When the meek are blessed along with all the saints who are silenced and forgotten

Saints and Martyrs … the ten martyrs of the 20th century above the West Door of Westminster Abbey (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

Sunday 1 November 2020

All Saints’ Day

The Readings: Jeremiah 31: 31-34; Psalm 34; 1-10; Revelation 7: 9-17 or I John 3: 1-3; Matthew 5: 1-12.

May I speak to you in the name of God, + Father, Son and Holy Spirit, Amen.

All Saints’ Day is one of the 12 Principal Feasts of the Church set out in the Book of Common Prayer.

One of the great hymns celebrating this day is ‘For all the saints, who from their labours rest’ (Church Hymnal, 459), written by Bishop William Walsham How (1823-1897).

The saints recalled in this hymn are ordinary people in their weaknesses and their failings. In its original form, it had 11 verses. The verses extolling ‘the glorious company of the Apostles,’ ‘the godly fellowship of the prophets’ and ‘the noble army of martyrs’ were inspired by the canticle Te Deum.

The name of the tune, Sine Nomine (‘Without Name’), written by Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872-1958), refers to the great multitude of unknown saints, the sort of people praised by Christ in our reading of the Beatitudes this morning (Matthew 5: 1-12).

The writer of this hymn, Walsham How, spent time in Rome as chaplain of the Anglican Church there, All Saints’ Church. When he became a bishop, he was known as ‘the poor man’s bishop.’ He died in Leenane, Co Mayo, in 1897 while he was on holiday in Dulough.

His hymn vibrates with images from the Book of Revelation. The saints recalled by ‘the poor man’s bishop’ are ordinary people who, in spite of their weaknesses and their failings, respond in faith to Christ’s call to service and love, and who have endured the battle against the powers of evil and darkness.

The heart of the hymn is in the stanza that sings about the unity of the Church in heaven and on earth, ‘knit together in one communion and fellowship, in the mystical body of … Christ our Lord.’ Despite our ‘feeble struggles,’ we are united in Christ and with one another in one ‘blest communion’ and ‘fellowship divine.’

This morning’s Gospel reading, with its praise of people weighed down in their ‘feeble struggles,’ is the most familiar account of the Beatitudes.

In an interview some years ago, Father Brian D’Arcy told how Dorothy Day once spoke of how people regularly confess to ‘breaking’ one of the Ten Commandments, but wondered how often they confess to ‘breaking’ one of the Eight Beatitudes.

The Beatitudes are so familiar that we all understand the irreverent humour found in a scene in Monty Python’s The Life of Brian.

‘Blessed are the Meek’ – which means the humble, patient, submissive and gentle – is misheard in The Life of Brian as: ‘Blessed is the Greek – apparently he’s going to inherit the earth.’ When they finally get what Jesus actually says, a woman says, ‘Oh it’s the Meek … blessed are the Meek! That’s nice, I’m glad they’re getting something, ’cause they have a hell of a time.’

The political activist and agitator Reg then says: ‘What Jesus blatantly fails to appreciate is that it’s the meek who are the problem.’ This sums up the growing annoyance of the violent with the peaceful attitude of Christ. But it also highlights that the Beatitudes are about ordinary, everyday people, the people who were the priority in his hymn for the ‘Poor Man’s Bishop.’

Too often we see the saints celebrated by the church as martyrs and apostles, missionaries and hermits, bishops and theologians. How often do we see them as ordinary, meek, everyday people, the people who too often are dismissed as problems, who are living with problems, who often go without attention from politicians and activists alike?

The mother and child separated at birth in the ‘mother and baby’ home and blocked at every stage as they tried to find each other. Watching Catherine Corless on the Late Late Show on Friday night, I wondered at how the sinners had been turned into saints while the saints were those who were sinned against and labelled as sinners.

The middle-aged mother who hopes that life is going to get better as the years move on, but then finds instead every waking hour is devoted to an adult child with special needs, or to an elderly parent who now needs to be looked after like a child.

The couple filled with faith but afraid to come to church, marginalised because of their colour, class, language or sexuality.

The lone protester who stands outside a government office or embassy, ignored by those inside and berated outside by passing, hooting motorists, but who knows right is on her side … ‘Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness.’

Think for a moment of who your forgotten, silent, even silenced saints are among ‘the glorious company of the Apostles’ and ‘the godly fellowship of the prophets.’

Are they unnamed among ‘the noble army of martyrs’?

In our New Testament reading (Revelation 7: 9-17), Saint John in his vision sees a great multitude, a countless number from every nation, tribe, people and language, gathered before the Lamb on the throne.

They have come through a great ordeal, the final testing. Now they are before the throne of God, the Lamb of God, ceaselessly celebrating the celestial liturgy in God’s presence. No longer will they suffer or hunger, and ‘God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.’

But if the Church is a sign of the Kingdom of God, a foretaste of that heavenly liturgy, how does our life as the Church, in the parish and in the diocese, offer solace, comfort, a foretaste, hope for the meek, the downtrodden, the lonely, the oppressed, who are praised in the Beatitudes and who are invited as part of the great multitude, the countless number from every nation, tribe, people and language, to gather before the Lamb on the throne?

‘Blessed are the poor in spirit … those who mourn … the meek … those who hunger and thirst …’

May theirs be the kingdom of heaven, may they be comforted, may they inherit the earth, may they be filled.

‘Blessed are the merciful … the pure in heart … the peacemakers … those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake …’

May we be generous in showing mercy, may we see God, be called children of God, find ourselves in the kingdom of heaven.

Blessed are we even when others revile us for standing up for these values … when we stand up for those values, may we rejoice and be glad.

And in those struggles, we are ‘knit together in one communion and fellowship, in the mystical body of ... Christ our Lord.’ In our ‘feeble struggles,’ may we rejoice in being united in Christ and with one another in one ‘blest communion’ and ‘fellowship divine.’

And so may all we think, say and do be to the praise, honour and glory of God, + Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Amen.

The Berliner Dom in Berlin, popularly known as Berlin Cathedral … the images inside the dome illustrate the Beatitudes (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Matthew 5: 1-12 (NRSVA):

1 When Jesus saw the crowds, he went up the mountain; and after he sat down, his disciples came to him. 2 Then he began to speak, and taught them, saying:

3 ‘Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
4 ‘Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.
5 ‘Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.
6 ‘Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.
7 ‘Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy.
8 ‘Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.
9 ‘Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.
10 ‘Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
11 ‘Blessed are you when people revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. 12 Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.’

All Saints’ Day … the Lamb on the Throne surrounded by the angels and saints

Liturgical Colour: White.

Penitential Kyries:

Lord, you are gracious and compassionate.
Lord, have mercy.
Lord, have mercy.

You are loving to all,
and your mercy is over all your creation.
Christ, have mercy.
Christ, have mercy.

Your faithful servants bless your name,
and speak of the glory of your kingdom.
Lord, have mercy.
Lord, have mercy.

