Irish Times Notes
Church of Ireland notes from the Irish Times
Swift Symposium in St Patrick's
Today (Saturday) the Dean of St Patrick's, Dr Robert MacCarthy, will host a symposium in St Patrick's Deanery on "Dean Swift: the Satirist and his Faith". The proceedings will be chaired by Professor Robert O'Mahony from the Catholic University of America and the speakers will include Anne Barbeau Gardiner and Michael DePorte from the USA, Ruth Herman from the University of Hertfordshire, and the well known writer on Anglo-Irish literature, W.J. McCormack.
Following the symposium a new book, Swift and the Church of Ireland, by Christopher J. Fauske, which has been published by the Irish Academic Press, will be launched.
The Swiftian celebrations will conclude tomorrow (Sunday) when, at Evensong in St Patrick's, Professor Mahony will give the annual Swift address. The service will be sung by the joint choirs of St Patrick's and St David's Cathedral, Wales.
Tomorrow (Sunday) the Bishop of Kilmore will preach at the Harvest Thanksgiving in St Patrick's Church, Broughshane, where the services will be conducted by the Dean of Connor, the Very Revd John Bond. In Dundrum Church, Co. Tipperary the Harvest Service, at which the Dean of Cashel, Dr Philip Knowles, will preach, will be the concluding event of a reunion of some sixty members of the Allison family from around the world.
In the Chapel of Trinity College, Dublin, the preacher at the Sung Eucharist will be the Revd Alan Moses, Vicar of All Saints, Margaret Street, London. In St Iberius' Church, Wexford, the Girls' Choir of Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin, will sing at the service to mark the opening of the Wexford Opera season and the Dean of Christ Church, Dublin, the Very Revd John Paterson, will preach.
In the evening in Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin, Canon Leslie Maconachie will preach at a Service of Thanksgiving to mark the 70th anniversary of the founding of the Church's Ministry of Healing by the late Canon Noel Waring in 1932.
On Monday the Primate will lead the delegation of Church of Ireland bishops who will attend the Celtic Bishops Conference in Wales. In Dublin, in the Church of Ireland College of Education, the AGM of the Church Education Society will begin at 7.45 pm.
The lunchtime history lecture in Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin, on Tuesday will be given by Dr Raymond Gillespie, NUI-Maynooth, who will speak on "The Prebend of St John". Copies of Dr Gillespie's acclaimed edition of the vestry records of St John's will be available at a special price.
On Thursday the lunchtime "I Believe..." talk in St George and St Thomas' Church, Cathal Brugha Street, Dublin, will be given by the newscaster, Anne Doyle, while in Trinity College Chapel Ms Esther Addley from The Guardian newspaper, will speak at the annual service to mark the opening of the academic year.
On Thursday afternoon in Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin, President McAleese, will launch a new book, The laity and the Church of Ireland: All Sorts and Conditions, which has been published by Four Courts Press. This volume of essays has been edited by Dr Raymond Gillespie, NUI-Maynooth, and the Revd Dr W.G. Neely, convener of the Church of Ireland Historical Society under whose auspices the book has appeared.
The occasion will also see the inauguration, for the state pew, of a hanging fall that will display the presidential crest, while there will also be an opportunity to view, in the crypt, the memorial to Lord Chancellor Bowes which has recently been restored by an anonymous donation received through the legal firm of Matheson, Ormsby, Prentice.