Diocesan News
Celebrations In Tullow To Mark 150th Anniversary
Alan Rhodes, the Revd John Tanner, Archbishop Michael Jackson, Canon Cecil Bryan, Canon Cecil Hyland and Canon Kenneth Kearon following the service of celebration to mark the 150th anniversary of Tullow Church, Carrickmines
Tullow Church, Carrickmines, was packed to capacity on Sunday 4 May for the service marking the 150th anniversary of the church. The service was celebrated by Archbishop Michael Jackson, who also dedicated gifts which had been given to the parish, with the Rector, the Revd John Tanner. They were joined by former Rectors Canon Cecil Hyland, Canon Cecil Bryan and Canon Kenneth Kearon with Lay Reader, Alan Rhodes.
In his sermon Archbishop Jackson outline the history of the church. He said the original parish church dated back to the 12th century but was subsumed into Monkstown. The influx of new residents to the area in the mid 1800s, as a result of the Harcourt Street railway line, created a need for a new parish. “There were the houses; there were the inhabitants; there were the commuters; there was, therefore, the need of the new parish church. This duly came in 1864. It is the celebration of this event that gathers us here this morning to mark 150 years of parish life in this ‘new church’,” he said.
Archbishop Jackson said that parishes largely kept to themselves but his recent request for all parishes in the United Dioceses would help build a picture of the dioceses as they are and how parishes and the dioceses might look in the future.
He suggested three simple steps which could be added to the parochial time table as members looked to the next 150 years as people seek to discern and distil the grace of the following generations.
Firstly, the Archbishop spoke about Daytime Discipleship and said “it is not possible to over–estimate the importance of living day by day as a disciple of Jesus Christ. This can be at home, where we work and everywhere we have a chance to influence for good the lives that others live and to learn from them ways in which we too can share life more and live it better.”
The second step he outlined involved Sunday Services. He pointed out that now just one in seven people who called themselves members of the Church of Ireland in Dublin and Glendalough go to church on Sunday. He said that soon churchgoing itself would be seen as a witness of significance and urged people to go to church. “We are free to worship and free not to worship… We make choices in a democracy. We do so because we are free to do it and it is a gift of ourselves that we give back to God freely,” he explained.
The third step is Community and Commitment. He said everyone had the opportunity to engage with their community with “heavenly generosity” every day “simply by radiating something of the presence of God in daily life”. He added that world mission connected people with others who they may never see but it was an act of trust and faith as well as being an act of helpfulness and practicality.
A large number of gifts were dedicated during the service. These included hymn books, prayerbooks, a closed loop hearing system, an electric piano, video/sound link with the parish hall, chalice and patten, a wedding candle stand, floodlighting, pew kneelers, a brass rail at the chancel steps, alter kneelers and chairs and tables for the parish hall.
Diocesan Communications Officer, Dublin & Glendalough
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Lynn Glanville
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