The Collect of the Day:

Almighty God,
you have knit together your elect
in one communion and fellowship
in the mystical body of your Son Christ our Lord:
Grant us grace so to follow your blessed saints
in all virtuous and godly living
that we may come to those inexpressible joys
that you have prepared for those who truly love you;
through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Introduction to the Peace:

We are fellow citizens with the saints
and the household of God,
through Christ our Lord,
who came and preached peace to those who were far off
and those who were near (Ephesians 2: 19, 17).

The Preface:

In the saints
you have given us an example of godly living,
that rejoicing in their fellowship,
we may run with perseverance the race that is set before us,
and with them receive the unfading crown of glory …

Post-Communion Prayer:

God, the source of all holiness
and giver of all good things:
May we who have shared at this table
as strangers and pilgrims here on earth
be welcomed with all your saints
to the heavenly feast on the day of your kingdom;
through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

The Blessing:

God give you grace
to share the inheritance of all his saints in glory …

‘The Tree of the Church’ (1895) by Charles Kempe … a window in the south transept of Lichfield Cathedral shows Christ surrounded by the saints (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Hymns:

466, Here from all nations, all tongues, and all peoples
459, For all the saints, who from their labours rest

The saints before the Lamb of God on the Throne … the Altar in Saint Patrick’s Church, Ballyragget, Co Kilkenny (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Scripture quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicised Edition copyright © 1989, 1995, National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide. http://nrsvbibles.org

Material from the Book of Common Prayer is copyright © 2004, Representative Body of the Church of Ireland.

Christ the Pantocrator surrounded by the saints in the Dome of the Church of Analipsi in Georgioupoli, Crete (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Ballyragget Castle A ‘sleeping giant’ with hidden potential

Ballyragget Castle, once the principal residence of the Mountgarret branch of the Butler dynasty (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

Ballyragget Castle stands beside the village, close to the SuperValu supermarket, and just 100 metres from the banks of the River Nore. It is a ruined square tower house, with a defensive wall with corner towers, but it once provided excellent views of river traffic and the surrounding countryside and was strategically important for the Ormond Butlers along the northern lines of defence of Kilkenny Castle.

Ballyragget is about 18 km from Kilkenny, on the N77 road to Durrow, and two of us stopped to see the castle and parish church late last week on our way from Kilkenny to Askeaton.

Ballyragget is said to take its name from Richard le Ragget, a local Anglo-Norman leader who owned the land in the 13th century.

However, the castle is of a much later date. Popular stories in the area say it was built about 1485 by Lady Margaret FitzGerald, who that year married Pierce ‘Ruadh’ Butler (1467-1539), 8th Earl of Ormond.

A stone bench at the top of the castle is called ‘Lady Margaret’s Chair’ and is also known as the ‘Wishing Chair.’ The older people in Ballyragget said that if you sat in the chair your wish would be granted.

Enda Houlihan, in his BEd thesis, ‘Ballyragget Castle, Co Kilkenny, a history and comparative analysis,’ argues that this tower house was not an addition to an earlier castle but is an original construction from the late 15th century when it became important strategically because of the prevailing, fragile political situation between the Earls of Kildare and Piers Ruadh Butler, whose wife was a daughter of Gerald FitzGerald, 8th Earl of Kildare.

Lady Margaret is said to have made Ballyragget Castle her favourite residence, and one account says ‘she often indulged in the turbulent and freebooting practices more suitable to an unprincipled Amazon than to a lady and often issued from the castle, at the head of her retainers, and plundered the cattle and other property of neighbouring families whom she was pleased to view as not belonging to the circle of her friends.’

The second son of Piers Ruadh and Margaret, Richard Butler (1550-1571), was the Keeper of the Castle of Ferns, Co Wexford, and became the 1st Viscount Mountgarret in 1550.

He inherited Ballyragget Castle, and for more than two centuries this castle was the principal residence of the Mountgarret branch of the Butler family.

A secret orchard seen through a breach in a wall in the grounds of Ballygarret Castle (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Ballyragget Castle is basically 44 ft by 31 ft in size, according to Canon William Carrigan’s history of the Diocese of Ossory. The walls are about 7.5 ft thick and all the doors are of cut stone, probably limestone.

This five-storey castle consists of a large tower-house complete with crenellations and surrounded by a substantial bawn. It once had handsome cut stone windows, the four round towers that defend it are looped in order to command the surrounding lands, a look-out turret rises above the parapet in the north-east corner of the keep.

The fine arched entrance in the west wall is now blocked up but was protected by a machicolation. There is a machicolation in the middle of the south wall and the south-west corner tower was turned into a shrine to the Virgin Mary. The flanker at the south-east corner has a squinch containing a latrine chute. Local people say a dungeon stretches from the castle to the river.

According to Enda Houlihan, Ballyragget Castle ‘was a formidable and imposing structure, militarily and politically.’ From the 16th century on, Ballyragget Castle gained in military importance and in prestige, and it was the main defensive structure and fortified keep north of Kilkenny Castle.

An urban centre grew up around the walled fortifications. This became a prosperous town and gave the Butlers a military presence in an area previously unmarshalled. In this way, the castle and the people who lived in and around it were firmly tied to the shire of Kilkenny.

The castle became the seat of the Mountgarret branch of the Butlers of Ormonde, who used it as a defence and to raid the adjoining territory of the MacGiollapadraig or FitzPatrick family.

Richard Butler (1550-1571), 1st Viscount Mountgarret, was succeeded in 1571 by his eldest son, Edmund Butler (1562-1602), 2nd Viscount Mountgarret, who also inherited Ballyragget Castle He remodelled the state room, which was fitted with a massive cut-stone chimney piece, inscribed with his initials and the date: ‘EM 1591.’

But the castle also became the base for revolt in the late 16th century when Edmund Butler’s sons revolted against the crown and supported the Ulster rebels. Ballyragget was attacked and captured on three separate occasions, and Sir George Carew garrisoned the castle in 1600 against the Mountgarrets.

Edmund’s fifth daughter, the Hon Eleanor Butler, married Morgan (Murrough) Mac Bryan Kavanagh, of Borris, Co Carlow, and their daughter Grany (Graine) married John Comerford of Ballybur Castle, Co Kilkenny.

Edmund’s eldest son and successor, Richard Butler (1578-1651), 3rd Viscount Mountgarret, married Lady Margaret O’Neill, daughter of Hugh O’Neill, Earl of Tyrone.

A blocked up window in Ballyragget Castle (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Ballyragget Castle seems to have been abandoned, at least temporarily, by the Mountgarrett Butlers in the early 17th century. But the third viscount returned to Ballyragget Castle, and King James I granted him a charter in 1619, making Ballyragget a manor, with two annual fairs.

Edmund Mountgarret was the President of the Confederation of Kilkenny (1642-1648). After his death, Colonel Daniel Axtell held the castle during the Cromwellian era. Local lore says Axtell had one of the Butlers of the castle tortured and killed for not disclosing where the Mountgarret treasure was buried, and that he hung Catholic and Protestant royalists on the Fair Green in Ballyragget while laughing on from the castle.

