Irish news

Bishop takes a leap of faith for Summer Madness; YWCA Records featured; Belfast By Moonlight; Memorial to Canon F K Livingstone; Student grant protests planned across the country today; ‘No case’ for replacing NI exam system; ‘Significant concerns’ over NI prisons

Bishop takes a leap of faith for Summer Madness

The Rt Revd John McDowell, Bishop of Clogher and President of the Church of Ireland Youth Department (CIYD), joined almost 140 others in hurtling down a 100 metre high Zip Line at Magheracross Car Park near Dunluce Castle on the North Antrim Coast in support of the Christian Youth Festival ‘Summer Madness’.

On Saturday 28th September 2013 hundreds of locals and holiday visitors were treated to a spectacular Zip Line experience, creating one of the most impressive spectacles on the North Coast this year.

The Summer Madness Youth Festival held the fundraising Zip Wire event more than 100 metres above the coastline below. Organiser, John Kee said ‘The stunning location was just begging for such an adventure and the weather turned the occasion into the most fabulous event we could have hoped for!’

YWCA Records featured

The RCB Library’s ‘Archive of the Month’ for October features an insight into the wide and varied nature of the materials which the RCB Library holds relating to the Young Women’s Christian Association (YWCA) in Ireland.

This collection may prove to be a treasure trove for researchers documenting many unusual aspects of the social, charitable and cultural life of late-19th and 20th-century Ireland. It is also likely to be a prime source for those engaged in women’s history.

The records of the YWCA in Ireland covering the period 1885-2007 were transferred to the RCB Library in 1998 from a temporary office in Bray, County Wicklow, and again in 2012 when a larger tranche of materials was transferred from the YWCA’s headquarters in Baggot Street, Dublin. The YWCA in Ireland was not exclusively a Church of Ireland organisation, but as many of its founding members and hard-working volunteers were, the decision was made to transfer this collection to the RCB Library where it has now been arranged and catalogued as MS 624 and a list of the records has posted on the website.

With the exception of personnel records and recent minutes that fall within the 40-year closure rule, most of the records are now available for consultation at the Library. Minutes, accounts, and correspondence of the central administration, which was initially a branch of the Executive Council of the YMCA in England and Wales, are complemented by records of various sub-committees, including the Jubilee, Centenary and 125th Anniversary – no shortage of celebration in the YWCA! More specific groups of records relate to the Foreign Department, the Missionary Fund and the Dublin Bible College. Records of individual houses and branches which were locally run reflect activity in Dublin, Belfast and Cork, Derry and Waterford and in some smaller locations such as Newcastle (Co. Down), Greystones, Borrisokane, Tramore and Portstewart.

Like similar organizations the collection includes acknowledgements from Buckingham Palace of the Association’s good wishes on royal births and marriages and condolences on royal deaths, the earliest of which acknowledges the good wishes sent to Queen Victoria on her visit to Ireland in 1900. However, not all relations with Britain were sweetness and light. In 1916 there was a row over the staging of a fund raising matinee in Drury Lane theatre in London which sought to raise £25,000 ‘to erect hostels, canteens and rest-rooms for munitions and other women war workers’. The Irish Council was opposed to this initiative because they viewed a stage play as a ‘wordly’ activity and at odds with the biblical teaching and evangelical basis of the Association. This led to the formation of an independent association – the YMCA Ireland in 1917.

www.ireland.anglican.org/library/archive

Belfast By Moonlight

Kabosh Theatre’s latest production, ‘Belfast By Moonlight’, written by Carlo Gébler, which will be performed in St. George’s Church, High Street, Belfast, as part of the Ulster Bank Belfast Festival at Queen’s.

The show is directed by Kabosh artistic director Paula McFetridge, with original music composed by renowned Irish composer Neil Martin, and features an all-female cast and choir.

The show will run from the 18th – 31st October. www.kabosh.net
Belfast Festival website: http://www.belfastfestival.com

Memorial to Canon F K Livingstone

On Sunday 22nd September a memorial to the late Canon F K Livingstone was dedicated in St Michael and All Angels’, Castlecaulfield (Diocese of Armagh), where Canon Livingstone was rector from 1983 until his retirement in 1992. A matching memorial was also installed in St Patrick’s, Donaghmore, and dedicated the same morning. Both memorials were kindly provided by Holmes of Dungannon.

Student grant protests planned across the country today
The protests come as the USI attempt to mobilise a voting block of 50,000 students in a database by the local and European elections next year.

http://www.thejournal.ie/student-fees-1107175-Oct2013/

‘No case’ for replacing exam system

There is no case for replacing A-levels or GCSEs in Northern Ireland in the short or medium term, a report to Stormont suggests.

‘Significant concerns’ over prisons

Inspectors say they have significant concerns about the performance of two of Northern Ireland’s prisons.

DAILY NEWS