New Healing Chapel; CMSI Diocesan Evening; Clogher BCP Thanksgiving service; Mission supporters day;RCB Library – ‘Archive of the Month’ ; MEDIA REVIEW – NI welfare reform creating ‘fear’; Broadcaster to address public seminar on coping with bereavement
New Healing Chapel
A new Healing Side Chapel was dedicated on Sunday 28 October 2012, by Bishop Ken Good. The Healing Chapel is in St Peter’s Church, situated at the end of the Foyle Bridge (city side). St Peter’s has a long association with the Derry and Raphoe diocesan Ministry of Healing, with its Rector usually being Warden for the diocesan Ministry of Healing.
Bishop Ken Good was welcomed by the current Warden of the Ministry of Healing and Rector of St Peter’s, Archdeacon Robert Miller. He was joined by members of the parish ministry team Revd Katie McAteer, lay–readers Brian Seaton, Harriet Love and Linda Hughes and a sizeable congregation.
Archdeacon Robert Miller says the purpose of the diocesan Ministry of Healing is to “bring Christ’s healing presence to those in need; in body, mind or spirit and to promote and develop Christian healing ministry in the diocese”. Christian healing ministry is founded on the belief that it can work effectively in harmony with the medical and caring professions.
A spokesperson for the diocese said, “The vision of the Select Vestry of the Christ Church, Culmore, Muff and St Peter’s group is to be congratulated. Healing ministry has been a vital part of St Peter’s ministry for many years. This new side Chapel provides a lovely restful venue for healing services”
Healing Services take place in St Peter’s Church on the fourth Sunday of every month at 4.00 p.m. A warm welcome is offered to all members of the community to receive the ministry of laying–on of hands.
Archdeacon Miller is joined in the diocesan Ministry of Healing by an assistant Warden, Revd Carmen Hayes. Further information can be found on their website www.drhealing.org or on their Facebook page.
CMSI Diocesan Evening
In St Macartin’s Cathedral Hall, Enniskillen , Wednesday 14th November at 8.00pm, a special Diocesan Mission Evening, led by CMS Ireland. The evening will consider the importance of education in mission and will include stories of school projects in South Sudan, Kenya and Nepal. There will also be an update on CMS Ireland’s Annual Project resource, which aims to help children and young people explore the story of mission.
Clogher BCP Thanksgiving service
A Diocesan Service of Thanksgiving will be held in St Macartin’s Cathedral, Enniskillen to celebrate the 350th Anniversary of the Book of Common Prayer on Sunday 18th November at 7.00pm (The Second Sunday before Advent). The preacher will be Steven G. Ellis, BA, MA, PhD, DLitt, MRIA, FRHistS, Professor of History, Head of School of Humanities, NUI Galway.
Mission supporters day
Irish Church Missions is holding its annual Supporters’ Day in Magheralin Parish Hall in Magheralin, N.Ireland on Saturday 24th November.
The programme contains input from ICM mission partners and looks at the topic of how it does mission amongst the different people groups that make up society, North and South.
Topics include ‘Planting a church from Scratch’, and ‘Engaging with Islam in Ireland today’, as well as ‘How to reach a Nation’. The overall theme is ‘For His Glory’, recognizing that all that we do is for the glory of the Lord Jesus and His Gospel.
The programme begins at 10am, includes tea and coffee, and ends at lunch time.
RCB Library – ‘Archive of the Month’
Family historians with ancestry in the parish of Delgany and its vicinity in north Wicklow will be particularly excited by the launch of a new web link via the Church of Ireland website, where transcripts of the parish registers of baptism, marriage and burial from 1666 to 1900, together with an index of names, have been uploaded.
In an earlier national project that began in 2009, the RCB Library engaged positively and proactively with the Department of Arts, Heritage, and the Gaeltacht in the first stage of digitizing parish registers for the www.irishgenealogy.ie website, a state website ‘dedicated to assisting people worldwide to search for records of family history’. Both Roman Catholic and Church of Ireland church records have been digitized and are freely searchable for certain parts of the island. This has proved enormously beneficial to people starting out on their ancestral track, and also for the good of the records covered, because it reduces the wear and tear of original materials. The project was launched in 2010 in St Werburgh’s Church, Dublin.