Edmund Butler (1595-1679), 4th Lord Mountgarret, was restored to his lands after the Caroline Restoration in 1660. Bishop Carrigan noted that two sets of corbels in the same wall as the east entrance and other marks on the wall indicate a very large house or mansion was built against it but has since been demolished.

The Battle of Ballyragget took place in the shadow of the castle in 1775, involving the largest ever assembly of Whiteboys in Kilkenny, including 300 horsemen and 200 on foot.

However, the Mountgarret branch of the Butler family continued to live in the castle until 1788, when Edmund Butler (1745-1793), 11th Viscount Mountgarret, moved to Ballyragget Hall, a house close by. His son, Edmund Butler (1771-1846), 12th Viscount Mountgarret, later became Earl of Kilkenny.

The present owners of Ballyragget Castle have planted beautiful alder trees along the avenue leading up to the castle which is just about visible if one peeks through the corrugated iron gates.

Ballygarret Castle could be put to good use, but remains a sleeping giant (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

The Ballyragget Heritage Festival Group would like to thank Patrick Comerford for allowing us to publish his article, including photographs. The full article is available here: https://www.patrickcomerford.com/2018/09/ballyragget-castle-sleeping-giant-with.html

This illustrated feature is published in Ballyragget Heritage Festival, From Tullabarry to Béal Átha Raghdad, pp 5-8. Until restrictions related to Covid-19 were introduced yesterday, the second annual Ballyragget Heritage Festival was due to take place from today (13 March 2020) until Tuesday, Saint Patrick’s Day (17 March 2020).

How the best laid schemes of priests and people go awry, from Killaloe to Myanmar

The Hedgehog in Lichfield reopens next week … I’m still hoping to stay there the week after next (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2019)

Patrick Comerford

The best laid plans of mice and men often go awry. No matter how carefully a project is planned, something may still go wrong with it. Or, as the poet Robert Burns wrote in ‘To a Mouse’:

The best laid schemes o’ mice an’ men Gang aft a-gley.

The new restrictions on travel and events because of Covid-19, the Corona Virus, were having an impact on my diary before they were extended by the government today.

I had been invited to preach at the installation of the Revd Rod Smyth as Dean of Killaloe and the Revd Paul Fitzpatrick as Dean’s Vicar in Saint Flannan’s Cathedral, Killaloe, Co Clare, tomorrow evening (13 March 2020). But it looks as though Ireland is going into virtual lockdown from this evening until 29 March, and tomorrow’s planned service – and sermon – were cancelled earlier today, and the formalities for their appointments will be completed privately.

I have written a four-page feature on Ballyragget Castle, Co Kilkenny, in the programme of the Ballyragget Heritage Festival, which was due to begin tomorrow evening, has been postponed, although the programmes have been distributed throughout the neighbourhood.

I was also invited by the Dublin Council of Churches to preach at an ecumenical service in Saint Patrick’s Cathedral, Dublin, on Saint Patrick’s Day next Tuesday (17 March 2020), but this was cancelled yesterday afternoon.

I was also planning to travel to Myanmar the following Monday (23 March 2020) to represent the Anglican mission agency USPG at celebrations marking the fiftieth anniversary of the formation of the Anglican Church in Myanmar, the Church of the Province of Myanmar. But this has been cancelled too.

In preparation of this planned visit to Myanmar, I had a full briefing in London last week on the sidelines of a meeting of trustees of USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel).

The Church of the Province of Myanmar is a full member church in the Anglican Communion, and there are over 70,000 Anglicans in a country of about 50 million people. The church is celebrating the fiftieth anniversary of its formation, originally as the Church of the Province of Burma, in 1970. It became the Church of the Province of Myanmar when the country changed its name in 1989.

The Anglican presence in Myanmar owes much to the presence of USPG (then SPG) for over a century and a half and throughout the 19th and 20th centuries.

There was a strong Anglican presence in Burma throughout the colonial period. The first Anglican priests came to Burma in 1825 not as missionaries but as army chaplains. The great majority of the Anglo-Burmese and Anglo-Indian communities were also Anglicans and there were many Anglican-run schools too, including Saint Mary’s, Maymyo, and Saint Michael’s, Mandalay.

USPG, which was then SPG (the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel), began its mission work in Burma in 1854 when the society sent its first missionary, TA Cockey, a brother of the martyred Henry Edwin Cockey.

In 1863, an SPG missionary, JD Marks opened a school in Yangon that later became Saint John’s College. He also opened schools in Zalon, Hanzada and Theyet Myo.

Because of internal divisions within the Baptist missions, many Karen Baptists from Taungoo joined the Anglican Church in 1875 and the Karen Anglican population increased dramatically in Taungoo.

Jonathan Holt Titcomb (1819-1877), who was ordained in the Church of Ireland in 1842 for a curacy in Downpatrick, Co Down, became the first bishop of Rangoon (Yangon) in 1877, and he ordained the first Burmese-born clergy, including Karens and Tamils, in 1877-1878.

An Irish-born SPG missionary, the Revd Thomas Rickard (1849-1903), worked in Myanmar for 20 years (1883-1903). He was born in Buttevant, Co Cork, studied at Saint Augustine’s College, Canterbury, and was ordered deacon (1881) and priest (1883) in Rangoon (Yangon). He was vice-president of Saint John’s College, Rangoon, from 1881 to 1883, and later held several mission posts at Rangoon and Poozoundoung. He was in charge of the Kemmendine Training Institution from 1893, and he was still working as a missionary when he died.

William CB Purser began SPG mission work in Kyatlatt in 1900. In his Christian Missions in Burma (London: SPG, 1911), he wrote, ‘Their love of fun has earned the Burmese the epithet of the Irish of the East’ (p 10).

Many of the Anglican missionaries in Myanmar, including bishops, were sent by the Winchester Brotherhood. The Bible Churchmen’s Missionary Society (now Crosslinks) began mission work among the Kachins in 1924.

Foreign missionaries had to leave the country in 1940 in advance of the Japanese invasion during World War II, and George Appleton was appointed as Archdeacon of Rangoon in 1942 and to look after mission work in Burma from India. He later became Archbishop of Perth, and then Archbishop of Jerusalem.

During the Japanese occupation, all mission work, including mission schools and hospitals was suspended, and most native Anglicans were dispersed. But after World War II, the Church was reorganised with the formation of three archdeaconries, for the Delta, Mandalay and Toungoo, in 1946 and Holy Cross College was reopened.

After the partition of India in 1947, the Church of the Province of India, Pakistan, Burma and Ceylon was formed as a new province in the Anglican Communion in 1947. The number of Anglicans in Burma dropped following independence in 1948 and the subsequent exodus of many British people, followed by many Anglo-Burmese and Anglo-Indians.

When all foreign missionaries were forced to leave Burma in 1966, Francis Ah Mya became the first Burmese-born Bishop of Rangoon.

