Daily prayer in the Kingdom Season: 20, Wednesday 20 November 2024

The Parable of the Talents (Luke 19: 11-27) … a stained-glass window in Saint Michael’s Church, Limerick (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

We are in the Kingdom Season, the time between All Saints’ Day and Advent, and this week began with the Second Sunday before Advent. The calendar of the Church of England in Common Worship today remembers Saint Edmund (870), King of the East Angles, Martyr, and Priscilla Lydia Sellon (1876), a Restorer of the Religious Life in the Church of England.

The long odyssey back from Kuching continues today. We travelled on overnight from Singapore to Paris, and we are booked on a flight later this morning from Paris to Birmingham, hoping to be home in Stony Stratford by the afternoon, perhaps even for time for the choir rehearsal in Saint Mary and Saint Giles Church.

But, before the day begins, before I look for breakfast in Charles de Gaulle Airport, I am taking some quiet time early this morning to give thanks, to reflect, to pray and to read in these ways:

1, today’s Gospel reading;

2, a short reflection;

3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary;

4, the Collects and Post-Communion prayer of the day.

‘Well done … you have been trustworthy in a very small thing’ (Luke 19: 17) … coins from the Brooke era in Sarawak that have lost their spending value (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

Luke 19: 11-28 (NRSVA):

11 As they were listening to this, he went on to tell a parable, because he was near Jerusalem, and because they supposed that the kingdom of God was to appear immediately. 12 So he said, ‘A nobleman went to a distant country to get royal power for himself and then return. 13 He summoned ten of his slaves, and gave them ten pounds, and said to them, “Do business with these until I come back.” 14 But the citizens of his country hated him and sent a delegation after him, saying, “We do not want this man to rule over us.” 15 When he returned, having received royal power, he ordered these slaves, to whom he had given the money, to be summoned so that he might find out what they had gained by trading. 16 The first came forward and said, “Lord, your pound has made ten more pounds.” 17 He said to him, “Well done, good slave! Because you have been trustworthy in a very small thing, take charge of ten cities.” 18 Then the second came, saying, “Lord, your pound has made five pounds.” 19 He said to him, “And you, rule over five cities.” 20 Then the other came, saying, “Lord, here is your pound. I wrapped it up in a piece of cloth, 21 for I was afraid of you, because you are a harsh man; you take what you did not deposit, and reap what you did not sow.” 22 He said to him, “I will judge you by your own words, you wicked slave! You knew, did you, that I was a harsh man, taking what I did not deposit and reaping what I did not sow? 23 Why then did you not put my money into the bank? Then when I returned, I could have collected it with interest.” 24 He said to the bystanders, “Take the pound from him and give it to the one who has ten pounds.” 25 (And they said to him, “Lord, he has ten pounds!”) 26 “I tell you, to all those who have, more will be given; but from those who have nothing, even what they have will be taken away. 27 But as for these enemies of mine who did not want me to be king over them – bring them here and slaughter them in my presence”.’

28 After he had said this, he went on ahead, going up to Jerusalem.

‘Why then did you not put my money into the bank?’ (Luke 19: 23) … a collection of old Greek banknotes (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s reflection:

The Gospel reading at the Eucharist this morning (Luke 19: 11-28) is about so much more than wise investment and shrewd dealing.

The catchphrase ‘Loadsamoney’ and the character to go with it were part of the comedy sketches created by the English comedian Harry Enfield on Channel 4 in the 1980s.

‘Loadsamoney’ was an obnoxious Cockney plasterer who constantly boasted about how much money he had to throw away. The character took on a life of his own and adapted the song ‘Money, Money,’ from the musical Cabaret, for a hit single in 1988 and a sell-out live tour.

That year, the Labour leader, Neil Kinnock, used the catchphrase to criticise the policies of the Conservative government of the day and journalists began to refer to the ‘loadsamoney mentality’ and the ‘loadsamoney economy.’

On the other hand, we all know people who are reluctant to flash their cash and who would prefer to stash their cash. We have all heard of people who kept their savings in a mattress, thinking it was safer there than in the bank.

They may never have realised how right they might have been about the banks. But leaving your money under the mattress is not going to put it to work. And, these days, putting my money on deposit in the bank may cost me money rather than earning it. With low deposit rates and taxation at source, you may end up collecting less than you had when you first opened that savings account.

But piling up your money has its risks too. At a time of rapid inflation in war-time Greece and Germany, people who saved their money as banknotes found it quickly depreciated in value. I have enough 5 million drachmai notes to make my two sons multi-millionaires. Sad to say, those notes date from the 1940s and the only value they have today is mere curiosity value.

Saving them in the bank, or piling them up under the mattress would have earned nothing for their original owners.

And yet, man businesses and many peole continue to feel the financial pinch created some years ago by the pandemic. Shops and businesses closed, household incomes went down, economic activity was in freefall, and some people never really recovered.

The parable we are reading this morning is set in the realm of finance. Before leaving on a journey, a master entrusts his servants (that word deacon again) with his money, each according to his ability.

A talent (τάλαντον, tálanton) was a lot of money – enough to make any one of those slaves a millionaire, and enough to make them fret and worry about the enormity with which he had been entrusted.

One source says a talent was the equivalent of more than 15 years’ wages for a labourer. Another suggests a talent was worth the equivalent of 7,300 denarii. With one denarius equal to a day’s pay, a talent would work out at more than 26 years’ wages. So a talent was extremely valuable, and the slave who was given five talents was given 85 to 130 years’ wages, vastly more than he could ever imagine earning in lifetime.

Two servants invest the money they have been entrusted with and earn more, but the third simply buries it.

When the master returns, he praises the investors. He says they will be made responsible for many things, and will enter into the joy of their master.

But the third slave, admitting that he was afraid of his master’s wrath, simply returns the original sum. The master chastises him for his wickedness and laziness. He loses not only what he has been given but is also condemned to outer darkness.

What would have happened to the two investors who took risks with vast sums of money had they lost everything?

There was an old maxim that you ‘must speculate to accumulate.’ But every investor knows there are risks, and the greater the risk the higher the interest rates that are promised.

What if they had overstepped their master’s expectations in the risks they had taken?

What if this bondholder had been burned because of the folly of two of his risk-takers, and only one had been a careful steward? After all, there is a rabbinical maxim that commends burying money to protect it.

If this parable is about the kingdom of heaven, if the master stands for God and the servants for different kinds of people, what lesson does it teach us?

Does God reward us for our works but behave like a stern judge when we keep faith without taking risks?

Will we be judged by our work?

Will failure to use what God gives us result in punishment and our separation from God?

