Irish Times Notes
Church of Ireland Notes from The Irish Times
Holiday Reading
August is as close as the Church of Ireland gets to official holiday mode ? meetings are at a minimum, holidays are taken, and there are opportunities to catch up on important matters which have been deferred by the seemingly ceaseless insistence of the daily round. It is also a time, when those who are so inclined, catch up on some reading.
The highlight of the year has undoubtedly been the publication of the Book of Common Prayer which, very properly has spawned, a number of ancillary publications. The desire of our souls (Columba) by the Bishop of Down and Dromore, the Rt Revd Harold Miller, is a valuable guide to the new prayer book which leads the reader through the different services, especially the newer ones. An historical context for the new BCP is provided by The prayer books of the Church of Ireland (Columba), edited by Canon Brian Mayne, which is a booklet of four essays examining the evolution of the prayer book in Ireland between 1551 and 2004.
For those more interested in church history there is plenty of solid reading available among this year?s publications. Pride of place must go to two books by the Oxford historian, Dr Toby Barnard, which are as significant as they are substantial. Irish Protestant ascents and descents, 1641-1770 (Four Courts) and Making the grand figure. Lives and possessions in Ireland, 1641-1770 (Yale) have much to say about almost every aspect of the Protestant condition. They contain a wealth of detail which is astonishing and a breadth of understanding which is impressive. Two more specific studies will also repay attention. A history of music at Christ Church cathedral, Dublin (Boydell), by Dr Barra Boydell, brings to a conclusion his extensive examination of the cathedral?s musical life while, moving to the northern province, Dr Brendan Smith, the Bristol based medievalist, has edited The register of Nicholas Fleming, archbishop of Armagh, 1404-1416 (Irish Manuscripts Commission) which contains much valuable material for the history of the church at both a national and local level.
Some publications by Church of Ireland clergy combine aspects of history, theology and reflection. Most obvious in this category is On being a bishop. Reminiscences and reflections (Columba) by the former Bishop of Cork, the Rt Revd Roy Warke, while in a different vein Preached at St Patrick?s (Four Courts) edited by the Dean of St Patrick?s Dr Robert MacCarthy, is a selection of sermons and addresses given in the cathedral between 1660 and 2000. The most substantial theological work by a Church of Ireland cleric to be published this year is John?s gospel as witness (Ashgate) by Dr Alex Jensen, Lecturer in Divinity in the Theological College, while the runaway best seller has come from the pen of the evergreen Matthew Byrne, former Dean of Kildare, whose The day he died. The passion according to St Luke (Columba) made the Church Times? ?Top Ten Religious Books? list.
Tomorrow (Sunday) in Dublin the services in Christ Church Cathedral will be sung by the choir of All Saints Church, Wynnewood, Pennsylvania, while in St Patrick?s the visiting choir will be Appasionare from Cambridge.
On Tuesday the second in the series of lunchtime lectures associated with the exhibition ?The Christ Church Psalter in Context? will begin in the cathedral crypt at 1.15 pm. The speaker will be Professor Colm Lennon, from NUI, Maynooth, and he will discuss the Book of Obits which reads like a roll call of prominent civic and gentry families of Dublin in the late 15th and early 16th centuries.
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