Irish Times Notes15 Apr 17

Church of Ireland Notes from ‘The Irish Times’

Digitization of the Gazette

Further funding to continue the process of digitizing and indexing the Church of Ireland Gazette has been committed from central Church funds to support an ongoing project, managed by the RCB Library, in collaboration with the Editor and Board of the Gazette.

Funding from the General Synod Royalties Fund, with match–funding from the RCB’s Allocations Committee, will see further editions of this primary source systematically digitized, indexed and made searchable online. Over the next two and a half years, in the build–up to 2019, when the Church of Ireland will mark the 150th anniversary of disestablishment, the content of the paper from its foundation in 1856 up to the 1920s will be made available digitally.

In the latest tranche of work just completed, all editions the Gazette for the 11–year period between 1900 and 1911 have been added to the system, so there is now a complete run of editions for the period from 1900 to 1923.

In this context, April’s Archive of the Month – which is the work of Library Administrator, Robert Gallagher – focuses on some of the stories making the headlines 100 years ago in April 1917. In that month, much of the content was dedicated to coverage of the First World War. Writing under the initials of ‘W. B. W’, Ware Bradley Wells, the newspaper’s editor, continued his weekly column entitled ‘The War Week by Week’ with Wells reporting more encouraging news of the Allied war effort. For example, the 5th April edition of the Gazette reports on the discovery of ‘The Hindenburg Line’, a German defensive position on the Western Front, from Arras to Laffaux, near Soissons on the Aisne.

The advertisement content of the Gazette continues to provide particularly rich insight to the stories of the day. The 1917 adverts were heavily influenced by the war, with numerous appeals for aid and relief. The Irish Women’s Association and the Royal Munster Fusiliers Prisoners of War Fund both sought donations in order to send care packages to prisoners of war. The only exception was the cover of the 13th April edition, which featured an appeal from the Serbian Relief Fund. Other appeals for aid are found elsewhere in each issue, a striking reoccurring one being an appeal from the Syria and Palestine Relief Fund, urgently seeking £50,000 to help victims of famine in Syria and Palestine – a particularly sobering theme when considered alongside current events in that part of the world.

The issues of the Gazette for April 1917 provide unique insights not only into the Church of Ireland and its perspective on the world in 1917, but also into the burning issues of the time. Full analysis plus access to the online search engine covering all editions between 1900 and 1923 is now available through the April Archive of the Month slot here: www.ireland.anglican.org/library/archive

On Easter Day the bishops, by tradition preach in their diocesan cathedrals, In St Patrick’s cathedral, Dublin, the preacher will be the Dean, Dr William Morton, and in St Anne’s cathedral, Belfast, the Dean of Belfast, the Very Revd John Mann, will preach his last Easter sermon in St Anne’s. Later in the year he will be instituted as Team Rector of the parishes of Swanage and Studland in the diocese of Salisbury.

The 2017 series of ‘Music in Calary’ concerts begins on Easter Monday evening at 8pm in Calary parish church, Co. Wicklow. Young local musicians from Comhaltas will give a special concert as part of County Wicklow’s Creative Ireland programme. Booking details at derekneilson@eircom.net