Of course, we cannot imagine that the two slaves who traded with their talents and produced a profit were engaged in reckless trading and speculation, still less in reckless gambling.

What was the third slave doing with his time after he buried his talent? Was he doing any other work on behalf of the master? Is he chided for his refusal to invest or speculate, or for his refusal to work, his laziness?

In this, did he show disdain for his master?

Is mh relationship with God one of trust and gratitude? Or do K fear God to the point of thinking of God as the source of injustice?

What talents and gifts has God entrusted me with?

Are they mine? Or are they God’s?

Am I using or investing them to my fullest ability?

Saint Edmund depicted in a window in Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin … he is remembered in ‘Common Worship’ on 20 November (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Prayers (Wednesday 20 November 2024):

The theme this week in ‘Pray With the World Church’, the Prayer Diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), is ‘Coming Together for Climate Justice’. This theme was introduced on Sunday with Reflections by Linet Musasa, HIV Stigma and Discrimination Officer, Anglican Council of Zimbabwe.

The USPG Prayer Diary today (Wednesday 20 November 2024) invites us to pray:

We pray for churches, communities and all the vulnerable people that have been impacted by climate change.

The Collect:

Eternal God,
whose servant Edmund kept faith to the end,
both with you and with his people,
and glorified you by his death:
grant us such steadfastness of faith
that, with the noble army of martyrs,
we may come to enjoy the fullness of the resurrection life;
through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

Post-Communion Prayer:

God our redeemer,
whose Church was strengthened by the blood of your martyr Edmund:
so bind us, in life and death, to Christ’s sacrifice
that our lives, broken and offered with his,
may carry his death and proclaim his resurrection in the world;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Yesterday’s Reflection

Continued Tomorrow

Saint Edmund depicted in a window in Saint Mary’s Church in Whitby, Yorkshire (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2023)

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

Daily prayer in the Kingdom Season: 9, Saturday 9 November 2024

‘Whoever is faithful in a very little is faithful also in much’ (Luke 16: 10) … changing old banknotes for new ones (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

Patrick Comerford

We are in the Kingdom Season, the time between All Saints and Advent. The Calendar of the Church of England in Common Worship today remembers Margery Kempe, Mystic (ca 1440).

Before today begins, before having breakfast, I am taking some quiet time early this morning to give thanks, and for reflection, prayer and reading in these ways:

1, today’s Gospel reading;

2, a short reflection;

3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary;

4, the Collects and Post-Communion prayer of the day.

‘Make friends for yourselves by means of dishonest wealth so that when it is gone, they may welcome you into the eternal homes’ (Luke 16: 9) … not an ATM but street art, seen in Bray, Co Wicklow (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Luke 16: 9-15 (NRSVA):

[Jesus said:] 9 ‘And I tell you, make friends for yourselves by means of dishonest wealth so that when it is gone, they may welcome you into the eternal homes.

10 ‘Whoever is faithful in a very little is faithful also in much; and whoever is dishonest in a very little is dishonest also in much. 11 If then you have not been faithful with the dishonest wealth, who will entrust to you the true riches? 12 And if you have not been faithful with what belongs to another, who will give you what is your own? 13 No slave can serve two masters; for a slave will either hate the one and love the other, or be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth.’

14 The Pharisees, who were lovers of money, heard all this, and they ridiculed him. 15 So he said to them, ‘You are those who justify yourselves in the sight of others; but God knows your hearts; for what is prized by human beings is an abomination in the sight of God.’

The former Commercial Bank of Greece branch in Rethymnon is abandoned and the oranges and lemons are rotting on the trees in the garden (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s reflection:

In the Gospel reading for the Eucharist today, we read Jesus’s explanation of the parable of ‘the Unjust Steward’ or the ‘Parable of the Dishonest Manager’, which we read yesterday.

Sarah Dylan Breuer, when she produced her celebrated American blog Sarah Laughed (www.sarahlaughed.net), said most commentators agree the parable is about how the shrewd steward acts decisively, and that Jesus is describing the ‘in-breaking of the Kingdom of God, call[ing] upon us all to act decisively.’

But she also points out that forgiveness is an overarching theme throughout the Gospels. How often should I forgive? As Saint Luke reminds us in the next chapter, even if someone offends seven times a day, I should be willing to forgive them seven times (Luke 17: 1-4). Seven … the perfect number … I should be willing to forgive perfectly.

If this story is all about forgiveness, and if Sarah Dylan Breuer is correct, then we must forgive, even when we have no right to forgive, even if it does not benefit us at all. We must forgive with grand irresponsibility.

But there is another difficult point in this Gospel story. Verses 10-11 say: ‘Whoever is faithful in a very little is faithful also in much; and whoever is dishonest in a very little is dishonest also in much. If then you have not been faithful with the dishonest wealth, who will entrust to you the true riches?’

Being faithful with what is given to me is also a familiar Gospel theme: it is found in the parable of the talents. But being faithful with dishonest wealth is a puzzling concept, even if it speaks to recent economic dilemmas in both Britain and Ireland. Is it still possible to manage goods in ways that are appropriate to, that witness to, that are signs of the Kingdom of God?

If I am responsible for the small things in life, then hopefully I can be responsible for the large things. Very few of us are asked to do huge things, such as win a by-election, finish a masterpiece, solve the banking crisis, score a winning try or goal. But we are asked to do a multitude of small things – within our family, our friends, our neighbours, our fellow students, in this community.

And: ‘Whoever is faithful in a very little is faithful also in much.’ Yet, it is often most difficult to forgive the small things.

I heard a comedian tell of a young man, up from the provinces, starting work in a menial clerical post, living in a cramped, one-room flat in Rathmines. In the room above is another man in similar circumstances, working late shifts as a labourer.

Each night, just as he goes to sleep, the office worker is woken by his neighbour as he opens the front door, clumps-clumps up the stairs, plods into his room above, sits on his bed, and throws his two big boots on the floor above our poor, weary and demented friend, one-by-one.

Each night, our sad insurance clerk waits for same routine, knowing that he cannot get to sleep until at least he hears both boots being thumped on the floor above.

One day, being a Christian, the more timid office worker approaches his neighbour, explains the problem, and asks could he come in quietly at night, and take his shoes off gently.

Surprisingly, his neighbour is sympathetic, understanding. The next night, he turns the key quietly, tip toes upstairs, sits down quietly, takes off both shoes in one go and places them together, gently, on the floor above.

Meanwhile, his neighbour downstairs is lying in bed, waiting anxiously. He can’t get any shut eye. He’s heard his neighbour come in, go up, sit down, and has heard the one muffled thud on the floor … Only one … he waits … he tosses … he waits … he turns … And finally, he can wait no more. He screams out: ‘Would you throw down the other darn shoe and let’s all go to sleep!’