The provincial council of the Church of India, Pakistan, Burma and Ceylon agreed in 1968 to the formation of a new ecclesiastical province in Burma, and the Church of the Province of Burma, later the Church of the Province of Myanmar, came into existence on 22 February 1970, with Bishop Francis Ah Mya as the first Archbishop.

Archbishop Francis Ah Mya was succeeded as archbishop by his assistant bishop, John Aung Hla, in 1973. Taungoo Diocese, which I was expecting to visit, was formed in 1994 from Taungoo Missionary Diocese.

Bishop Stephen Than Myint Oo of Hpa-a, became the sixth Archbishop of Myanmar in 2008. Today, the Anglican Church in Myanmar has six dioceses: Yangon, Archbishop Stephen Than Myint Oo; Hpa-an, Bishop Mark Saw Maung Doe; Mandalay, Bishop David Nyi Nyi Naing; Myitkyina, Bishop John Zau Li; Sittwe, Bishop James Min Dein; Toungoo, Bishop Saw Shee Shoe.

The invitation to represent the Golden Jubilee Celebrations of the Church of the Province of Myanmar included taking part in the Fourth Anglican Family Gathering from 25 to 30 March in Thandaunggyi, Taungoo, with the theme ‘Let us live with the word of God to expand God’s Kingdom’ (see Matthew 6: 10; Psalm 1: 1-3).

A modern English version of that poem by Robert Burns concludes:

But Mouse, you are not alone,
In proving foresight may be vain:
The best laid schemes of mice and men
Go often askew,
And leave us nothing but grief and pain,
For promised joy!

Still you are blessed, compared with me!
The present only touches you:
But oh! I backward cast my eye,
On prospects dreary!
And forward, though I cannot see,
I guess and fear!

I cannot see forward. But no, I do not panic about the future, nor do I fear it or think its prospects dreary. Hopefully the celebrations in Myanmar have been postponed rather than cancelled, and go ahead later this year.

In my sermon tomorrow evening I was planning to share words from Samuel Johnson, the Lichfield-born compiler of the first English dictionary: ‘Almighty God … without whose grace all wisdom is folly, grant, I beseech thee, that in this my undertaking thy Holy Spirit may not be withheld from me, but that I may promote thy glory, and the salvation both of myself and others.’

Meanwhile, by way of self-compensation for the cancellation of the planned visit to Myanmar, I had booked return flights to Birmingham on 26-28 March, and booked into the Hedgehog in Lichfield, so that I could have my own, self-paced mini-retreat in Lichfield Cathedral and in the chapel of Saint John’s Hospital, Lichfield, which I have seen as my spiritual home for almost half a century.

The Hedgehog, which has become my own personal space for retreat, is being refurbished and is due to reopen next week (Friday 20 March 2020). Hopefully, I can go ahead with this planned visit, and a planed visit to Crete next month for Greek Orthodox Easter.

Inside Saint Flannan’s Cathedral, Killaloe, Co Clare … tomorrow evening’s installation and introduction has been postponed (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Mission must never ignore the centrality of the liturgy and our responsibility for creation

The 24 elders and four evangelists before the Lamb of God on the Throne … the Altar in a church in Ballyragget, Co Kilkenny (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2018)

Patrick Comerford

Sunday 24 February 2019,

The Second Sunday before Lent (Sexagesima), The Creation.

11.30 a.m. Holy Trinity Church, Rathkeale, Co Limerick, The Parish Eucharist (Holy Communion 2).

Readings: Genesis 2: 4b-9, 15-25; Psalm 65; Revelation 4; Luke 8: 22-35.

May I speak to you in the name of God, + Father, Son and Holy Spirit, Amen.

It is very easy to be misunderstood, for someone else to understand our motivations and the reason behind what we do.

It’s natural: it is easier to judge than to understand, it is easy to ask questions without waiting for and listening to answers.

And usually answers are not simple and they do not come easily.

So, when it comes to the environment, we all know we as humans are responsible for what is happening. We want someone to do something about carbon emissions – as long as it does not make demands on me that I feel are too demanding.

‘Not in my backyard.’

The workers in factories blame the farmers, the farmers say the people in the towns do not understand their dilemma. Everyone blames the politicians, but I continue to add to my carbon footprint when I book yet another cheap flight.

‘Not in my backyard.’

The blame sharing that goes on between industry and agriculture ought to be turned around to sharing not just responsibility but developing our vision for a better and brighter future – a better and brighter future that may be a symbol, a sign, a sacrament of what the Kingdom of God is like.

Working together, industry and agriculture, town and country, in sharing our responsibility for the creation and the environment might be a very good way to introduce the partnership that we are supposed to share in – between God and humanity – when it comes to responsibility for the environment and the creation.

God’s creation is good, we are told in our Old Testament reading (Genesis 2: 4b-9, 15-25). This is the second account of the Creation narrative in the Book Genesis. Forget, for a moment, about the mythological ways of telling stories about creation, and think for a moment about the purpose of telling the story, and what lessons it tries to teach.

This story tells us that without God’s gift of rain and without human presence ‘to till the ground,’ there would be no growth in the soil.

This second account of creation therefore presents humanity as co-creators with God, or partners with God in God’s plan for bringing creation to full fruition and growth.

Humanity is given responsibility for creation, but there are limits on the use of creation. We are not to see everything as ours, to do with it what we decide. We are created from the soil of the earth – the Hebrew name adam means ‘from the dust of the ground’ – and we are to cultivate and care for the earth (verse 15). Being God’s partners in the creation brings responsibilities for caring for that creation.

Our Psalm (Psalm 65) is a song of thanks for the Earth’s bounty.

All flesh, all people, all humanity, praise God for the harvest of the earth. He answers prayers and he forgives us our transgressions. The place to thank God for the goodness of creation is in prayer and in worship, for God is ‘the hope of all the ends of the earth and of the farthest seas’ (verse 5).

This psalm praises him for creation, for the earth and the seas, for soil and the rain, for the pastures and the hills, for the meadows and the valleys.

The Gospel reading (Luke 8: 22-35) introduces two miracles of very different kinds. One shows that Christ is the Lord of Creation, the other shows he the Lord of humanity. Together they show that he has authority over chaos in nature and chaos in humanity. We see the calming of the stormy seas, and the calming of a stormy personality, the calming of the waves and the calming of the mind.

Christ and the disciples have left the crowd behind them (see Luke 8: 19), they get into the boat, and Jesus sends them to the other side of the lake crowd away. The act of sending is at the heart of mission. Mission begins with God so loving the world that he sends his only Son so that we may know that love. And Christ then sends those with him on a journey that is fraught with danger to a strange place where they expect to find disturbing realities and disturbing people.

Sending is the foundation of mission – and the sending of the disciples is a sending on mission, just as our dismissal at the end of the Eucharist marks, not so much the end of the liturgy, but the beginning of mission.

Christ invites the disciples get into the boat and sends them to a strange place. But, instead of finding that the boat or the church empowers them for mission, the disciples treat it as a place to take them away from the crowds and the world. They see it as their own cocoon, their safe territory.

