Irish Times Notes04 May 19

Church of Ireland Notes from ‘The Irish Times’

Church drawings exhibition

Next Tuesday evening in the Irish Architectural Archive, 45 Merrion Square, Dublin, the Archbishop of Armagh will officially open ‘A Visual Window to an Ecclesiastical World: The Church of Ireland’s Architectural Drawings’. This is an exhibition of a selection of 19th and 20th century drawings of churches and glebe houses which is drawn from the extensive collections in the Representative Church Body Library in Dublin which is the Church of Ireland’s library and archive. It has been curated by the architectural historian, Dr Michael O’Neill and is one of the events commemorating the 150th anniversary of Disestablishment.

The exhibition is one outcome of the recently completed project to digitize, catalogue and make available online the Church of Ireland’s collections of some 9,000 architectural drawings of churches and glebe houses in the RCB Library. Sustained commitment from the Church’s central funds and specific donations from particular dioceses has enabled this huge project, which began in 2011, to be brought to fruition. The work has been assiduously carried out for the RCB by Dr O’Neill who from time to time has reported on the progress of the project through the RCB Library’s ‘Archive of the Month’ presentation, back issues of which can be viewed on the Church of Ireland website.

Church buildings are the most visible reminders of the presence of the Church of Ireland throughout the country. While many are still used as places of worship others have been converted to libraries, exhibition centres, and domestic houses, while others still have become romantic ruins occupying long neglected sites in rural Ireland. All these buildings are part of the stories of communities, vibrant or departed, and have much to tell about the societies which formed them. As such they represent an invaluable resource for the history of the Church of Ireland.

The results of the project are now freely available for viewing and searching here and together with the Gloine project, in which Dr David Lawrence catalogued the Church of Ireland’s stained glass windows, represents a substantial contribution to making available to a world wide audience some of the cultural riches of the Church of Ireland.

BBC Radio Ulster’s Morning Service tomorrow (Sunday) will be broadcast from St Nicholas’ church, Carrickfergus, at 10.15am.  The preacher will be the Ven George Davison, Rector of Carrickfergus and Archdeacon of Belfast, and the service will be available online afterwards here.

At 11am the Patronal Festival of St John the Evangelist church, Sandymount, will be celebrated when the preacher will be Archdeacon Gordon Linney. The Bishop of Clogher will be in St Mark’s church, Aghadrumsee, to mark the beginning of a year’s celebration of its 200th anniversary.

On Wednesday morning the Archbishop of Dublin will attend the annual celebration of 1916 Arbour Hill Commemoration Ceremony at the Church of the Sacred Heart. In the evening at 7.30pm the Armagh Mothers’ Union Diocesan Festival Service will be held in St Patrick’s cathedral.

2019 marks the 175th anniversary of the opening of St Michael’s church, Pery Square, situated in the heart of Limerick’s Georgian quarter. St Michael’s was designed by the Pain brothers and has the oldest functioning pipe organ in Limerick which was built by Telford and Telford in about 1845. As a highlight of the celebrations there will be a celebratory concert at 8pm on Friday featuring international opera singers Majella Cullagh and Owen Gilhooly with the Aoide Choir. Tickets and more information are available from St Mary’s Cathedral, Bridge Street, Limerick: cathedral@limerick.anglican.org / 061 3102.