Learning to forgive the very little slights and offences is often so difficult when we live closely to one another: the muffled sounds next door when someone is up late finishing an essay; the early riser heading out for a morning jog who unintentionally wakes us; the unexpected slurps at the table; the accent that irritates me because, subconsciously, it reminds me of a particular neighbour or family member.

Sometimes, if truth is told, it is easier to forgive when it comes to the big things. Yet, our spiritual relationship with God is reflected in our social and economic relationship with others. If we can be entrusted with the small things, are ready to forgive the small things, then we can be entrusted with the biggest of all … We can be stewards of the mysteries of God.

Perhaps, like the shrewd steward, we need to be as wise as serpents and as harmless as doves.

‘Who will entrust to you the true riches?’ (Luke 16: 11) … old Greek banknotes that have lost their currency and true value (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Prayers (Saturday 9 November 2024):

The theme this week in ‘Pray With the World Church’, the Prayer Diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), has been ‘Conflict, Confluence and Creativity’. This theme was introduced last Sunday with reflections by Rebecca Boardman, former Operations Manager, USPG.

The USPG Prayer Diary today (Saturday 9 November 2024) invites us to pray reflecting on these words:

The Lord by wisdom founded the earth; by understanding he established the heavens; by his knowledge the deeps broke open, and the clouds drop down the dew (Proverbs 3: 19-20).

The Collect:

Almighty and eternal God,
you have kindled the flame of love
in the hearts of the saints:
grant to us the same faith and power of love,
that, as we rejoice in their triumphs,
we may be sustained by their example and fellowship;
through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

Post Communion Prayer:

Lord of heaven,
in this eucharist you have brought us near
to an innumerable company of angels
and to the spirits of the saints made perfect:
as in this food of our earthly pilgrimage
we have shared their fellowship,
so may we come to share their joy in heaven;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Additional Collect:

God of glory,
touch our lips with the fire of your Spirit,
that we with all creation
may rejoice to sing your praise;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Collect on the Eve of the Third Sunday before Advent:

Almighty Father,
whose will is to restore all things
in your beloved Son, the King of all:
govern the hearts and minds of those in authority,
and bring the families of the nations,
divided and torn apart by the ravages of sin,
to be subject to his just and gentle rule;
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

Yesterday’s Reflection

Continued Tomorrow

‘Father Forgive’ and the Cross of Nails in Coventry Cathedral … it is often most difficult to forgive the small things (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

The architect from Cork who designed the GPO in Kuching for the Brooke family

The General Post Office in Kuching is an outstanding example of the mixed and cosmopolitan architectural legacy of the city (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

Patrick Comerford

The General Post Office in Kuching is an outstanding example of the mixed and cosmopolitan architectural legacy of the city and one of the reminders of the days when the Brooke family ruled as the ‘White Rajahs’ of Sarawak.

The GPO is a highly visible part of the city’s architectural grandeur, stands on Jalan Tun Haji Openg, on the corner with Carpenter Street, and close to both Saint Thomas’s Cathedral and Padang Merdeka, the main square in the heart of Kuching.

Although it was built in 1931, it looks like an early 19th century public building, with its neo-classical grandeur and its Corinthian columns – the only building in Sarawak in this style.

This elegant neo-classical masterpiece was designed by the Irish-born architect Denis Santry (1879-1960) of Swan and Maclaren Architects Singapore, the same architectural practice that designed Saint Thomas’s Anglican Cathedral in Kuching.

Denis Santry was both an architect and cartoonist. As well as the Post Office in Kuching, he designed several prominent structures in Singapore, including the Sultan Mosque and the Cenotaph.

Santry was born in Cork on 14 May 1879, the son of Ellen and Denis Santry, a carpenter and joiner. He served his apprenticeship to his father as a cabinetmaker and then studied at the Cork Municipal School of Art (1894-1896) and the Crawford School of Art, Cork (1895). In 1897, he was articled to the architect James Finbarre McMullen (1859-1933), whose best-known work is the Honan Chapel at University College Cork (1914-1916).

Santry then studied at the Royal College of Art in London (1897-1898) under a Lane scholarship. There he won the Queen’s Prize for freehand drawing. After graduating, he returned to McMullen’s office and worked there for the next two years.

Santry moved to South Africa in 1901 due to ill health. He worked at Tully & Waters, an architectural practice in Cape Town (1901-1902), and then with the architect William Patrick Henry Black (1867-1922). His cartoons began appearing in 1903 in local newspapers and magazines with the pseudonym ‘Adam’. He married Madeline Hegarty in 1904.

Later, Santry moved to Johannesburg where he worked with the Sunday Times and the Rand Daily Mail as a cartoonist, and also become a pioneer of animated cartoons in South Africa.

Th GPO in Kuching was designed by the Irish-born architect Denis Santry (1879-1960) of Swan and Maclaren Architects Singapore (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

Santry moved to Singapore in 1918 and joined Swan & Maclaren as a partner. There he was the architect of several prominent buildings and monuments, including the Sultan Mosque, the Cenotaph, the Maritime Building, the Hongkong and Shanghai Bank Building and the Telok Ayer Chinese Methodist Church. He was the first president of the Saint Patrick’s Society Singapore, was a frequent contributor to the Straits Produce, a satirical magazine, and helped to found the Singapore Society of Architects and the Institute of Architects of Malaya.

After designing the GPO in Kuching, Santry retired to England in 1934 but he returned to South Africa in 1940. After World War II, he resumed his practice as a result of lost income caused by the Japanese occupation of Malaya. He died in Durban on 14 April 1960.

His magnificent GPO in Kuching has remained in continuous use as the General Post Office since it was completed in 1932, almost a century ago. This architectural marvel, approximately 100 ft in length, is a remarkable sight to behold.

The building was commissioned by Charles Vyner, the third Rajah of Sarawak. Its neoclassical façade was quite a contrast to the style of buildings favoured by James Brooke and Charles Brooke, the first and second Rajah.

The site of Santry’s post office was once a police station and also the Rajah’s stables, where the Rajah’s the horses were fed, watered and groomed, with a coach house, hay loft and harness room, and surrounded by areca palms. The stables were part of an era when horses were reserved for the elite, but the new post office symbolised the city’s transition into modernity in the decade immediately before World War II.

The GPO also served as a telegram service centre and the Kuching branch of the Chartered Bank, and for a time an annexe behind the building served as the office of the Land and Survey Department. Some 3,300 mailboxes were installed in the post office to provide mail receiving services for people who did not have correspondence addresses.

