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Please remember to support the Sale of Work in aid of the Friends of Christ Church which is being held in the concert hall of the Royal Hospital Donnybrook on Saturday 5 October from 10.30-12.30. Ample car parking is available.
The chapter room of the cathedral has a new carpet kindly donated by the Friends. It is in a marvellously dark green which shows the beautiful wood-panelling to best effect. The Friends are currently also renewing the old coffee dock in the crypt.
One of the most interesting and extensive visits of the Friends of Christ Church will be to Durham during October - from Friday 11 through Monday 14. The group will fly to Newcastle-upon-Tyne and thence by bus to Durham where an extensive tour of the city and a reception by the Friends of Durham will be a part of the weekend. We shall attend the cathedral Eucharist on Sunday morning. The addition to the tour is that we shall not be returning home until Monday evening. On Monday morning we visit Bamburgh castle high above the North Sea and then travel by boat to Holy Island or Lindisfarne. We hope the tides will be right so that our bus can meet us and drive us back over the causeway to Newcastle for the return flight to Dublin.
Once a year the worship of the cathedral grouped parishes is centred on the cathedral for a Sunday morning Sung Eucharist. The churches of the group do not operate that morning and instead all join in the cathedral's harvest thanksgiving services. The liturgy of the day is the normal cathedral rite but presented in a flexible way that involves congregations more used to total participation. The preacher at this year's harvest, on Sunday 6 October, will be the dean.
The Irish-born organ scholar seems to be a rare animal on the musical scene, so it was with particular pleasure that for the year 1995/96 we were able to award the post to Ian Mackrell. He came to us from Saint Elizabeth's, Dundonald, Belfast where members of the choir still make their complaints to the dean about our having stolen him from them. His year now successfully completed, he leaves us and has already achieved an appointment in Dublin where his degree in modern languages will serve him well. We hope he will not lose touch with us nor give up use of his musical talents.
Like Ian Mackrell, Ian Sexton comes to us as a post-graduate student. We give him a warm welcome to the cathedral where he just taken up the post of Guinness Organ Scholar for the year 1996/97. His year among us will be to develop his understanding of church music from the inside - by choir-conducting and organ playing and accompaniment during his time with us. After July 1997 Ian plans to undertake further musical studies, probably back home in England.
It scarcely seems a year since last we prayed for the city and its people and institutions. The annual service this year will be on Sunday 3 November at 10.45 a.m. This will be Archbishop Empey's first citizenship service with us and it is appropriate that he will be the preacher. Anyone wishing tickets for the service should send a stamped addressed envelope to the Cathedral Secretary not later than Monday 21 October.
The next meeting of the Church of Ireland Historical Society will be held in Christ Church on Saturday 9 November from 10.30 a.m. until 3.30 p.m. when the speakers will include Archbishop Henry McAdoo. Anyone wishing for membership or for further details should write to The Revd Dr William Neely. 31 Crossmore Road, Keady, County Armagh, BT60 3JY. At 4 p.m. at a reception in the crypt the second volume of the preparatory series prior to the publication of the cathedral history in the year 2000 will be launched: The Account Roll of the Priory of the Holy Trinity, 1337-1346, price £25.
The consecration of The Very Revd Dr Richard Clarke as bishop of Meath and Kildare has been one of the highlight services of recent months. Careful advance planning by Mrs Karen Seaman, Meath and Kildare diocesan secretary, in consultation with Allen Figgis and Carmel McCann, ensued that seating arrangements were well-nigh perfect. Under Allen's tutelage, the stewards stewarded people to their seats and towards their communion stations, and the collectors collected, so that dignity without fussiness ensued. Everyone commented on the simple beauty of the cathedral liturgy with its congregational hymns and litany which were combined with the magnificence of the choral music and the marvellous thunder of the bells as people gathered on the lawns in the autumn sunshine after the service. To Mark Duley (the bishop of Bangor was firmly told that could not take our choir back with him), Andrew Johnstone, Leslie Taylor and their bands of singers and ringers a great debt gratitude is due. Freddie McKeown and Barry Farrell, our vergers and servers Alison Finch and Caitriona and Vanessa Berman did their roles magnificently. Need one even say that The Revd Darren McFarland was a deacon almost in the mould of the Holy Orthodox Church! It was wonderful to see our archbishop so completely relaxed in what was his first episcopal ordination - as was true also in the case of the dean, who usually fumes on special occasions! The presentation of a special service such as this depends entirely on the fact that what we did on Saturday for, Bishop Clarke we do every Sunday and on many weekdays throughout the year. We try to make it our norm.
The Mothers' Union Festival Service was held on Thursday 19 September when the preacher was Archdeacon Gordon Linney who spoke on the importance of the role of the family in society.
The annual Primary and Junior Schools' Service is not just an annual event but is also one of the most pleasant and relaxing services in the cathedral during the course of the year. It was held on Friday 20 September and Archbishop Empey preached to the young people.
On Sunday 1 September the sound was stunning, sparklingly crisp, diction perfect, and not until one looked beyond the screen could one imagine that so much beauty and volume could come from five voices. The group was Zefiro, five singers with both past and present connections with the cathedral choir. They were Eimear Quinn (you've heard of Eurovision?), Rachel Talbot, Sarah Lane, Stuart Kinsella and Andrew Redmond.
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