300th Anniversary of Swift Becoming Dean of St Patrick’s; Marie’s journey from teaching to taking services; Irish anti-abortion vigil at Knock; Brady Intervention; Catholic bishops made five mistakes in their opposition to abortion legislation
300th Anniversary of Swift Becoming Dean of St Patrick’s
A series of events is planned to take place in June to celebrate the tercentenary of Jonathan Swift becoming Dean of St Patrick’s Cathedral, Dublin.
The Swift 300 festivities run from June 4 to June 18 and highlights include walks, talks and music from his time culminating in a Festival Evensong at which the Archbishop of Armagh, the Most Revd Dr Richard Clarke, will preach.
A number of themed Swift Walking tours will take place on Thursday June 6 and 13 and on Saturday June 8 and June 15. The tours will last two and a half hours and will depart from the Tourist Information Centre on Suffolk Street. The cost is €10 per person of €8 for students and seniors and includes a visit to St Patrick’s Cathedral. Further information is available from www.walkingtours.ie.
An exhibition entitled Swift’s Time Capsule featuring survivals from the World of Jonathan Swift will run in Marsh’s Library from June 4 to June 18. On display will be objects that belonged to Swift or were associated with his life and work as Dean of St Patrick’s Cathedral. Admission to the exhibition is €2.50 or a joint ticket to Marsh’s and St Patrick’s will cost €6.50 for the duration of the exhibition.
A free themed walking tour by acclaimed historian Pat Liddy takes place on June 14 at 4.00 pm. Entitled Let’s Walk & Talk: Jonathan Swift – A Giant in a Literary Lilliput, the tour will take in many place associated with the great man. En route participants will hear about his work and life in a Dublin divided by excesses of wealth and poverty. The tour is part of Dublin City Council’s community initiative, Let’s Walk & Talk and departs from the Bell Tower in the Main Square of Trinity College Dublin.
An evening of music, recitals and readings – Swift in his own Words – takes place in St Patrick’s Cathedral on June 14 at 6.00 pm. The story of Swift’s time at the Cathedral will be told through readings from his work and correspondence with music and images from the period featuring Eamonn Lalor, the Revd Adrian Empey, June Rogers and the DIT Irish Traditional Music Ensemble. This event is free of charge.
The Festival Evensong will commemorate the 300th anniversary of Jonathan Swift’s installation as Dean on Sunday June 13 1713. The preacher will by the Archbishop of Armagh and this will take place in the Cathedral on Sunday June 16 at 3.15 pm.
For further information see www.stpatrickscathedral.ie.
Marie’s journey from teaching to taking services
In its new Faith feature, the New Letter last week carried an article on a retired teacher who had become a Clogher Reader.
WhenBelfast-born former headmistress Marie McCordick retired from a lengthy spell in the teaching profession in 1988, she decided that she wanted to apply the skills which had helped her forge out a successful career to something else.
And as an avid church goer and eloquent orator, it seemed a given that she would become more involved in ecclesiastical life.
Today, she is both a diocesan lay reader and diocesan pastoral assistant for the Clogher diocese.
Marie, who is 80, explains: “As a lay reader, I may take services throughout the diocese of Clogher but I may not take communion or baptism, I may only assist.”
And as a pastoral assistant, she is trained in offering pastoral support to people from churches where there is no rector.
“I’m originally from Belfast,” says Marie, who now lives outside Kesh, Co Fermanagh, and attends St Michael’s Church of Ireland, Trory.
Before moving west, she had been an attendee and treasurer of St Donard’s Church of Ireland in east Belfast.
“I found it very difficult to retire and not do as much as I had been used to doing – in other words not working 18 hours of out of 24,” says Marie.
“I had a caravan in Castle Archdale in Co Fermanagh and I enjoyed going to it, so I thought, ‘why not move to Fermanagh?’ Continued at:.
http://www.newsletter.co.uk/marie-s-journey-from-teaching-to-taking-services-1-5053679
Irish anti-abortion vigil at Knock
Cardinal Sean Brady, the Catholic Primate of All Ireland, calls on 5,500 people at an anti-abortion prayer vigil in Knock to oppose new legislation.
Read more:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-22412162
Brady Intervention
Irish Independent report –
Catholic bishops made five mistakes in their opposition to abortion legislation
The Catholic Church teaching on abortion still holds – but the bishops are opposing the proposed legislation the wrong way, writes Fr Tony Flannery. Read more:
http://www.thejournal.ie/readme/column-tony-flannery-catholic-church-abortion-897260-May2013/