The coat-of-arms of the Brooke family as the Rajahs of Sarawak displayed on the GPO in Kuching (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

The façade of the GPO has semi-circular arches, intricately adorned column capitals, and friezes, showcasing a blend of form and function. Deep parapet walls hide the pitched roof, the colonnaded portico serves as a corridor, while the rear of the building is simple and austere.

The grandeur of the building is further accentuated by 12 towering Corinthian columns standing proudly at the main entrance, reaching heights of 30 ft. In the pediment above the Corinthian columns, the coat-of-arms of the Brooke family is a reminder of an era of benevolent rule that stood outside the British colonial system. Other buildings that have survived from the reign of Sir Charles Vyner Brooke include the Old Courthouse and the Astana.

The Brooke motto, part of the heraldic decoration, proclaims: Dum Spiro Spero, ‘While I breathe, I hope.’ It is also the motto of many places and organisations, including the State of South Carolina, and of many other families, including the Hoare baronets of Annabella, Co Cork, the Cotter baronets of Rockforest, Co Cork, the Viscounts Dillon, and the Sharp and Sharpe families.

The sense of dum spiro spero is found in the writings of the Greek poet Theocritus (3rd Century BCE), who wrote: ‘While there’s life there’s hope, and only the dead have none.’ That sentiment seems to have become common by the time of Cicero (106-43 BCE), who wrote to Atticus: ‘As in the case of a sick man one says, ‘While there is life there is hope’ [dum anima est, spes esse], so, as long as Pompey was in Italy, I did not cease to hope.’

The grandeur of the GPO is enhanced by 12 towering Corinthian columns (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

Ten years after the GPO was built, however, hope may seemed to come to end for many in Kuching when the Japanese invaded on Christmas Eve 1941. The capture of the city was notified to the British Far East Command in Singapre with a pithy, single-line telegram sent from the GPO that declared: ‘Pussy’s in the Well.’

Kuching became Kyuchin in Japanese, and in July 1942 the Chartered Bank in Kuching was converted into a branch of the Yokohama Specie Bank.

Despite invasion, war, the end of the Brooke era, and the subsequent end of British colonialism, the GPO has continued to survive in Kuching in an era that sees traditional postal services being replaced, by digital alternatives such as emails, instant messaging, and online banking and communications.

The Sarawak state government has considered applying to have the post office listed as a UNESCO heritage site. The building remains a cherished symbol of Kuching’s heritage, its architectural splendour is a reminder of a bygone era.

The GPO remains an integral part of Kuching’s architectural heritage and a reminder of a bygone era (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

New Ireland building on Dawson Street restored with its Celtic symbolism and unusual heraldry

The New Ireland Assurance building on Dawson Street, Dublin, designed by O’Brien, Morris and McCullough Architects and built in 1964 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

Patrick Comerford

It seems I have known Dawson Street throughout all my adult life. I first worked there for two or three years after leaving school, while I was training to be a chartered surveyor with the College of Estate Management at Reading University through Jones Lang Wootton, then on the third floor of the Norwich Union Building.

I left there over 50 years ago as I set out on a career in journalism. But when I returned to Dublin to work with The Irish Times, I regularly attended the mid-day, week-day Eucharists in Saint Ann’s Church.

Next door, at the Royal Irish Academy, I enrolled in a course in classical Greek, lectured on the Middle East and genealogical research, and attended launches of books to which I have contributed papers and chapters.

I spent six years on the board of the National Bible Society of Ireland when it owned the ‘Bestseller’ bookshop on Dawson Street, and academic life in Trinity College Dublin gave me a new perspective on the street and a new familiarity with its cafés and bookshops.

In addition, there were meetings, conferences and similar events in the Mansion House, including the annual meetings of Irish CND and Holocaust Memorial Day, and the inevitable working lunches in the restaurants and cafés along Dawson Street.

Some parts of Dawson Street are landmarks that never seem to change: Saint Ann’s, the Royal Irish Academy and the Mansion House; some have vanished and been replaced, including the former Norwich Union building; some have come and gone, such as Waterstones, while others are new fixtures, like the Ivy.

Who remembers the Royal Hibernian Hotel that gave its name to Royal Hibernian Way in 1988?

And, in recent years, the LUAS has transformed the commercial and social life of Dawson Street.

The New Ireland Assurance Company was the first Irish-owned life insurance company in Ireland (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

Dawson Street was laid out as part of a new suburb by Joshua Dawson in the early 18th century, linking Saint Stephen’s Green with College Park and Trinity College Dublin. By the 20th century, the street was filled with insurance companies, including – at different times – the North British, Irish National, New Ireland, Sun Alliance, Atlas Insurance, Standard Life and Norwich Union.

From the third floor of the Lardner-designed former Norwich Union House in the early 1970s, I could see the New Ireland building across the street, with its unusual combination of decorative details.

As I reclaimed this new Dawson Street last Saturday morning, I was glad to see the hoardings had come down from around the New Ireland building, an impressive example of the best of modern Irish architecture, decorated with Gaelic and Celtic motifs and symbolism in an interesting attempt to present the old as new.

The New Ireland Assurance Company was the first Irish-owned life insurance company in Ireland. Today, it is a wholly owned subsidiary of Bank of Ireland. But the company was formed as the New Ireland Assurance Collecting Society in January 1918, and from the beginning it was closely linked to the nationalist movement. Its first meeting was attended by Éamon de Valera, Michael Staines, Liam Tobin and Frank Thornton, who were leading figures in the 1916 rising.

The New Ireland Assurance building on Dawson Street reflects the evolution of modern office buildings in Ireland. The oldest structure, designed by Vincent Kelly and built in 1934, was one of the first purpose-built office buildings in Ireland and its modernist design became an emblem of a progressive forward-looking nation.

New Ireland Assurance continued to develop the site over the following decades to accommodate growing staff numbers and in response to changing work environments driven by advances in technology and workplace standards.

The bronze-finished double entrance doors feature Celtic engravings intended to symbolise the four provinces of Ireland (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

The 1964 building, designed by O’Brien, Morris and McCullough Architects is the most distinctive phase of development, with Its dramatically embellished Celtic patterning unashamedly proclaiming the nationalist sentiments of New Ireland and its founders.

The building has been described by the architectural historian Christine Casey as ‘Modernism tempered by a classical sensibility’ and ‘an odd jumpy effect’. It is an impressive piece of architecture, decorated throughout with Gaelic symbolism.

The architectural website Archiseek describes it as ‘one of the better office buildings of the 1960s in Dublin.’ It says, ‘With its strong modern lines, gold coloured window frames, and Celtic-inspired decoration, New Ireland Assurance was attempting to demonstrate a new Ireland, looking forward, the results of Taoiseach Seán Lemass’s push for modernity in the country.’

