Irish Times Notes05 Sep 25

Church of Ireland Notes from ‘The Irish Times’

COIHS Autumn Conference

The autumn conference of the Church of Ireland Historical Society will be held in the Music Room of Christ Church cathedral, Dublin, on Saturday 27 September beginning with coffee and registration at 10.30am.

The morning session will begin at 11am when Michael Flaherty, a postgraduate student in TCD, will speak on ‘”I fear it will be impossible to keep the parish out of debt any longer without help”: the declining footprint of the Church of Ireland in Kildare and West Wicklow, 1900–1950’. He will be followed by Professor Philip O’Regan, from the University of Limerick, on ‘Archbishop King, Dean Swift and the “pursuit of advantage”’.

The afternoon session will begin at 2.00pm when Dr Patrick Little, Assistant Editor at the History of Parliament Trust in London, will speak on ‘Going underground: the Church of Ireland, 1649–1660’.

At 3pm meeting there will be a launch, by Professor David Hayton, from Queen’s University, Belfast, of The Church of Ireland Under the Stuarts, edited by Dr Patrick Little. The book was published earlier this year by Four Courts Press. It will be available at a special conference price of €40/£40 (full price €55/£55). 

Attendance is free to all paid–up members. Non–members can purchase a one–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. Subscriptions may be paid on the membership section of the Society’s website: churchofirelandhist.org

Lunch will be available in the Music Room at a cost of £10/€10.

Queries may be addressed to the honorary secretaries, Professor Alan Ford or Dr Miriam Moffitt, by email ([email protected]).

The new academic year in CITI commenced last Monday, 1 September, with a meeting of all those involved in the MTh teaching team. Topics for discussion included possible accommodations for Neurodiverse and Dyslexic Learners in a continuous assessment course. Beginning today  (Friday) there will be the annual Introductory weekend, which will include an induction to the course, a visit to the RCB Library, safeguarding training sessions, lectures on Church Governance, Church Leadership, and academic writing skills. Semester 1 teaching commences on 15 September and across its two primary training pathways, residential and non–residential, CITI is delighted to be welcoming eleven new students.

The second night of the 2025 Kildare Choral and Organ Festival will take place in St Brigid’s cathedral this evening (Friday) at 7.30pm. It will feature a solo performance from Irish organist Simon Harden, who lectures in organ performance at the TU Dublin Conservatoire and is Organist and Director of Music at Christ Church cathedral, Waterford.

Holy Trinity church, Killiney, on Co. Dublin’s Killiney Hill Road, will be open to visitors on Thursday from 2pm to 4 pm.

On Thursday the Archbishop of Dublin will be in Canterbury for a two–day symposium on ‘Sustainability and Spirituality: Building Ecologies of Hope’ at which he will deliver a paper.