Irish Times Notes
Church of Ireland Notes from 'The Irish Times'
Saturday 5 September 2009
Palatine Anniversary Celebration in Co. Wexford
The 300th anniversary arrival of the German-speaking Palatine community in Co Wexford will be commemorated at a special service in St Mary’s Church, Old Ross, at 7.30 pm next Wednesday.
The service has been organised by the Revd Lynne Rogers, priest-in-charge of the New Ross Union of Parishes and local historians Bernard Browne and Nicky Furlong. The preacher will be Canon Patrick Comerford, Director of Spiritual Formation in the Church of Ireland Theological Institute.
At the beginning of the 18th century, more than 13,500 German-speaking Lutherans were forced to flee religious persecution in the Rhineland-Pfaltz. About 13,500 refugees from the Palatinate were first offered the opportunity to settle in the English colonies in North America. However, this proved to be impossible financially, so they were offered lands in England and Ireland, and a German Palatine settlement was consolidated at Old Ross in Co Wexford.
Like the Huguenots before them, many of these Protestant immigrants from Continental Europe were eventually assimilated into the Church of Ireland, and are remembered through Palatine family names such as Rynehart, Altimas, Hartrick, Jacob, Poole and Frizell. More about these and other Palatine families and settlements can be learned from Patrick O’Connor’s account of the Irish Palatines, People Make Places.
Tomorrow (Sunday) morning the Archbishop of Dublin will preach at the Boys Brigade Thanksgiving Service in SS Philip & St James’ church, Booterstown. In the evening he will be in St Columba’s College where he will preside at the commissioning of a new chaplain, the Revd Nigel Crossey who is returning to the Church of Ireland after a period as an army chaplain.
In the afternoon in St Anne’s Cathedral, Belfast, there will be a service to mark the new legal year. This is an initiative of the Lawyers’ Christian Fellowship and members of the judiciary, the Bar Library and the Law Society have been invited. The preacher will be the Very Revd Dr Hugh Kennedy, Administrator of St Peter’s Cathedral, Belfast.
On Tuesday the Archbishop of Burundi, the Most Revd Bernard Ntahoturi, will pay a courtesy call on the Archbishop of Dublin at the See House in Temple Road.
The Dean of Clonmacnoise, the Very Revd Robert Jones, will be the celebrant at a St Ciaran’s Day Eucharist in Templeconnor Chruch, Clonmacnoise, on Wednesday at 11am. St Ciaran is venerated as the founder of Clonmacnoise, one of the great early Christian sites in Ireland. However, from a Church of Ireland perspective, the site also includes a working church and it is hoped that this ministry will continue unimpaired if the nomination of Clonmacnoise as a UNESCO World Heritage site is successful.
The Dublin Simon Community was founded in 1969 when a group of students from TCD and UCD began providing much-needed soup and sandwiches to people who were sleeping rough in Dublin city centre. Now forty years later, the ‘Simon’ still provides the Soup Run, 365 nights of the year, as well a range of services to reflect the contemporary needs of people who are homeless in Dublin.
In order to mark this important anniversary the Anglican Chaplaincy in TCD has organised a fundraising concert in College Chapel next Thursday at 8pm, featuring Opera Theatre Company's Young Associate Artists and special guest, Virginia Kerr, in an evening of operatic favourites. Tickets for the concert and pre-show reception priced at €30 are available from the Revd Darren McCallig, The Chaplaincy, House 27, TCD. (cheques payable to "Chapel of Trinity College") Tel: (01) 896 1402. Email: [email protected]