Irish Times Notes
Church of Ireland Notes from 'The Irish Times'
Saturday 5 February 2011
Church of Ireland College of Education Celebrations
This year the Church of Ireland College of Education celebrates the bicentenary of the founding in 1811 of the Kildare Place Society, the charitable organization in which the present-day college has its origins. The opening event of the year of celebration took place on Thursday 27th January with the launch of Irish Children’s Literature: New Perspectives on Contemporary Writing edited by Valerie Coghlan and Keith O’Sullivan, published by Routledge. The publication looks critically at Irish writing for children from the 1980s to the present, examining the work of many writers and illustrators and engaging with major genres, forms, and issues, including the gothic, the speculative, picturebooks, religion, ethnicity, and globalization. It contextualizes contemporary Irish children’s literature in relation to Irish mythology and earlier writings, as well as in relation to Irish writing for adults, and fills a gap in the critical study of this exciting topic. Both Valerie Coghlan and Keith O’Sullivan are on the staff of the Church of Ireland College of Education. The contributors to the volume are all established academics based in Ireland and abroad.
CICE Publications, based in CICE, has published an 18-month calendar to celebrate the bicentenary. It reflects 200 years in the history of Irish education and of CICE. Material from the college archives and scenes from present-day college life are colourfully illustrated in this two-page to a month calendar which also contains interesting information about the history of CICE. The calendar may be ordered from The Library, Church of Ireland College of Education – [email protected].
Further events marking the bicentenary will be held throughout 2011, including a conference in October on the history of reading and children’s books. More information about future events is available on the College website - www.cice.ie.
Tomorrow (Sunday) there will be Services of Thanksgiving for the renovation of St Patrick’s church, Donaghmore, Co. Tyrone, where the rector is the Revd Peter Thompson. In the morning there will be a Eucharist of Re-hallowing with Dedication of Gifts at which the celebrant and preacher will be the Archbishop of Armagh, and in the evening the Bishop of Clogher will preach at Evensong.
A series of spring sermons, devised by the Church of Ireland Chaplain, the Revd Darren McCallig, begins tomorrow (Sunday) morning in the Chapel of Trinity College, Dublin, in the context of the 10.45am Choral Eucharist. The series, entitled “Seeing Salvation: Art and the Search for the Sacred”, will explore the link between art and the transcendent. Over the course of six Sundays a range of speakers will explore a well-known painting and what it might have to teach us about the spiritual life. Tomorrow (Sunday) morning Linda Chambers, Director of USPG Ireland, will speak about “The Washing of the Feet” by Sieger Köder.
Next Friday evening, at the invitation of the Duke and Duchess of Abercorn, there will be a dinner in Belle Isle Castle in aid of the Holy Land Medical Relief Fund. The Fund emerged as an urgent response to the need for medical equipment in the Holy Land following three very successful pilgrimages there from the Diocese of Clogher. To date almost £70,000 has been raised and the Neo-natal Unit in St Luke’s Hospital, Nablus, has been completely refurbished and half of the equipment for the Cardiac Clinic in Ramallah has been purchased. The dinner will provide further funds for the purchase of essential hospital equipment. Donations may be sent to the Bishop of Clogher, The See House, 152a Ballagh Road, Fivemiletown, Co. Tyrone BT75 0QP.