Irish Times Notes11 Dec 21

Church of Ireland Notes from ‘The Irish Times’

RCB Library On–line Resources

As the Decade of Centenaries moves towards a climax in 2023, the RCB Library has announced that thanks to support provided by Ms Catherine Martin TD, Minister for Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media, free public access to all its digital archives and exhibitions relevant to the Decade of Centenaries programme will continue to be available online until the end of 2033.

The resources available include the complete digital archive of the Church of Ireland Gazette, 1856–2010, the Church’s weekly newspaper which is available in full to read and search through this online portal: https://esearch.informa.ie/rcb

Also included are the Journals of the General Synod, recording the annual business of the Church, including motions, bills, and key speeches which have been digitized and made searchable for the period 1912–22, through this portal – https://esearch.informa.ie/rcb-jgs

Additionally, five existing online exhibitions examine various aspects of the Decade of Centenaries:

• The Birth of Partition: the Southern Experience Through the Eyes of the Church of Ireland Gazette;

• The Foundation of Northern Ireland: Two Jurisdictions – One Church;

• The centenary of the Easter Rising, when the Gazette’s editor, Ware B Wells, witnessed first–hand events as they unfolded in Middle Abbey Street, where the Gazette’s premises were located;

• The centenary of the General Convention, 1917–18, as the last time all–Ireland representatives (including church leaders) participated in political negotiations before Partition in 1921; and

• The centenary of the sinking of The Leinster in 1918.

To these a sixth exhibition, entitled simply: “Christmas 1921”, has just been added, focusing on events in Ireland at the end of the pivotal year, through the lens of the Church of Ireland Gazette and other sources available at the Library.

The continuance of advice to work from home if possible and a significant reduction in research slots in repositories makes the continuation of these on–line resources especially welcome. An indication of the sustained interest in the Church of Ireland among researchers is that there is only one research slot available in the RCB Library between now and Christmas.

Tomorrow (Sunday) at 11.10am RTE will broadcast a Church of Ireland Service of the Word from members of the dioceses of Meath and Kildare led by the bishop, Most Revd Pat Storey.

A Service of the Word on the theme of ‘worry’ with members of the Dioceses of Meath & Kildare, led by the Bishop, the Most Rev Pat Storey, will be broadcast on RTÉ radio and television tomorrow (Sunday) morning at 11.00am on RTÉ Radio 1 Extra and 11.10am on RTÉ One television.  It will also be available afterwards at this link.

The Dean of Belfast, the Very Revd Stephen Forde, will begin the annual Black Santa Sit–Out next Monday. People can visit the Cathedral and donate directly to the famous barrel either through cash donations or by contactless transaction. The Appeal website (www.belfastblacksanta.org) will accept online donations throughout the month of December.

On Tuesday the ever popular Peata Carol Service in aid of therapy dogs will be held in Christ Church cathedral, Dublin, at 1.15pm while on Wednesday at 6pm there will be an informal Christingle Service with the Girl Choristers.

Regular readers of this column may recall that last year the former Rector of Rathfarnham, the Revd Ted Woods wrote a murder mystery called Bishop. He has now produced another ecclesiastically themed mystery called Priest, which was launched last week by the Bishop of Liverpool, the Rt Revd Paul Bayes. Like Bishop it has been published by Beaten Track Publishing (www.beatentrackpublishing.com).