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Church of Ireland Notes from ‘The Irish Times’

Bishop of Cork & Centenaries

Visitors to St Fin Barre’s cathedral, Cork, may notice a ‘neutral’ space in which they’re invited to pray and reflect on some of the most harrowing events in recent Irish history. It’s part of the Diocese of Cork, Cloyne & Ross’s ‘Centenaries, Commemoration and Reconciliation Project’. Anniversaries which some feared might sow division are instead being reimagined as opportunities for reconciliation.

The Bishop of Cork, Dr Paul Colton, has been reflecting on the subject of commemorating events from 100 years ago in an interview with Paul McFadden for the ‘Journey in Self–Belief’ project in Maynooth University. Growing up in Cork, Bishop Colton came to know “very intimately” the stories of some of the things that happened there and also of stories being told in different ways by different people and became aware of some of the complexity of the period.

As a Protestant in Cork, the young Paul Colton became conscious of difference: “We didn’t put out a papal flag on Corpus Christi – we were about the only ones on the road who didn’t. And then you happen to be at your friend’s house, at teatime, and as a seven–year–old you’re talking away and then you look around and you realise they’re all quiet because it’s the time of the Angelus. So, I grew up fascinated by interaction with this difference, and it sort of compelled me towards understanding and ecumenism.”

Returning to Cork as Bishop, in 1999, “in the run–in to the Decade of Centenaries,” he decided that the Churches should get involved. “As Churches, we’re told by Saint Paul that we’re entrusted with the ministry of reconciliation. So, whatever we’re doing – whether it’s within ourselves, with our neighbour and even, most challengingly, with our enemy – reconciliation is a watchword.”

“There’s something of that, too, in my own family story,” the Bishop disclosed. “The Coltons only came to Ireland in the late 19th century as part of what was then ‘the Army’, and they all served. In contrast, my wife’s family were from north west Cork, and they were very close to some of the things that went on during this very period. They were living within a stone’s throw, for example, of Kilmichael.

“It’s not that long ago, a hundred years, so that’s why there’s a rawness still for some people, because people want to be loyal to their own, and yet people have also made a journey, themselves, to something new, and I see that in my own children as well.”

From 2014 to 2018, St Fin Barre’s became a World War One remembrance space. In 2016, Dr Colton and the Dean of Cork, the Very Revd Nigel Dunne, worked with the Western Front Association and local people to humanise commemoration of the Battle of the Somme: “So, that space then fulfilled that purpose during those four years.”

Creating space for the War of Independence and Civil War periods has proved more problematical. Evidently, there are still people carrying hurts generations later: “There are certainly people who don’t want to talk about it. One parishioner said to one clergyman here, ‘Tell the Bishop to leave well alone’, you know. Let’s just be delighted where we are now, don’t go digging things up, we don’t want to do that.’ I have to respect that, too. I have to respect the silence.”

Dr Colton is the Convenor of the General Synod’s Historical Centenaries Working Group. For a full transcript of his interview see this link.

::irishtimes:;

 

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