This building was opened by Lemass in 1964 and it captures a particular moment in time, when the state was still clinging to the idea of a Gaelic Ireland at a time when the Irish economy and Irish society evolving, changing and growing.

The entrance features a bronze-finished double door with Celtic engravings that were intended to symbolise the four provinces of Ireland. The bronze panels were intended to display the four provincial coats of arms, on two ‘Celtic-style’ logos similar to the logo of the Gaelic Athletic Association, and four separate panels, two each above and below, with supposed heraldic representations of the four provinces of Ireland.

Leinster is represented by the arms of Dublin, but the three castles are not in flames (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

Today, the quartered arms of the four provinces are usually shown in the order: 1 Leinster, 2 Connacht, 3 Ulster, 4 Munster. But on these doors the sequence is: 1 Connacht, 2 Ulster, 3 Munster, 4, Leinster.

For some inexplicable reason, though, these representations of provincial coat of arms are accurate in only one instance: the three crowns of Munster in the lower part of the two ‘Celtic-style’ logos and in the lower panel of the door to the left.

In each instance, Ulster is represented by a hand inspired by the red hand of Ulster, but without the cross and shield or inescutcheon that are part of the arms of Ulster. Perhaps the artist thought the actual heraldic arms of Ulster might be confused with those of Northern Ireland.

The arms of Leinster were replaced by the arms of Dublin, but while the three castles on the two ‘Celtic-style’ logos are in flames, in the lower right panel of the doors the three castles have no flames.

The provincial arms of Connacht have been substituted with an eccentric interpretation of a seldom-seen and anachronistic version of the city arms of Galway (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

In a further curiosity, the provincial arms of Connacht have been substituted with an eccentric interpretation of a seldom-seen and anachronistic version of the city coat of arms of Galway.

Since the 17th century, the arms of Connacht have been described as: party per pale argent and azure, in the first an eagle dimidiated and displayed sable, in the second issuant from the partition an arm embowed and vested, the hand holding a sword erect, all argent. They are complicated arms, and may have been the mediaeval arms of the Irish Benedictine community at Regensburg in Germany, which was founded in the 11th century and remained in Irish hands until the Reformation in the 16th century.

The Dawson Street doors replace the arms of Connacht with a rarified version of the arms of Galway. The design shows a galley on the waves, with stars and a mast with a hanging shield. In most versions of Galway’s heraldic arms, the shield on the ship has a golden rampant lion. But at the New Ireland building – designed as a statement of confident of Irish nationalism – the shield is shown not with a golden lion, but with a version of the Plantagenet royal arms of England, with the quartered arms of France and England as they were used for centuries by English monarchs.

However, a quirky dimension of this depiction of the royal arms is the replacement of the three fleurs-de-lis of France with five six-pointed stars.

The motto in Irish on the logos translates: ‘My God, Your God, My Land, Your Land.’ The company is named in English as ‘New Ireland Assurance Society.’ At the side of the building, in Dawson Lane, the Celtic themes continue with a modern depiction of Cú Chulainn.

The provincial coats of arms, the Celtic designs and the Irish language unveiling marker combine to make this a building of the 1960s, both strikingly modern and harkening back to real and imagined mythological Celtic past seen through narrow nationalist eyes.

‘Celtic-style’ logos appear similar in design to the logo of the Gaelic Athletic Association (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

When the New Ireland building came on the market in 2018, there was speculation that it could become an hotel, or be rebuilt, and fears that its 1960s decorative art work would be lost. But in May 2024, about 900 staff from AIB and professional services group Goodbody moved into new office accommodation at 9-12 Dawson Street from offices in Ballsbridge.

The new offices, which are an amalgamation of three separate buildings dating from the 1930s, 1960s and 1970s, have been restored, extended and upgraded, and the centrepiece of the new office is the restored 1964 New Ireland building at 11-12 Dawson Street. Combined, they include 5,600 sq m over six floors, and Goodbody occupies three of the six floors.

The new development or redevelopment of the buildings embraces their Protected Structure status and returns key aspects of the buildings to their original condition. The entrance of the 1964 building has been re-established, the original double height entrance lobby has been reinstated, and there is an open plan relationship between the lobby and the original terrazzo staircase. The interior of the entrance space reintroduces the materials used in the original foyer including Connemara marble wall panelling and Terrazzo flooring.

The restored interiors have been built using mainly Irish materials including protected green Connemara and black Kilkenny marble. Stained glass windows by Abbey Stained Glass Studios bridge the floors, including a window featuring Cú Chulainn.

Colin Hunt, chief executive of AIB, told The Irish Times: ‘We are very proud to act as custodian of this magnificently restored building with such a wonderful historical and architectural pedigree in the heart of Dublin city and to make it once again a home for Irish enterprise.’

The Celtic themes continue in Dawson Lane with a modern depiction of Cú Chulainn (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

Three Hindu temples illustrate the religious and ethnic diversity found in Leicester

The former Midland Bank on Granby Street is now a ‘Hare Kishna’ temple … Leicester has about 20 Hindu temples (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

Patrick Comerford

Leicester is known as a multi-faith city with a rich ethnic, cultural and religious diversity. In recent weeks. I have written about churches, the cathedral, synagogues, meeting houses, the Jain and Sikh communities, and the Secular Hall, as examples of the variety of faith communities and belief systems found in Leicester.

About 15 per cent of Leicester’s population are Hindus. When I was in Leicester back in 2011 for a course on interfaith dialogue in Saint Philip’s Centre, our group received a warm welcome at the Shree Sanatan Mandir, a large Hindu temple in Weymouth Street. During my visits to Leicester last month, I learned that the city has about 20 Hindu temples, and I was interested to see some of them as I walked around the city.

Iskcon, the International Society for Krishna Consciousness – known to many as the Hare Krishna movement – has its temple in an elegant building on Granby Street in the centre of Leicester. The former Midland Bank is a Grade II* listed building dating from the early 1870s. The building was designed for the Leicestershire Banking Company in 1872-1873 by the Leicester architect Joseph Goddard (1840-1900).

Goddard was a member of a prominent family of architects and played a major role in introducing Victorian gothic architecture to Leicester with his clock tower. He designed the bank building in the French Gothic Revival style, in striking contrast to the Italianate design of the National Provincial Bank built nearby a few years earlier.

Notable details include the corner porch, French pavilion roofs, and a two-storey-tall stained-glass façade. The spectacular interior featured enormous hammer beams that formed a lantern roof giving the building a lofty and imposing atmosphere.

