Rathfarnham Parish Team Gets to Work in Swaziland; RCB Library Archive of the Month – The Gazette 1913 Online; Living Art at Belfast Cathedral; World Police & Fire Games Memorial Service; New Chaplain Arrives at The Mageough; The hell of Bethany House: One man’s story
Rathfarnham Parish Team Gets to Work in Swaziland
The Rector, Ted Woods, reports –
Rathfarnham Parish (Dublin) continued its active overseas involvement in practical mission projects by sending a parish team to Swaziland from July 6 to 19. The team of 22 was led by Rathfarnham clergy, the Revds Ted Woods and Anne Taylor, and the team of volunteers ranged in age from 16 to 70.
There were three aims in the project. The first was the repair and redecoration of as many classrooms as possible in Usuthu Mission School, Luyengo. And by the end of the period seven refurbished classrooms were handed back to the teachers and pupils to their delight and absolute amazement. By coincidence, one of the colours chosen for the classrooms was ‘Irish Spring’.
The other two aims of the project were to interact and share of skills with teachers and pupils, and to sponsor the building of a new kitchen for the school.
Members of the team worked alongside class teachers each morning and brought new ideas to the classes, particularly in the area of arts and crafts and games. Swazi children were fascinated to hear about Ireland and its way of life as were the Irish about Swazi customs.
The pupils in Usuthu Mission School number nearly 600 and are given a mid–day dish of mealy. This is cooked in three cauldrons under a wood fire. The pots are inside the building while the fire is lit under them from the outside. The heat generated cracks the bricks and plaster in time and kitchen walls separating the fire outside from the kitchen inside can disintegrate, as they had done in Usuthu.
Rathfarnham Parish were pleased to be able to sponsor the building of a new kitchen and even help in the mixing of cement and the carrying of blocks.
The team stayed in the Thokoza Anglican Centre in Mbabane, and had hired a mininbus and driver to take them on the 45 minute journey to and from the school each day, as well as an outing to Hlane Safari Park.
For the Rathfarnham team it was a particular joy to be working in one of the schools in the parish of the Ven Bheki Magongo who visited Ireland in 2011 and preached in Rathfarnham Church.
On the final day the new kitchen was blessed by the Bishop of Swaziland, the Rt Revd Ellinah Wamukoya, and the whole school put on a superb and colourful farewell ceremony of music and dance to say farewell to their new friends from Ireland.
The project was undertaken in conjunction with Us Ireland (formerly USPG) who arranged flights, accommodation and transport for the team. Us also organised the building of the new kitchen. Extra baggage allowance was also negotiated so that the team could bring out bags of children’s clothes to be distributed at feeding stations and a pencil case for every child from the school.
It was a memorable visit to a very beautiful country. In Debra Daly’s book, ‘The kingdom of Roses and Thorns’ a portrayal of the lives of five women in Swaziland, she says, “You will travel to Africa somehow believing that you will change it. But Africa will change you. It will capture your heart and keep a piece of your soul. You will always be drawn back to the beauty and mystique that is Africa.”
And that is certainly the experience of the Rathfarnham Parish team.
RCB Library Archive of the Month – The Gazette 1913 Online
Written and read by lay and clerical members of the Church of Ireland, the Gazette which has always been editorially independent, provides the longest–running public commentary on its affairs and as such is a recognised resource for understanding the complexities and nuances of Church of Ireland identity, both north and south, as well as the Church’s contribution to political and cultural life throughout the island.
Less well known may be that the RCB Library in Dublin holds the only complete run of ‘Gazettes’ – from the first issue in March 1856 and up to the present date which are bound up in hard copy volumes for each year where they remain an invaluable resource. Long considered to be the Church of Ireland’s weekly newspaper and the first port of call for researchers wishing to obtain an insight into the opinions and attitudes of members of the Church of Ireland through changing times, the Gazette is consulted on a daily basis by a wide range of people and for many diverse research interests.
To date, as far as the older volumes are concerned, this research has had to be done using the cumbersome hardcopies available in the RCB Library. An extensive run is also available at Armagh Public Library, which may be useful for readers in Northern Ireland, but this is not complete.
To demonstrate the potential of the Gazette as a research resource, and continuing its commitment to mark the Decade of Commemorations, the RCB Library is pleased to present all 52 editions of The Church of Ireland Gazette for the year 1913, in a fully searchable format online as the Archive of the Month for August, in collaboration with the Editor and Board of the Gazette.
All 52 issues of the Gazette for 1913 have been professionally scanned using Optical Character Recognition (OCR) by the service provider Informa, and via a sophisticated information platform are fully searchable online. Browsers may simply enter any key word or phrase of interest in the search box on the platform, and then view the list of relevant entries as they appear in chronological order, viewing each either as a single page, or in the wider context of the particular issue of the newspaper in which it appears.
Burning issues of the day such as Home Rule, the rise of the trade union movement and efforts to control it, women’s suffrage, educational change, children, the impact of the Ulster Covenant and formation of the Ulster Volunteer Force, as well as the darkening political situation on mainland Europe on the eve of the First World War and events further away, are all well covered and commented upon in 1913.
The ‘1913 pilot’ provides a valuable snapshot view of the Church of Ireland community 100 years ago. It is intended to demonstrate how technological advances offer radical alternatives to unlock hidden knowledge from all the other years in the 149–year run of weekly Gazettes from 1856 to 2005 (when it became available electronically). To complete the project, and cover all the years of publication, the RCB Library, in conjunction with the Gazette Board, is now investigating appropriate sources to digitize the entire collection, making an invaluable contribution to historical knowledge and enabling multiple readers to engage on–screen.