How wrong they are. When the storm comes, when the waves batter them, when the wind rises up against them, they find that we cannot be in the church and be without Christ and without the crowd.

Christ falls asleep on the boat and seems unaware of the peril at sea as they sail towards the other side of the lake.

When Christ shows his power over the stormy reality of creation, he challenges the disciples and asks, ‘Where is your faith?’

They are afraid and amazed. Are they more afraid and amazed when it comes to Christ’s command of the wind and the waves than they are of the wind and the waves themselves?

Their faith has been tested, and it has been found to be weak, in the deep waters it is found to be shallow.

On the other side of the lake, they arrive in the country of the Gerasenes, east of the Jordan and deep in Gentile territory. The wilderness and the deserts were regarded as places where demons and destructive forces lived, and the abyss was the realm of Satan and home to demons. They seemed to be parts of creation beyond God’s attention and without human tilling.

The man they meet is not like Adam and Eve in our first reading, who are unaware of being naked. This man is aware of his desperate, naked plight in a wilderness place. Yet, he falls down before Christ in an act of humility and worship.

This man recognises Christ for whom he is, ‘Son of the Most High God’ (verse 28), unlike the disciples in the earlier part of this reading, who have just asked, ‘Who then is this …?’ (verse 25)

When the people come to see Christ, this man is now sitting at his feet, like a disciple sits at the feet of a teacher or master. Like the disciples in the boat in the first miracle in this reading, they too are afraid.

Later, after this reading, we are told that this man becomes a missionary to his fellow Gentiles (verse 39). This is a dramatic story with dramatic consequences, and this man is about to tell people ‘throughout the city how much Jesus had done for him’ (verse 39).

So, Christ is the Lord of Creation, and the mission of the Church is only going to work in harmony when God and humanity work in partnership in creation.

If we do this well, then, the Book of Revelation tells us, the whole of creation is invited into the Kingdom of God.

In his exile on the island of Patmos, Saint John the Divine has an ecstatic vision of the heavenly throne.

Around the throne of God are 24 thrones with 24 elders who are wearing white robes and golden crowns. The number 24 could be read as symbolising a new or perfect creation, doubling the number of disciples, who double the number of the days of creation.

Around the throne too are four living creatures – a lion, an ox, a human person and an eagle – who came later to represent the four evangelists.

God is worshipped by these 24 elders or priests and by these four living creatures or evangelists as the Lord God who has created all things and by whose will all things exist and are created.

Later, as this vision continues, we are told that this is Lamb on the throne (see Revelation 5: 6-8).

In our liturgy and worship, the Church invites the whole of Creation into the Kingdom of God. Indeed, at the heart of the liturgy, our worship, is our concern for the whole of God’s creation.

There are five marks of mission that we agree on in the Anglican Communion. The fifth mark is, ‘To strive to safeguard the integrity of creation and sustain and renew the life of the earth.’

Our co-responsibility for creation is not peripheral to mission, it is at the heart of mission, and underpins it.

At the General Synod of the Church of England last week, the Revd Andrew Lightbown expressed concern that the material prepared for a debate on mission and evangelism was ‘a bit thin — I worry that mission and evangelism is reducible to conversion.’

If we reduce mission to evangelism, and miss out on the centrality of the liturgy of the Church and on our responsibility for creation, then the Church misses out on the opportunity to invite all creation, through the Church, into the Kingdom of God.

And so, may all we think, say and do be to the praise, honour and glory of God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, Amen.

Sunset at the Rectory in Askeaton last night … our responsibility for creation is at the heart of the mission of the Church (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2019)

Luke 8: 22-35 (NRSVA):

22 One day he got into a boat with his disciples, and he said to them, ‘Let us go across to the other side of the lake.’ So they put out, 23 and while they were sailing he fell asleep. A gale swept down on the lake, and the boat was filling with water, and they were in danger. 24 They went to him and woke him up, shouting, ‘Master, Master, we are perishing!’ And he woke up and rebuked the wind and the raging waves; they ceased, and there was a calm. 25 He said to them, ‘Where is your faith?’ They were afraid and amazed, and said to one another, ‘Who then is this, that he commands even the winds and the water, and they obey him?’

26 Then they arrived at the country of the Gerasenes, which is opposite Galilee. 27 As he stepped out on land, a man of the city who had demons met him. For a long time he had worn no clothes, and he did not live in a house but in the tombs. 28 When he saw Jesus, he fell down before him and shouted at the top of his voice, ‘What have you to do with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I beg you, do not torment me’ – 29 for Jesus had commanded the unclean spirit to come out of the man. (For many times it had seized him; he was kept under guard and bound with chains and shackles, but he would break the bonds and be driven by the demon into the wilds.) 30 Jesus then asked him, ‘What is your name?’ He said, ‘Legion’; for many demons had entered him. 31 They begged him not to order them to go back into the abyss.

32 Now there on the hillside a large herd of swine was feeding; and the demons begged Jesus to let them enter these. So he gave them permission. 33 Then the demons came out of the man and entered the swine, and the herd rushed down the steep bank into the lake and was drowned.

34 When the swineherds saw what had happened, they ran off and told it in the city and in the country. 35 Then people came out to see what had happened, and when they came to Jesus, they found the man from whom the demons had gone sitting at the feet of Jesus, clothed and in his right mind. And they were afraid.

‘He got into a boat with his disciples, and he said to them, ‘Let us go across to the other side of the lake’ (Luke 8: 22) … fishing boats in the harbour in Rethymnon, Crete (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Liturgical Colour: Green

The Collect:

Almighty God,
you have created the heavens and the earth
and made us in your own image:
Teach us to discern your hand in all your works
and your likeness in all your children;
through Jesus Christ our Lord,
who with you and the Holy Spirit
reigns supreme over all things, now and for ever.

The Post-Communion Prayer:

God our creator,
by your gift the tree of life was set at the heart
of the earthly paradise,
and the Bread of life at the heart of your Church.
May we who have been nourished at your table on earth
be transformed by the glory of the Saviour’s Cross
and enjoy the delights of eternity;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

‘He woke up and rebuked the wind and the raging waves; they ceased, and there was a calm’ (Luke 8: 24) … window in a church in Rush, Co Dublin (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Hymns:

58, Morning has broken (CD 4)
612, Eternal Father, strong to save (CD 35)
346, Angel voices, ever singing (CD 21)

Scripture quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicised Edition copyright © 1989, 1995, National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide. http://nrsvbibles.org

‘The integrity of creation and … the life of the earth’ are not marginal to mission

Sunset at the Rectory in Askeaton last night … our responsibility for creation is at the heart of the mission of the Church (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2019)

Patrick Comerford

Sunday 24 February 2019,

The Second Sunday before Lent (Sexagesima), The Creation.

9.30 a.m. Castletown Church, Kilcornan, Morning Prayer;

Readings: Genesis 2: 4b-9, 15-25; Psalm 65; Revelation 4; Luke 8: 22-35.

May I speak to you in the name of God, + Father, Son and Holy Spirit, Amen.