The elaborate design of the Leicestershire Bank, both inside and outside, was intended to inspire confidence among depositors, while fire-proof corridors and rooms with safes in the basement ensured the physical safety of valuables entrusted to the banks.

The hand-carved pillars incorporated friezes and coat of arms representing cities where the company did business. These carved details on the exterior are the work of the local stonemason Samuel Barfield, who was also responsible for the figures on the Clock Tower in Leicester.

The bank was completed in 1874 at the cost of £7,439. Its immediate success earned Goddard multiple commissions for new banks throughout the East Midland. Many of his buildings are still in use and listed as historic structures by English Heritage.

By the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, the Leicestershire Bank merged with the London City and Midland Bank, and the building later became a branch of the Midland Bank and then of HSBC.

Joseph Goddard’s details on the bank building include the corner porch and French pavilion roofs (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

The former bank was vacant for some years when it was bought by a local family and donated to Iskcon, the International Society for Krishna Consciousness, as a temple. Six years earlier, An explosion destroyed their former temple at 21 Thoresby Street in North Evington, in Leicester, on 3 September 2010, when 30 people escaped.

The temple is one of 16 religious and cultural centres Iskcon runs in the UK, and follows the Krishna-centric practices of the Gaudiya Vaishnava tradition in Hinduism. The tradition based on Sanskrit scriptures including the Bhagavad Gita and the Bhagavat Purana. It is a monotheistic form of Hinduism in which Krishna is worshipped as the highest form of God and the source of all the avatars of God.

The former HSBC bank on Granby Street had been on the market for five years and the bank accepted an original offer of £750,000 in May 2011. But, during the purchase process, the became clear the Grade II listed building needed major renovations to the roof, heating, and lighting systems. English Heritage added the building to a national ‘at risk’ list, saying it needed urgent repairs to save it from falling into ruin.

With an estimated renovation cost of £2 million, the community renegotiated the purchase price to £350,000 with the promise of restoring the building.

The Hare Krishna monks moved into the building in 2016, and the temple was inaugurated in August 2016. The main temple room can host up to 250 guests, and there are offices, two classrooms for the College of Vedic Studies, and a kitchen producing vegetarian food. Further renovations are planned to include a restaurant, library, and exhibition.

The Shree Geeta Bhavan Temple and Hindu Community Centre on Clarendon Park Road (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

The second Hindu temple I noticed during my visits to Leicester last month is the Shree Geeta Bhavan Temple and Hindu Community Centre at 70 Clarendon Park Road, run by the Hindu Religious and Cultural Society of Leicester.

This is a more modern building than the other two temples I saw in Leicester in recent weeks. It is said locally to have been used once as part of the buildings of Saint John the Baptist school, which I visited back in 2011. It has been used as a Hindu temple and community centre since the 1980s. A £500,000 extension to the temple was officially opened in July 2010.

The temple says it seeks to meet the spiritual, ritual, ceremonial and social needs of Hindus, respecting and reflecting the diversity that is part of Hindu heritage. It tries to promote mutual respect and tolerance within the Hindu community, with its diverse beliefs and unique traditions.

The aims and objectives of Geeta Bhavan Leicester include providing an umbrella organisation for Hindu temples, faith organisations and groups across the UK, working with other faith groups for mutual appreciation through interfaith dialogue and community cohesion.

The Shirdi Sai Baba Temple Association of London had a temple in the former Guild Hall on Colton Street (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

Until recently, the Shirdi Sai Baba Temple Association of London had its own Hindu temple in the former Guild Hall on Colton Street. The name of this building should not cause confusion with the mediaeval Guildhall near Leicester Cathedral, which was built by the Guild of Corpus Christi and later became the town hall.

The Leicester Guild of the Crippled opened the Guild Hall on Colton Street in 1909 by to provide a social centre for people with physical disabilities. As well as being ‘beautiful and commodious’, this Arts and Crafts and Art Nouveau style building was very practical and was designed to be fully accessible. The architects A & TE Sawday designed it on one level, with wide exterior and interior doors for spinal carriages and wheelchairs.

The Leicester Guild of the Crippled was formed in 1898 by Arthur Isaac Groves, a hosiery manufacturer, and his business partner Thomas E Meakin, at the suggestion of Sister Carroll Hogbin. Through her work with the poor of Leicester, she realised that many disabled people were isolated and needed social contact. The Guild Hall provided a centre where the Guild of the Crippled could expand its work and provide activities such as concerts, ‘magic lantern’ evenings, craft classes, excursions and a library.

An industrial training hall was added in 1914 to address the problems disabled people faced in finding employment. Medical services were provided free of charge, including surgery, prosthetic limbs and wheelchairs.

Until recently, the former Guild Hall was used as a temple by the Shirdi Sai Baba Temple Association of London, a Hindu organisation or religious movement of the followers and devotees of the 19th and early 20th century Indian saint Sai Baba of Shirdi or Shirdi Sai Baba.

Sai Baba (1838-1918) is revered by people from a variety of religious backgrounds. He is called ‘Baba’, meaning father or grandfather, by his devotees who see him as a spiritual guru or saint with divine and miraculous powers. He was a spiritual master and fakir, considered to be a saint, and he was revered by both Hindus and Muslims.

According to the Shri Sai Satcharita, a biography written after his death, his Hindu devotees believed Sai Baba to be an incarnation of the Hindu deity Dattatreya. In his teachings, Sai Baba combined elements of Hinduism and Islam. He emphasised love, forgiveness, helping others, charity, contentment, inner peace, and devotion to God and Guru. He condemned discrimination based on religion or caste, and refused to identify himself with one religion to the exclusion of the other.

The former temple and former Guild Hall on Colton Street is in an area that has seen much regeneration in recent years, with new residential and office space bringing new life into the area. Now the sale of the former temple and former Guild Hall is being negotiated, after being on the market in recent months with an asking price of £500,000.

As for the organisation that built the Guild Hall, it moved premises but continues to support disability services. In a reflection of changing attitudes to disability, it was first renamed the Leicester Guild of the Physically Handicapped and since 2000 it has been known as ‘Mosaic 1898.’

The Shree Geeta Bhavan Temple on Clarendon Park Road is part of the religious diversity in Leicester (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

The Greeks have a word for it: 40, Praxis, Πρᾶξις

A doctor’s sign in Hersonissos … the word Praxis is a perfectly good Greek word, Πρᾶξις, in use in Greece today (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

Patrick Comerford

Walking up and down the hill between Piskopianó and Hersonissos in Crete in the sunshine last month, I was surprised how many places remained so familiar: the restaurants where I had enjoyed so many dinners, such as Lychnos and Metohi; the cafés and bars I had called into; the apartment blocks where other holidaymakers had stayed; and the shops where I had bought a daily newspaper 20-30 years ago.

