The customary competent and concise coverage in today’s edition
The carolling season is now in full swing with cathedral, community and parish events throughout the county in the coming week.
Today (Saturday) at 3.30pm there will be Ecumenical Community Carol singing in front of Dublin’s Mansion House organised by the Diocesan Council for Mission and the Archdiocese’s Office for Evangelism. The singing will be led by Cantairi Avondale and there will be seasonal reading by the Lord Mayor, Councillor Andrew Montague, Fr Kevin Doran, Secretary General of the International Eucharist Congress 2012, Rob Clarke of Spirit Radio, and Robert Dowds T.D. Later, at 4pm the local parishes in the Marlay Park area will hold a Community Carol Service in the courtyard of Marlay House, Rathfarnham, named after Elizabeth Marlay, daughter of the eighteenth century Bishop of Dromore, George Marlay.
Tomorrow (Sunday) at 5pm in St Canice’s Cathedral, Kilkenny, there will be a Service of Nine Lessons and Carols directed by the Cathedral Organist and Choirmaster, Malcolm Proud and his assistant David Forde. Similar services will be held in St Patrick’s Cathedral. Armagh, St Fin Barre’s Cathedral, Cork, and St Mary’s Cathedral, Limerick, which will have a retiring g collection in aid of the Society of St Vincent de Paul. In Dublin, at 3.15pm there will be a Service of Nine Lessons and Carols in St Patrick’s Cathedral for which tickets are not required while in Christ Church Cathedral there will be a service of Five Lessons and Carols at 3.30pm.
At 7pm the Dublin Civic Carol Service will be held in St Ann’s Church, Dawson Street. Among the readers will be the Archbishop of Dublin, the Lord Mayor, the Chief Justice, the Hon. Mrs Justice Susan Denham, Alan Smale (Director of the NSO) Deborah Kelleher (Director of the RIAM) and George Balmer (Chairman of the Laura Lynn Children’s Hospice).
On Monday evening the Archbishop of Dublin will preside at the Dublin & Glendalough Diocesan Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols will be held in Christ Church Cathedral. Admission is by ticket only and all the tickets have been allocated.
Today (Saturday) the annual ‘Black Santa’ Sitout for Charity outside St Anne’s Cathedral, Belfast, begins and continues until Christmas Eve. Begun by the late Dean of Belfast, Samuel Crooks, the tradition has been continued by his successors, Jack Shearer, Houston McKelvey and now by the new Dean of Belfast the Very Revd John Mann. The Dublin counterpart which takes place outside St Ann’s Church, Dawson Street, continues next week and on Thursday afternoon the parish clergy will be joined by the Archbishop of Dublin.
Tomorrow (Sunday) morning RTE Radio will broadcast a Service of Advent Readings and Carols with the Revd Darren McCallig, Church of Ireland Chaplain in Trinity College, Dublin.
On Friday the Archbishop of Dublin will participate in final session of King James Bible readings which are taking place in the Good Book Shop in Donegall Street, Belfast, to celebrate the 400th anniversary of the King James version of the Bible. This anniversary is also being marked in Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin, where the bi–lingual exhibition ‘the best of books/scoth na leabhar’, organized in association with Cumann Gaelach Na hEaglaise (Irish Guild of the Church, continues in the crypt.
On Friday evening at 5pm there will be a Blue Christmas service in St Canice’s Cathedral, Kilkenny.
Church of Ireland House, Dublin, and the RCB Library will close for the Christmas and New Year break on Friday 23rd December and will re–open on Tuesday 3 January 2012.