It is very easy to be misunderstood, for someone else to understand our motivations and the reason behind what we do.

It’s natural: it is easier to judge than to understand, it is easy to ask questions without waiting for and listening to answers.

And usually answers are not simple and they do not come easily.

So, when it comes to the environment, we all know we as humans are responsible for what is happening. We want someone to do something about carbon emissions – as long as it does not make demands on me that I feel are too demanding.

‘Not in my backyard.’

The workers in factories blame the farmers, the farmers say the people in the towns do not understand their dilemma. Everyone blames the politicians, but I continue to add to my carbon footprint when I book yet another cheap flight.

‘Not in my backyard.’

The blame sharing that goes on between industry and agriculture ought to be turned around to sharing not just responsibility but developing our vision for a better and brighter future – a better and brighter future that may be a symbol, a sign, a sacrament of what the Kingdom of God is like.

Working together, industry and agriculture, town and country, in sharing our responsibility for the creation and the environment might be a very good way to introduce the partnership that we are supposed to share in – between God and humanity – when it comes to responsibility for the environment and the creation.

God’s creation is good, we are told in our Old Testament reading (Genesis 2: 4b-9, 15-25). This is the second account of the Creation narrative in the Book Genesis. Forget, for a moment, about the mythological ways of telling stories about creation, and think for a moment about the purpose of telling the story, and what lessons it tries to teach.

This story tells us that without God’s gift of rain and without human presence ‘to till the ground,’ there would be no growth in the soil.

This second account of creation therefore presents humanity as co-creators with God, or partners with God in God’s plan for bringing creation to full fruition and growth.

Humanity is given responsibility for creation, but there are limits on the use of creation. We are not to see everything as ours, to do with it what we decide. We are created from the soil of the earth – the Hebrew name adam means ‘from the dust of the ground’ – and we are to cultivate and care for the earth (verse 15). Being God’s partners in the creation brings responsibilities for caring for that creation.

Our Psalm (Psalm 65) is a song of thanks for the Earth’s bounty.

All flesh, all people, all humanity, praise God for the harvest of the earth. He answers prayers and he forgives us our transgressions. The place to thank God for the goodness of creation is in prayer and in worship, for God is ‘the hope of all the ends of the earth and of the farthest seas’ (verse 5).

This psalm praises him for creation, for the earth and the seas, for soil and the rain, for the pastures and the hills, for the meadows and the valleys.

The Gospel reading (Luke 8: 22-35) introduces two miracles of very different kinds. One shows that Christ is the Lord of Creation, the other shows he the Lord of humanity. Together they show that he has authority over chaos in nature and chaos in humanity. We see the calming of the stormy seas, and the calming of a stormy personality, the calming of the waves and the calming of the mind.

Christ and the disciples have left the crowd behind them (see Luke 8: 19), they get into the boat, and Jesus sends them to the other side of the lake crowd away. The act of sending is at the heart of mission. Mission begins with God so loving the world that he sends his only Son so that we may know that love. And Christ then sends those with him on a journey that is fraught with danger to a strange place where they expect to find disturbing realities and disturbing people.

Sending is the foundation of mission – and the sending of the disciples is a sending on mission, just as our dismissal at the end of the Eucharist marks, not so much the end of the liturgy, but the beginning of mission.

Christ invites the disciples get into the boat and sends them to a strange place. But, instead of finding that the boat or the church empowers them for mission, the disciples treat it as a place to take them away from the crowds and the world. They see it as their own cocoon, their safe territory.

How wrong they are. When the storm comes, when the waves batter them, when the wind rises up against them, they find that we cannot be in the church and be without Christ and without the crowd.

Christ falls asleep on the boat and seems unaware of the peril at sea as they sail towards the other side of the lake.

When Christ shows his power over the stormy reality of creation, he challenges the disciples and asks, ‘Where is your faith?’

They are afraid and amazed. Are they more afraid and amazed when it comes to Christ’s command of the wind and the waves than they are of the wind and the waves themselves?

Their faith has been tested, and it has been found to be weak, in the deep waters it is found to be shallow.

On the other side of the lake, they arrive in the country of the Gerasenes, east of the Jordan and deep in Gentile territory. The wilderness and the deserts were regarded as places where demons and destructive forces lived, and the abyss was the realm of Satan and home to demons. They seemed to be parts of creation beyond God’s attention and without human tilling.

The man they meet is not like Adam and Eve in our first reading, who are unaware of being naked. This man is aware of his desperate, naked plight in a wilderness place. Yet, he falls down before Christ in an act of humility and worship.

This man recognises Christ for whom he is, ‘Son of the Most High God’ (verse 28), unlike the disciples in the earlier part of this reading, who have just asked, ‘Who then is this …?’ (verse 25)

When the people come to see Christ, this man is now sitting at his feet, like a disciple sits at the feet of a teacher or master. Like the disciples in the boat in the first miracle in this reading, they too are afraid.

Later, after this reading, we are told that this man becomes a missionary to his fellow Gentiles (verse 39). This is a dramatic story with dramatic consequences, and this man is about to tell people ‘throughout the city how much Jesus had done for him’ (verse 39).

So, Christ is the Lord of Creation, and the mission of the Church is only going to work in harmony when God and humanity work in partnership in creation.

If we do this well, then, the Book of Revelation tells us, the whole of creation is invited into the Kingdom of God.

In his exile on the island of Patmos, Saint John the Divine has an ecstatic vision of the heavenly throne.

Around the throne of God are 24 thrones with 24 elders who are wearing white robes and golden crowns. The number 24 could be read as symbolising a new or perfect creation, doubling the number of disciples, who double the number of the days of creation.

Around the throne too are four living creatures – a lion, an ox, a human person and an eagle – who came later to represent the four evangelists.

God is worshipped by these 24 elders or priests and by these four living creatures or evangelists as the Lord God who has created all things and by whose will all things exist and are created.

Later, as this vision continues, we are told that this is Lamb on the throne (see Revelation 5: 6-8).

In our liturgy and worship, the Church invites the whole of Creation into the Kingdom of God. Indeed, at the heart of the liturgy, our worship, is our concern for the whole of God’s creation.

There are five marks of mission that we agree on in the Anglican Communion. The fifth mark is, ‘To strive to safeguard the integrity of creation and sustain and renew the life of the earth.’

Our co-responsibility for creation is not peripheral to mission, it is at the heart of mission, and underpins it.

At the General Synod of the Church of England last week, the Revd Andrew Lightbown expressed concern that the material prepared for a debate on mission and evangelism was ‘a bit thin — I worry that mission and evangelism is reducible to conversion.’

If we reduce mission to evangelism, and miss out on the centrality of the liturgy of the Church and on our responsibility for creation, then the Church misses out on the opportunity to invite all creation, through the Church, into the Kingdom of God.

And so, may all we think, say and do be to the praise, honour and glory of God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, Amen.

