Irish Times Notes28 Mar 25

Church of Ireland Notes from ‘The Irish Times’

COIHS Meeting

The Spring meeting of the Church of Ireland Historical Society will be held in the Armagh Robinson Library on Saturday, 5 April, beginning at 10.00 am with tea/coffee in 9 Vicars’ Hill. Registration will open in the Library at 10.30am.

The morning session will begin at 11am when Professor Alan Ford will speak on ‘St Patrick’s Purgatory in seventeenth–century Catholic and Protestant histories’. This will be followed by a talk on ‘The market cross of monastic origin: Armagh, Kells, Downpatrick and Clones’ by Ann Dolan, former senior conservation architect with the National Monuments Service of Ireland.

The afternoon session will begin at 2pm when Dr Colin Armstrong, a visiting research scholar at Queen’s University, Belfast, will speak on ‘Scholarship and controversy in the nineteenth–century Church of Ireland: Edward Hincks of Killyleagh (1792–1866)’, and the final lecture, at 3pm, will be given by Dr Ida Milne, from Carlow College, on ‘The Elmes letters: a Wexford Protestant family at the heart of 1798, and in the longue durée’.

Attendance is free to all paid–up members. Non–members can purchase a 1–day membership for €10/£10. The annual subscription is fixed at €40/£40 (student rate £15/€15). This includes admission to the bi–annual conferences, book discounts, and exclusive access to the Society’s recordings of papers delivered at previous conferences. Subscriptions for 2025 may be paid on the membership section of the Society’s website: churchofirelandhist.org

Queries may be addressed to the honorary secretary, Dr Miriam Moffitt, by email ([email protected]). Alternatively, you can visit the Society’s website for further information.

On Sunday at 11.00am on RTÉ 1 and RTÉ Radio 1 Extra, the Ven Ian Horner, Archdeacon of Kilmore, and Rector of the Bailieborough group of parishes in  Co. Cavan, will lead a service for the 4th Sunday of Lent / Mothering Sunday.

In the Diocese of Cork, Cloyne and Ross, on Sunday the Bishop, Dr Paul,Colton, will preside at commissionings throughout the Diocese of new Lay Assistants.

A Church of Ireland Rector in Clogher Diocese is undertaking a pilgrimage of a different kind by walking from his church in Fermanagh to St. Patrick’s cathedral in Dublin. The Revd Stephen McWhirter, Rector of Rossorry, will be walking from the landmark church on the outskirts of Enniskillen to St. Patrick’s cathedral, a distance of around 100 miles during two weeks in Lent. Not just any walk but in barefoot! He will leave after morning service in Rossorry on Sunday and finish in Dublin on Palm Sunday, 13 April, with distances varying from just a few miles to 11 miles.

The Friends of Christ Church cathedral, Dublin, will host a series of talks linked by the theme,’ Time’ in the Chapter House at 2pm on Friday afternoons. Today, Adrian Le Harival will speak on  ‘How Napoleon I Changed our Vision of Time’, and next Friday Hilary O’Kelly, from NCAD, will talk about ‘Fashion Essentials in History:Make–up, Haor and Underwear on Cathedral Monuments’.