Irish Times Notes
Church of Ireland notes from the Irish Times
Swift Symposium in St Patrick’s
Today (Saturday) week, 18 October, in Dublin, there will a symposium in St Patrick’s Deanery on ‘Dean Swift: the Politics of Satire’ which will be led by a distinguished group of international scholars. The principal speakers will be Valerie Rumbold (University of Birmingham), Christopher Fauske (Salem State College, Massachusetts), Christine Gerrard (Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford) and Ian Higgins (Australian National University). The symposium will be chaired by Robert Mahony of the Catholic University of America and there will be a response by Claude Rawson from Yale University.
The symposium will be followed by a reception and book sale while on the following afternoon, Sunday 19 October, the address at the Annual Service in Commemoration of Jonathan Swift will be given by Professor Denis Donoghue from New York University.
A limited number of places are still available for the symposium and details may be had from the St Patrick’s Cathedral Office, tel: 01 4539472.
Today (Saturday) the Friends of Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin, continue their autumn tour to London where they plan to visit Hampton Court Palace, St Paul’s Cathedral and Westminster Abbey. The tour will culminate with Sung Eucharist, tomorrow (Sunday), in Southwark Cathedral.
Tomorrow (Sunday) morning RTÉ will broadcast a Family Eucharist from Zion parish church, Rathgar, Dublin, where the rector is the Revd Wilbert Gourley. In the afternoon in St Patrick’s Cathedral, Dublin, the Boy’ Brigade will hold its Annual Founder’s Thanksgiving Parade Service at which the preacher will be the Revd Anne Taylor, Curate of Rathfarnham.
In Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin, Mihai Cucu, from Romania, whose icons adorn the Lady Chapel, will hold an exhibition of icons, which are for sale. During his week long visit he will set up a studio in the crypt and it will be possible to watch him working.
On Tuesday the Archbishop of Armagh will be in London for the special meeting of Anglican Primates, called by the Archbishop of Canterbury, which will continue until Friday. This meeting will consider the crisis in the Anglican Communion over homosexuality, especially following the election of Canon Gene Robinson as Bishop Coadjutor of New Hampshire. The Archbishop of Dublin will preside at the Dublin and Glendalough Diocesan Synod which will be held in Taney Parish Centre on Tuesday and Wednesday evenings. The Cashel and Ossory Diocesan Synod will be held in Kilkenny on Wednesday and on Thursday the Ferns Diocesan Synod will take place in Enniscorthy.
On Wednesday afternoon the Executive Committee of the Representative Church Body will meet in Church of Ireland House, Dublin, and in the evening in St Fin Barre’s Cathedral, Cork, there will be an organ recital by Nicholas Johnson whose programme will include well-loved classics by Bach, Widor and Lemmens.
On Thursday afternoon in St Patrick’s Church, Monaghan, the first is a series of three services organized by the Church’s Ministry of Healing in the Diocese of Clogher will be held. The services will have a thematic approach and the preacher at each of them will be the former Bishop of Cork, the Rt Revd Roy Warke. In Dublin, the speaker in the ‘I Believe’ series of lunchtime talks in the parish church of St George and St Thomas, Cathal Brugha Street, will be Billy Swann.
A practical manifestation of the Church of Ireland-Methodist Covenant has been the appointment, by the Standing Committee, of the Dublin based Methodist, Dr Raymond Gillespie, to the Literature Committee. Dr Gillespie, who teaches history in NUI-Maynooth, has extensive experience of academic publishing and a wide range of contacts in the Irish publishing world.