‘He got into a boat with his disciples, and he said to them, ‘Let us go across to the other side of the lake’ (Luke 8: 22) … fishing boats in the harbour in Rethymnon, Crete (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Luke 8: 22-35 (NRSVA):

22 One day he got into a boat with his disciples, and he said to them, ‘Let us go across to the other side of the lake.’ So they put out, 23 and while they were sailing he fell asleep. A gale swept down on the lake, and the boat was filling with water, and they were in danger. 24 They went to him and woke him up, shouting, ‘Master, Master, we are perishing!’ And he woke up and rebuked the wind and the raging waves; they ceased, and there was a calm. 25 He said to them, ‘Where is your faith?’ They were afraid and amazed, and said to one another, ‘Who then is this, that he commands even the winds and the water, and they obey him?’

26 Then they arrived at the country of the Gerasenes, which is opposite Galilee. 27 As he stepped out on land, a man of the city who had demons met him. For a long time he had worn no clothes, and he did not live in a house but in the tombs. 28 When he saw Jesus, he fell down before him and shouted at the top of his voice, ‘What have you to do with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I beg you, do not torment me’ – 29 for Jesus had commanded the unclean spirit to come out of the man. (For many times it had seized him; he was kept under guard and bound with chains and shackles, but he would break the bonds and be driven by the demon into the wilds.) 30 Jesus then asked him, ‘What is your name?’ He said, ‘Legion’; for many demons had entered him. 31 They begged him not to order them to go back into the abyss.

32 Now there on the hillside a large herd of swine was feeding; and the demons begged Jesus to let them enter these. So he gave them permission. 33 Then the demons came out of the man and entered the swine, and the herd rushed down the steep bank into the lake and was drowned.

34 When the swineherds saw what had happened, they ran off and told it in the city and in the country. 35 Then people came out to see what had happened, and when they came to Jesus, they found the man from whom the demons had gone sitting at the feet of Jesus, clothed and in his right mind. And they were afraid.

The 24 elders and four evangelists before the Lamb of God on the Throne … the Altar in a church in Ballyragget, Co Kilkenny (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2018)

Liturgical Colour: Green

The Collect:

Almighty God,
you have created the heavens and the earth
and made us in your own image:
Teach us to discern your hand in all your works
and your likeness in all your children;
through Jesus Christ our Lord,
who with you and the Holy Spirit
reigns supreme over all things, now and for ever.

‘He woke up and rebuked the wind and the raging waves; they ceased, and there was a calm’ (Luke 8: 24) … a window in a church in Rush, Co Dublin (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Hymns:

58, Morning has broken (CD 4)
612, Eternal Father, strong to save (CD 35)
346, Angel voices, ever singing (CD 21)

Scripture quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicised Edition copyright © 1989, 1995, National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide. http://nrsvbibles.org

Ballyragget Castle, a ‘sleeping giant’ with hidden potential

Ballyragget Castle, once the principal residence of the Mountgarret branch of the Butler dynasty (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2018)

Patrick Comerford

Ballyragget Castle stands beside the village, close to the SuperValu supermarket, and just 100 metres from the banks of the River Nore. It is a ruined square tower house, with a defensive wall with corner towers, but it once provided excellent views of river traffic and the surrounding countryside and was strategically important for the Ormond Butlers along the northern lines of defence of Kilkenny Castle.

Ballyragget is about 18 km from Kilkenny, on the N77 road to Durrow, and two of us stopped to see the castle and parish church late last week on our way from Kilkenny to Askeaton.

Ballyragget is said to take its name from Richard le Ragget, a local Anglo-Norman leader who owned the land in the 13th century.

However, the castle is of a much later date. Popular stories in the area say it was built about 1485 by Lady Margaret FitzGerald, who that year married Pierce ‘Ruadh’ Butler (1467-1539), 8th Earl of Ormond.

A stone bench at the top of the castle is called ‘Lady Margaret’s Chair’ and is also known as the ‘Wishing Chair.’ The older people in Ballyragget said that if you sat in the chair your wish would be granted.

Enda Houlihan, in his BEd thesis, ‘Ballyragget Castle, Co Kilkenny, a history and comparative analysis,’ argues that this tower house was not an addition to an earlier castle but is an original construction from the late 15th century when it became important strategically because of the prevailing, fragile political situation between the Earls of Kildare and Piers Ruadh Butler, whose wife was a daughter of Gerald FitzGerald, 8th Earl of Kildare.

Lady Margaret is said to have made Ballyragget Castle her favourite residence, and one account says ‘she often indulged in the turbulent and freebooting practices more suitable to an unprincipled Amazon than to a lady and often issued from the castle, at the head of her retainers, and plundered the cattle and other property of neighbouring families whom she was pleased to view as not belonging to the circle of her friends.’

The second son of Piers Ruadh and Margaret, Richard Butler (1550-1571), was the Keeper of the Castle of Ferns, Co Wexford, and became the 1st Viscount Mountgarret in 1550.

He inherited Ballyragget Castle, and for more than two centuries this castle was the principal residence of the Mountgarret branch of the Butler family.

A secret orchard seen through a breach in a wall in the grounds of Ballygarret Castle (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2018)

Ballyragget Castle is basically 44 ft by 31 ft in size, according to Canon William Carrigan’s history of the Diocese of Ossory. The walls are about 7.5 ft thick and all the doors are of cut stone, probably limestone.

This five-storey castle consists of a large tower-house complete with crenellations and surrounded by a substantial bawn. It once had handsome cut stone windows, the four round towers that defend it are looped in order to command the surrounding lands, a look-out turret rises above the parapet in the north-east corner of the keep.

The fine arched entrance in the west wall is now blocked up but was protected by a machicolation. There is a machicolation in the middle of the south wall and the south-west corner tower was turned into a shrine to the Virgin Mary. The flanker at the south-east corner has a squinch containing a latrine chute. Local people say a dungeon stretches from the castle to the river.

According to Enda Houlihan, Ballyragget Castle ‘was a formidable and imposing structure, militarily and politically.’ From the 16th century on, Ballyragget Castle gained in military importance and in prestige, and it was the main defensive structure and fortified keep north of Kilkenny Castle.

An urban centre grew up around the walled fortifications. This became a prosperous town and gave the Butlers a military presence in an area previously unmarshalled. In this way, the castle and the people who lived in and around it were firmly tied to the shire of Kilkenny.

The castle became the seat of the Mountgarret branch of the Butlers of Ormonde, who used it as a defence and to raid the adjoining territory of the MacGiollapadraig or FitzPatrick family.

Richard Butler (1550-1571), 1st Viscount Mountgarret, was succeeded in 1571 by his eldest son, Edmund Butler (1562-1602), 2nd Viscount Mountgarret, who also inherited Ballyragget Castle He remodelled the state room, which was fitted with a massive cut-stone chimney piece, inscribed with his initials and the date: ‘EM 1591.’

But the castle also became the base for revolt in the late 16th century when Edmund Butler’s sons revolted against the crown and supported the Ulster rebels. Ballyragget was attacked and captured on three separate occasions, and Sir George Carew garrisoned the castle in 1600 against the Mountgarrets.