To date, as far as Church of Ireland registers are concerned, all the city parishes in Dublin, as well as the counties of Carlow and Kerry registers lodged in the RCB Library, have now been digitized and are searchable online. As custodians on behalf of the state of Church of Ireland registers, the Library’s experience of the website has been very positive. Families who had previously searched unsuccessfully for years because they didn’t know of a parish origin, have suddenly found their elusive ancestors by being able simply to keying in a name and at the press of a button finding them amongst those registers digitized to date.
A continuation of the digitization project to cover more of the extensive and collection of parish registers available in the RCB would be highly beneficial to researchers worldwide and contribute substantially to the conservation of the original records. Until then, researchers looking for Church of Ireland ancestors must know of their parish of origin before coming to the Library to view the collections here, or visiting local churches, in cases where registers remain in local custody.
In the interim, registers published with an index by the RCB and others, as well as locally-produced transcripts and indexes of registers are of enormous value. In recognition of this contribution, the RCB Library has collaborated with Mark Williams, a regular Library visitor, who has worked heroically for almost two decades transcribing parish registers. Part of this work has resulted in the availability of these transcripts of the parish registers for Delgany featured as November’s Archive of the Month. Here for the first time, the project is introduced to a worldwide audience, along with the searchable pdfs of the Delgany registers. Further transcripts from the Anglican Record Project will follow in coming months.
From the RCB Library, Dr Susan Hood who co-ordinates the Archive of the Month initiative said ‘we are delighted to collaborate with Mark Williams to showcase his painstaking transcription work, and to further promote the invaluable genealogical information to be obtained from Church of Ireland registers. Beginning with the Delgany collection, we will continue with others covered by Mark’s Anglican Record Project in coming months’.
In response to the question ‘why do you do it?’, Mark Williams gives ‘four fundamental reasons: it makes the genealogical data more widely available; it also makes it more easily accessible; it protects the original registers from excessive handling and it preserves the information should the registers be damaged or destroyed’.’He adds that ‘a motivational clue is further to be found in the last verse of Psalm 100 “Jubilate Deo”…’
To view the Anglican Record Project and gain access to the Delgany register transcripts see: www.ireland.anglican.org/library/archive
For further information about the collections of parish registers in the RCB Library please contact:
Dr Susan Hood
RCB Library
Braemor Park
Churchtown
Dublin 14
Tel: 01–4923979
Fax: 01–4924770
E–mail: susan.hood@rcbdub.org
For information about Anglican Record Project please contact:
Mr Mark Williams
Email SWilli8922@aol.com
MEDIA REVIEW
NI welfare reform creating ‘fear’
BBC News – Proposed welfare reforms have created an “absolute fear” among the most vulnerable in society, church groups have told MLAs at Stormont. Representatives from the four main churches in Northern Ireland appeared before the Social Development … More at…
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-20132024
Broadcaster to address public seminar on coping with bereavement
Irish Examiner – Olivia Kelleher writes – The newly bereaved or members of the public who are struggling to cope with loss are being invited to attend a special presentation led by the author and broadcaster, Christy Kenneally, at University College Cork.
Johanna Fitzpatrick, organiser of the presentation, says for the last number of years, student counselling and the chaplaincy onsite have collaborated in order to provide support for bereaved students and staff. ”Participants in bereavement support groups report feelings of isolation and a sense of helplessness on the part of their colleagues and in the community, sometimes even within their own families, and they were appreciative of the support on offer. It was considered the next logical step to reach out to the wider community and present this evening with Christy Kenneally who is known for his wisdom, compassion and indeed humour in the area of bereavement.” Born in Cork in 1948,
Christy Kenneally is a veteran broadcaster and author of numerous publications, including the bestselling book, Living with Loss. More at…
http://www.irishexaminer.com/ireland/broadcaster-to-address-public-seminar-on-coping-with-bereavement-212351.html