Ireland parish churches in the inner-city, continues. The Dublin Civic
Museum is open 10.00 - 6.00, Tuesday to Saturday and 11.00 - 2.00,
Sunday. Admission is free.
Church of Ireland Notes appear in the Irish
Times whose web site may be found at
http://www.ireland.com/ |