The online release of Thursday August 1 2013 can be viewed here:
www.ireland.anglican.org/library/archive
Living Art at Belfast Cathedral
Each Tuesday & Thursday from 1 – 27 August, the Cathedral will host artists who specialize in the traditional skills and work in the tradition media employed in the building of the cathedral.
The Cathedral has invited artists who specialize in: mosaics, sculpture, silver, calligraphy, stained glass, textiles, woodwork and stone.
The artists will exhibit their own work whilst exhibiting themselves for the day as they bring their work out of the studio and into the public space of Belfast Cathedral.
The first three visits are as follows:
Thursday 1 August – Dawn Aston who works in Mosaic. Dawn Aston is an experienced artist who graduated from Belfast College of Art with a BA Hons Degree in Fine Art.
Based in Co. Antrim, Dawn specialises in mosaics, paintings and portraits. She has exhibited regularly through the years and is also an experienced community artist.
An award winning garden designer, Dawn’s trademark mosaics are integral elements of her showgardens.
Dawn produces original artworks for sale and by commission.
“Mosaics although one of the oldest artforms are currently enjoying a worldwide Renaissance. I love the process of mosaic making and the richness and diversity of materials enable an exploitation of light and creation of vibrant images.”Tuesday 6
August – Diane Lyness who is a silversmith and goldsmith
Thursday 8 August – Paul Morris who is a stone mason
Please contact: paul@belfastcathedral.org for further details.
World Police & Fire Games Memorial Service
During the 2013 World Police and Fire Games, a special Memorial Service is being held at St Anne’s Cathedral, Belfast on Sunday 4 August 2013 at 6.30pm to remember colleagues, friends and family who have lost their lives on duty in the Fire, Police and Prison Services in Northern Ireland and beyond.
People from all faiths are welcome to attend the Christian Service to acknowledge the commitment, sacrifice and risk to all who maintain safety and justice in our local community. The Cathedral Girls’ Choir and the Belfast Community Gospel Choir will both be singing as part of the memorial service.
Dale Ashford, Assistant Chief Fire Officer, Northern Ireland Fire & Rescue Service said:
“As we welcome thousands of Fire, Police and Prison Officers from over 60 countries to compete in the 2013 World Police and Fire Games, it’s important that we take time to pause, reflect and remember our colleagues, friends and family, locally, nationally and globally, who have given the ultimate sacrifice and lost their lives on duty protecting their communities.
“We want to join with the relatives, friends and colleagues of the fallen Officers to show that their commitment to protecting their community has not and will never be forgotten. The Fire, Police and Prison Services in Northern Ireland work so hard to protect our local community and keep people safe and I hope that members of the public will join us in a poignant tribute to remember our fallen colleagues.”
The memorial service is free to attend and everyone is welcome to come and show their support but you must reserve your ticket in advance to attend.
To reserve your ticket, or if you have any questions about the service, please email MemorialService@2013wpfg.com or telephone 028 9260 0432. Each WPFG holds a Memorial Service to remember fallen colleagues during the Games.
New Chaplain Arrives at The Mageough
A new live–in Chaplain has taken up his post at the Mageough. The Revd Robert Kingston took his first service in the chapel on Sunday July 28.
A native of Cork, Robert is married to Rosemary. They have three married children, Christopher, Naomi and Miriam and six grandchildren in England and the USA.
Forty four years of ordained ministry have taken them to many different parishes and they come to the Mageough from Carrickmacross, Co. Monaghan where they have been based for the past six years. His interests include reading, woodwork, computers and classical music.
The hell of Bethany House: One man’s story
Irish Examiner – Paul Graham is angry: “I was born in that home through no fault of my own. I was abused in that State and the State was supposed to be regulating that, and they didn’t.”
Graham was 31 when he learned he had been adopted, but it was years before he knew the circumstances. was able to put all the pieces of his life’s puzzle together. “I used to cry when I saw kids being abused on the TV and I couldn’t understand why it affected me so much. My doctor also said my leaking heart valve was a sign I’d had malnutrition as a child, and my yellow teeth were a sign I hadn’t been getting the right stuff,” he says.
After Paul had emigrated from his native Belfast to Sydney in Australia, he began investigating his past. He had been born to a single mother in Dublin’s Bethany House.
“I was told, when I was applying for my passport to come to Australia, that I wasn’t a British citizen, just a British ‘subject’. It wasn’t until I found out I had been born in Bethany House that this made sense,” he says.
Graham, 74, is in the early stages of dementia, but recounts lucidly his childhood and the many awakenings he experienced along the way throughout his life. “My long-term memory is fine, I just can’t tell you what I had for dinner last night,” he says.
Paul’s journey of discovery began when he joined Alcoholics Anonymous. He drank to enter a sort of fantasy world, as a form of escape. “I wasn’t like other kids. I was always frightened. My adopted mother was a terrible woman. She ran a flower shop and had a car — a big deal in those days — but spent her time drinking. She used to get drunk all the time and she would beat me. At about 12 years old, she would wake me up at 1am to go out and get her whiskey. My father was bedridden, but my mother was about 30 years younger than him.”
Like many others who began their life in Bethany House, Paul was sexually abused as a child after he was adopted, Before he joined the Navy, he was sexually abused by an acquaintance of his mother’s. “He was a strong Protestant, went to his church every day, but that didn’t stop him doing what he did to me.” More at –
http://www.irishexaminer.com/lifestyle/features/the-hell-of-bethany-house-one-mans-story-238365.html