Press Releases07 Mar 24

Archbishop John McDowell calls for renewed good relations across Irish Sea in City of London address

Archbishop John McDowell today called for new bonds of affection and friendship to be built between Britain and Ireland, with more living connections between the City of London and places and projects in Northern Ireland.

He made his remarks while preaching the Spital Sermon in the Guild Church of St Lawrence Jewry next Guildhall, at the Lord Mayor’s invitation, this afternoon (Thursday, 7th March).

“We remain in one another’s hands,” Archbishop McDowell stated, “And it is now more important than ever because, for all its achievements, the 1998 Agreement ended a war but did not consolidate a peace.

“Peacemaking and peace–building are two quite different enterprises and require quite different skills. One required back channels and constructive ambiguity and a staying of the hand. The other requires painful, open conversations in plain language that leads to the reaching out of the hand; and to a confidence that the voice and the hands are working together. Both require the courage to acknowledge that we are in one another’s hands and the wisdom to know that none will be secure until all are secure.”

The annual sermon has been a fixture in the City’s calendar since the late 14th Century and is preached by a bishop, who has been invited to do so by the Lord Mayor and the Court of Aldermen. It takes its name from the Priory or Hospital of St Mary Without Bishopsgate (otherwise known as St Mary Spital), which was founded in 1197, and the sermon was established to raise funds for the care of the hospital’s patients.

The archbishop’s address is in full below:

In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. In anim an Áthair, agus a Mhic agus a Spíorad Naomh.

First, of course, to thank the Lord Mayor for his very kind invitation to preach the Spital Sermon, and to Michael and Elizabeth for their very generous hospitality both last night and today.

I am particularly grateful that the invitation has come at this time when any opportunity for sympathetic conversations between the people of these two islands has never been more important. As we look out at the world today, who would want to be alone in it; who would not want to have close friends?  Who is not now convinced that in order to connect to prosper, we need also to connect to feel safe and secure?

We are, by definition, in one another’s hands.

The City of London is associated by people all over the world with a certain form of prosperity. Sometimes that financial prosperity had a healthy foundation and sometimes less so. I would suggest that the longer lasting that prosperity has been, the more likely that it had its beginnings in good relationships. Until not that long ago, no matter how complicated the contract or how elaborate the financial instrument, any deal was made better by a shake of the hand. That may not have been what made it legal, but it is what made it mutual and what made it human. It’s hardly a coincidence that the words peace and prosperity are usually joined together.

We are in one another’s hands.

In that Iron Age origin story we heard earlier about how a family were on the way to becoming a tribe, and eventually a nation, a mother used the hands of her favourite son to mislead and confuse her dying husband, the founder of the dynasty, and the man of faith. The voice was the voice of Jacob but the hands were the hands of Esau. One thing was said but another thing was done.  There are all sorts of reasons why the deception could be justified, after all Jacob was the stronger candidate as we would say. Dishonesty will always call in reason to justify its methods but the story is not included in the canon as an heroic tale but as a moral one.

We are in one another’s hands, and how we deal with one another will work itself out across the wide arc of history.

We are not far from St Patrick’s Day and I can identify fully with Patrick when he describes himself as “I, Patrick, a sinner and the most unlettered of men, the least amongst the faithful…” It can be rather terrifying to look up at the list of the Abbots and Archbishops of Armagh in the Cathedral and see Patrick’s name first on the list and, 105 later, my own at the end. It also helps give perspective.

Ireland was evangelised by British missionaries, including Patrick, whose spiritual children in turn re–evangelised much of Britain and many parts of Europe centuries later.  The most outstanding philosopher in Latin Christianity for its first 900 years was an Irish monk called John Scotus Eriugena. In those days, any reference to someone as Scotus meant that they were Irish.

There is a phrase, probably of Scottish origin, though now used by everyone in the north of Ireland – “through other” – which usually means untidy or dishevelled.  In one of his poems Seamus Heaney gave the phrase an alternative meaning – we are ‘through other‘ in the sense that we are mixed in with one another, genetically and socially interconnected. If that is true of people within Northern Ireland, it is also true of the people of Great Britain and the people of Ireland.

We don’t need to look back to the Middle Ages to witness this interconnectedness. Michael Mainelli has strong connections with Ireland and his two immediate predecessors, Vincent Keaveny and Nick Lyons are also Irish.  As it happens, one of the first serious books on Irish history I ever read was TW Moody’s treatment of the Londonderry Plantation by some of the City’s Livery Companies, and my daughter was enrolled for a time in the Honourable the Irish Society Primary School when I was an incumbent in Coleraine.

It was once said that the greatest unsung heroes of the Peace Process in Northern Ireland were the tax–payers of the South of England. Hands that gave because giving bought time to work out an end to that long period of tragic violence that many of us thought would never end.

We had great celebrations and reminiscences last year to mark the twenty–fifth anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement. And it was indeed a remarkable achievement of Anglo–Irish statecraft with a good portion of American assistance. And perhaps, in a way that will only be revealed on the Day of the Lord, an achievement of the quiet peacemakers in every city, and town and village.

As we have found out by subsequent events, that peacemaking was also facilitated by common membership of the European Union, and the time and trouble which it has taken to square the circle of the perfectly predictable difficulties which Brexit caused in this regard is the reason why Irish affairs have dominated public affairs in this country in a way which they hadn’t for many decades.  The absence of that institutional connection needs to be made up for through other means of cooperation and through bonds of affection and friendship.

We remain in one another’s hands.

And it is now more important than ever because, for all its achievements, the 1998 Agreement ended a war but did not consolidate a peace. Peacemaking and peace–building are two quite different enterprises and require quite different skills. One required back channels and constructive ambiguity and a staying of the hand. The other requires painful, open conversations in plain language that leads to the reaching out of the hand; and to a confidence that the voice and the hands are working together. Both require the courage to acknowledge that we are in one another’s hands and the wisdom to know that none will be secure until all are secure.

It was of great significance that the Lord Mayor’s first visit after his election last year outside this island was to Northern Ireland. You may also know that the King’s first visit outside Britain after his Coronation was similarly to Northern Ireland – this time to Armagh. It was an immense privilege to welcome him for a short, personal Service of Blessing by the Irish Church Leaders in St Patrick’s Cathedral.

It is well beyond my field of expertise to outline, particularly in a commercial sense, how co–operation across the Irish Sea can work to our mutual benefit. However, I can see how the bonds of affection can be strengthened if each of the great institutions of the City of London had a living connection with some place or project, in Northern Ireland.

And is it perhaps too self–serving to ask that when you hear the disparaging word, or see the shrug of the shoulders and the roll of the eyes when the island of Ireland is mentioned, that you say inwardly or outwardly that at least some of that burden is ours to help carry, because we are through other with them, and they are our friends and our neighbours. That we are in one another’s hands.

For it is in those little, out of the way intentions and deeds that peace is built or destroyed. Not by the “cunning hand” sometimes noted by the psalmist, nor often by the “mighty hand and outstretched arm”, except to deliver from slavery; but by the hand raised in blessing – because blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called the sons and daughters of God.

With thanks to Gerald Sharp Photography – sharpphoto.co.uk