Edmund’s fifth daughter, the Hon Eleanor Butler, married Morgan (Murrough) Mac Bryan Kavanagh, of Borris, Co Carlow, and their daughter Grany (Graine) married John Comerford of Ballybur Castle, Co Kilkenny.

Edmund’s eldest son and successor, Richard Butler (1578-1651), 3rd Viscount Mountgarret, married Lady Margaret O’Neill, daughter of Hugh O’Neill, Earl of Tyrone.

A blocked up window in Ballyragget Castle (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2018)

Ballyragget Castle seems to have been abandoned, at least temporarily, by the Mountgarrett Butlers in the early 17th century. But the third viscount returned to Ballyragget Castle, and King James I granted him a charter in 1619, making Ballyragget a manor, with two annual fairs.

Edmund Mountgarret was the President of the Confederation of Kilkenny (1642-1648). After his death, Colonel Daniel Axtell held the castle during the Cromwellian era. Local lore says Axtell had one of the Butlers of the castle tortured and killed for not disclosing where the Mountgarret treasure was buried, and that he hung Catholic and Protestant royalists on the Fair Green in Ballyragget while laughing on from the castle.

Edmund Butler (1595-1679), 4th Lord Mountgarret, was restored to his lands after the Caroline Restoration in 1660. Bishop Carrigan noted that two sets of corbels in the same wall as the east entrance and other marks on the wall indicate a very large house or mansion was built against it but has since been demolished.

The Battle of Ballyragget took place in the shadow of the castle in 1775, involving the largest ever assembly of Whiteboys in Kilkenny, including 300 horsemen and 200 on foot.

However, the Mountgarret branch of the Butler family continued to live in the castle until 1788, when Edmund Butler (1745-1793), 11th Viscount Mountgarret, moved to Ballyragget Hall, a house close by. His son, Edmund Butler (1771-1846), 12th Viscount Mountgarret, later became Earl of Kilkenny.

The present owners of Ballyragget Castle have planted beautiful alder trees along the avenue leading up to the castle which is just about visible if one peeks through the corrugated iron gates.

The castle is a listed building in the 2014 County Development Plan, but it is not a national monument. The castle is blocked up, stands on private land beside a farmyard and is not open to the public, and entrance to the bawn is not permitted. However, the heavy metal gate was open when two of us arrived early on Friday afternoon, and we had a brief and rare opportunity to photograph the castle and walk around the bawn.

With imagination and the right grants, Ballygarret Castle could easily be put to good use become a tourist attraction. But the castle remains a sleeping giant, an untapped resource full of potential.

Ballygarret Castle could be put to good use, but remains a sleeping giant (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2018)

Saint Patrick’s Church, Ballyragget, retains many of its pe-Vatican details

Saint Patrick’s Church, Ballyragget, Co Kilkenny … stands on the site of an earlier, Penal-era chapel (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2018)

Patrick Comerford

Both Saint Patrick’s Church, the Roman Catholic parish church in Ballyragget, Co Kilkenny, and Ballyragget Castle are difficult to find, with the church at the end of a side street between the Square and Castle Street, and the castle at the end of a lane behind locked gates.

The obscure location of Saint Patrick’s Church is explained because it stands on the site of an earlier chapel that may have been built first during the Penal days in the 18th century.

The site of the earlier chapel is marked on early editions of Ordnance Survey maps, and the site is evidence of a long-standing church presence in this town in north Co Kilkenny.

Saint Patrick’s is an imposing large-scale church built in 1842 under the direction of William Kinsella, Bishop of Ossory (1793-1845), for Father John Foran, Parish Priest of Ballyragget, who died in 1843, to designs by William Deane Butler (ca 1794-1857).

Butler, who was also the architect of Saint Kieran’s College, Kilkenny, designed the church in Gothic Revival style. It is similar in many details to many contemporary parish churches in the area, including Castlecomer and Freshford, representing a form of brand or house style developed by Butler while he was the resident architect for the Diocese of Ossory.

The west front of Saint Patrick’s Church, Ballyragget … designed by William Deane Butler (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2018)

Saint Patrick’s Church is well composed, with a balanced arrangement of the grouped openings for the windows and doors. The expert stone masonry work includes finely-carved dressings that produce a robust frontispiece that maximises the presence of the church in the town, despite the fact that the church is set well back from the street.

This is a seven-bay, single-storey and two-storey Gothic Revival church, with a seven-bay, double-height nave seven-bay single-storey lean-to side aisles on the north and south side, and a two-bay, single-storey sacristy at the east end.

The details outside include limestone ashlar walls, octagonal corner piers, trefoil-headed panelled octagonal pinnacles, octagonal finials, inscribed shield plaques, a recessed niche on the gable with a statue of Saint Patrick, a decorative cross finial, clasping stepped buttresses, and limestone ashlar parapets on console tables.

There are pointed-arch window and door openings, lattice glazing, engaged colonettes supporting hood mouldings, a flight of five cut-limestone steps, Gothic-style timber panelled doors having over-panels, trefoil recessed panels, cut-limestone stoups, and carved cut-limestone coping on portrait stops.

Inside Saint Patrick’s Church, Ballyragget (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2018)

Inside, the central aisle has decorative clay tiled floor, timber pews, a timber panelled organ gallery, pointed-arch arcades at the side aisles, cut-limestone piers with chamfered reveals, carved cut-limestone courses supporting the clerestoreys, moulded plasterwork hood mouldings at the window openings, and a groin-vaulted ceiling with moulded plasterwork ribs on decorative corbels.

The reredos and altar in Saint Patrick’s were designed by George Coppinger Ashlin, and the mosaic work in the sanctuary is by Ludwig Oppenheimer (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2018)

The Gothic-style reredos in Caen stone was designed in 1869 by Pugin’s son-in-law, George Coppinger Ashlin (1837-1921) depicts the Sacrifice of Abraham, the Crucifixion and the Sacrifice of Melchizedek. The front of the altar depicts the worship of the Lamb on the Throne (see Revelation 4). The mosaic work in the sanctuary is by Ludwig Oppenheimer Ltd (1915).

The church was renovated in 1924 and again in 1983-1985, and some new windows were added after 2000.

Because the church saw few interior alterations after the Second Vatican Council (1963-1965), it retains its rich interior scheme, with high quality carpentry, decorative plasterwork, and stained-glass windows.

The decorative clay tiles in the central aisle (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2018)

The churchyard on the north side of the church has many cut-limestone Celtic High Cross-style gravestones dating back to 1842, including the grave of Canon James Comerford, Parish Priest of Ballyragget, who died 70 years ago on 12 June 1948 at the age of 69.

The grave of Canon James Comerford, who died in 1948 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2018)

The freestanding belfry dates from 1906, and has grouped cast-iron pillars on a square plan and a cast-iron bell with decorative brackets.

A Mass Rock from the 1640s was moved from Sermon Hill, Odtown, and re-erected here in 2009.

The 17th century Mass Rock in the churchyard at Saint Patrick’s (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2018)