There are few Irish tourists in Piskopianó or neighbouring Koutouloufári these days, although the signs still remain outside some of the once-popular Irish bars, such as Molly Malones. Today, the holidaymakers in Piskopianó seem to be mainly German and Dutch.

But there were other signs that were more important to notice when I was on holidays there so long away. I immediately recognised the bank where I once had to open an account hastily in the late 1990s. It was in the days when everyone used travellers’ cheques, there were few ATMs and most Greek shops and restaurants refused to accept ‘plastic cards.’

One year, I left my travellers cheques behind, and the bank in Dublin would only transfer funds to a bank account in my name in Greece. But without any money I could not open a new bank account in Greece. It was a condundrum that contributed to me labelling the Ulster Bank the Ulcer Bank. With quick thinking and help from Greek friends, I worked my away around this Catch-22 banking practice and managed to open an accountin Hersonissos within 24 hours, the funds were transferred, shops and restaurants could be paid with cash once again.

When I saw that bank on the street corner in Hersonissos a few weekends ago, I was grateful my children did not go hungry on that holiday due to my forgetfulness. It was all thanks to kindly bank staff in Crete and despite arcane banking practices back in Dublin. I was tempted even to go in and ask whether there was anything left in my old account – although all that was in the day of the Drachma, and if anything is left in the account it is probably not going to buy even a cup of coffee. On the other hand, I might have found I am still legally resident in Crete.

With young children on those holidays, it was also important to know where to find the nearest pharmacist’s shop and the nearest doctor’s practice. I smiled when I recognised that practice immediately that recent Saturday afternoon. But the change in tourism patterns is reflected in the sign outside the surgery: it says ‘Artz Praxis’ in German and ‘Doctor’s Office’ in English.

The word Praxis is a perfectly good Greek word, Πρᾶξις (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

But the word Praxis is a perfectly good Greek word, Πρᾶξις.

The word praxis describes the process by which a theory, lesson, or skill is enacted, embodied, realised, applied, or put into practice. The word Praxis may also refer to the act of engaging, applying, exercising, realising, or practising ideas.

The word praxis comes from the Ancient Greek πρᾶξις, praxis, which referred to activity engaged in by free people. Aristotle held that there were three basic human activities: θεωρία (theoria, thinking), ποίησις (poiesis, making) and πρᾶξις (praxis, doing). Corresponding to these activities were three types of knowledge: theoretical, the end goal being truth; poietical, the end goal being production; and practical, the end goal being action.

Aristotle further divided the knowledge derived from praxis into ethics, economics and politics, and he distinguished between εὐπραξία (eupraxia, good praxis) and δυσπραξία (dyspraxia, ‘bad praxis, misfortune’).

The Greek word πρᾶξις is derived from the verb πράσσειν (prassein, to do, to act). It means ‘practice, action, doing.’ More particularly, it means either: practice as distinguished from theory, of an art, science, etc.; or practical application or exercise of a branch of learning; or habitual or established practice, custom.

Eastern Christian writers, especially in the Byzantine tradition, use the term ‘praxis’ to refer to what others, using an English rather than a Greek word, call ‘practice of the faith’, especially with regard to ascetic and liturgical life.

Praxis is a key to understanding the Orthodox or Byzantine tradition, in which praxis is the basis of understanding faith and works as conjoint, without separating the two. The importance of praxis, in the sense of action, is indicated in the dictum of Saint Maximus the Confessor: ‘Theology without action is the theology of demons.’

In Orthodox thinking, theory and practice complement each other. Indeed, praxis is seen as ‘living Orthodoxy.’

Some Orthodox theologians think Western Christianity has often been reduced ‘to intellectual, ethical or social categories, whereas right praxis is fundamentally important in a person’s relationship with God, requiring a symbiosis of worship and work.

Praxis is a recurrent topic in the field of philosophy, discussed by philosophers and theologians from Plato and Aristotle to Saint Augustine, Bacon, Kant, Kierkegaard, Mark, Gramsci, Heidegger, Sartre and Freire. It has meaning in the political, educational, spiritual and medical realms.

In English, the word "praxis" is more commonly used in the sense not of practice but with the meaning given to it by Immanuel Kant, namely application of a theory to cases encountered in experience or reasoning about what there should be as opposed to what there is. Karl Marx made this meaning central to his philosophical ideal of transforming the world through revolutionary activity.

Writers in Latin American liberation theology have used the word praxis with specific reference to human activity directed towards transforming the conditions and causes of poverty. For them, liberation theology consists then in applying the Gospel to that praxis to guide and govern it.

August Cieszkowski in 1838 was one of the earliest philosophers to use the term praxis to mean ‘action oriented towards changing society’. Marx uses the term ‘praxis’ to refer to the free, universal, creative and self-creative activity through which humans create and change our historical world and ourselves. For many writers, Marxism is the ‘philosophy of praxis.’

Educators use the word praxis to describe a recurring passage through a cyclical process of experiential learning. Praxis may be described as a form of critical thinking and comprises the combination of reflection and action.

We could say praxis is doing something, and then finding out afterwards why we did it: I left my travellers’ cheques behind, I realised this could be a catastrophe over the following three weeks, I opened a new bank account and transferred funds immediately, and I learned my lesson – I made sure I had plastic and access to cash on all subsequent holidays.

There was a follow-up lesson too. When I arrived back in Dublin, the travellers’ cheques were still on the kitchen table. But because travellers’ cheques needed to be signed in the bank where they were purchased, and then counter-signed to cash in, I had real problems bringing them back to the bank and getting their value credited back to my account. I had learned a costly lesson and I had put that learning into practice.

Previous word: 39, Odyssey, Ὀδύσσεια

Next word: 41, Idiotic, Ιδιωτικός

I wonder whether a Drachma or two is still resting in my bank account in Hersonissos? (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

Two plaques on the Town Hall recall Jewish life in mediaeval Oxford

Oxford Town Hall on Saint Aldate’s stands on the site of the house of David of Oxford, a prominent Jewish financier (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

Patrick Comerford

I have been in Oxford twice this week, rummaging through the bookshops and taking photographs. It's easy to get there from Stony Stratford, with a good bus connection through Buckingham. One day in Oxford recently, I went to see two plaques on the Town Hall that remember the mediaeval Jewish community, that prospered in the city until the mass expulsion of Jews from England in 1290.

A plaque on the front of the Town Hall in St Aldate’s reads: ‘This street known till 1300 as Great Jewry contained many houses of the Jews including the synagogue which lay to the north of Tom Tower 1931’.

The plaque was unveiled in 1931 by the Mayor of Oxford, Dr William Stobie. It is one of three plaques installed by Oxford City Council in 1931 to mark events connected with mediaeval Jewish life in Oxford. The other two plaques, which I have written about in earlier blog postings, commemorate the mediaeval Jewish Cemetery, by the Danby Gate at the Botanic Garden (29 March 2024), and the martyrdom of Haggai of Oxford, on the remains of Osney Mill (22 December 2023).

The three plaques were the initiative of Dr Herbert Loewe (1882-1940), lecturer in Semitic languages at Exeter College, Oxford, from 1913 until 1931, when he moved to Cambridge as Curator of Oriental Literature and Reader in Rabbinics. Before leaving Oxford in 1931, Loewe was responsible for erecting three plaques.

Loewe’s plaques celebrated the centenary of the birth of Neubauer, a noted Jewish librarian in the Bodleian. When the plaques were erected, fascism was on the rise across Europe. Mussolini was in power in Italy, Hitler was about to take power in Germany, and Oswald Mosley was forming new far-right parties in Britain, with funding from the Oxford industrialist Lord Nuffield, who held strongly antisemitic views. Five years after the plaques were erected, these trends in Britain reached their climax with the Battle of Cable Street in 1936.

A more recent plaque on the rere extension of the Town Hall in Oxford, facing Blue Boar Street, reads: ‘This extension to the Town Hall stands on land at the centre of the Anglo-Saxon town, later the heart of the Medieval Jewish Quarter and fronts a new street laid out by Christ Church in 1553. This plaque records a joint project by Oxford City Council and Amey Building, November 1995.’

Oxford Town Hall on Saint Aldate’s, a street in central Oxford, is the seat of Oxford City Council, a venue for public meetings, entertainment and other events, and the premises of the Museum of Oxford. Although Oxford is a city with its own charter, the building is known as the Town Hall. It is third town hall on the site; it was completed in 1897 and is Grade II* listed.

The town hall was designed by the architect Henry Thomas Hare (1860-1921) in a mixed Elizabethan-Jacobean style, later labelled as ‘Jacobethan’ by John Betjeman. Hare’s building included new premises for Oxford Crown and County Courts, a public library and police station as well as the city council offices. The Prince of Wales opened the new building in 1897.

The Town Hall stands on the site of the house of David of Oxford, a prominent Jewish financier in mediaeval Oxford. When he died in 1244, the house was handed over to the Domus Conversorum, the ‘home for converted Jews’.

The plaque erected on the town hall in Oxford in 1931 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

As the 1931 plaque on the town hall points out, until 1290 Great Jewry in Oxford ran from Carfax to Folly Bridge. Many of the houses there were owned by Jews, although some were let to Christians. There were Jewish houses too in adjoining Pembroke Street, once known as Pennyfarthing Lane, and Brewer Street, once known as Lombard Street.

The only remaining artefact of mediaeval Jewish life in Oxford today is the home of David of Oxford, which lies beneath the Town Hall on St Adate’s, formerly Great Jewry.

The town hall is on the site of the town hall that was built in 1752. The 1752 town hall, in turn, was built on the site of Oxford Guildhall, which in turn was built in 1292, shortly after the forced mass expulsion of Jews from England.

The town hall is on the site of two Jewish homes in mediaeval Oxford: the home of David of Oxford and the home Moses ben Isaac. The home of Moses ben Isaac was on the upper end of the site. It was confiscated from him in 1220 and given by the king for the use of the first Guildhall. The home of David of Oxford was seized after he died in 1244 and was used as a Domus Conversum until after the forced mass expulsion all Jews from England in 1290.

It may be the best preserved mediaeval Jewish site in England. It includes the living room of the mediaeval home of David of Oxford, replete with windows and the outline of a door that gave access to the subterranean cellars that criss-cross St Aldate’s.

The plaque erected on the rere extension of the Town Hall, facing Blue Boar Street, in 1995 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

David of Oxford, formerly known as David of Lincoln, was one of the most prominent Jews in 13th century England. His father was Asher, and it is not clear when exactly he moved to Oxford. However, in 1219, he was one of the six representatives of the wealthy class selected from all English Jewry to apportion tallage or taxes.

David of Oxford had dealings throughout England, including Warwick, Berkshire, Buckingham and Northampton, and his clients included many members of the aristocracy. He did business with other prominent Anglo-Jewish financiers, including Aaron of York, Hamo of Hereford, one of the wealthiest Jews of the day, Benedict of Crispin of London and his brother Jaqcob, and his fellow townsman, Copin of Oxford.

He also played an important role in communal life, though not always by choice. The king used David’s influence to ensure other Jews were paying the tallages (taxes) imposed on them. He was also one of the commission of eight Anglo-Jewish magnates appointed at the request of the communities in 1238 to collaborate with Justices of the Jews in an inquiry ‘touching Jews who are clippers of coin, thieves, and receivers’, in order to root out the alleged abuse and rid the community of a perpetual opportunity for blackmail.

David’s private life became a focus of controversy within the Jewish community in mid-13th century England, and in Oxford in particular, involving the king and leading rabbinic scholars in England and France. David was married to Muriel, who appears to also have been involved in his business affairs. But in 1242, David decided to divorce Muriel because they did not have any children. It seems David wanted a son to inherit his enormous fortune, and so gave Muriel a bill of divorce or get.

When the rabbis ruled against David, the crown intervened on his behalf in two directives issued on 27 August 1242. Cecil Roth, in his book Jews of Oxford, explains the royal intervention. The royal letters were addressed to three masters (magistri) or rabbis – Moses of London, Aaron of Canterbury and Jacob of Oxford – who formed a Jewish court of law or Beth Din.

Rabbi Gershom of Mainz, ‘the Light of the Exile’, a rabbinic authority generally respected in Northern Europe, had ruled it was improper for a man to divorce his wife without her consent, or to remarry if he did so. A Jewish court had the power to invalidate any divorce that did not accord with its rules.

When Muriel protested and sought help, her relatives from Lincoln offered to support her. They included her brother Peytevin – presumably Peytevin the Great, who had his own synagogue in Lincoln, and who was one of the victims of the ritual murder allegation in 1255 associated with Hugh of Lincoln.

French rabbis discussed the case and ruled in favour of Muriel. An ad hoc Beth Din, composed of the three magistri named in the royal letters, then met in Oxford, quashed the divorce and instructed David to take Muriel back again.

David appealed to Henry III and also won the support of Walter de Gray, Archbishop of York. The ruling of the three English rabbis was quashed by royal order, and the divorce was upheld.

In Jewish law, provision must be made for a divorced wife. David’s own house was at the top of Great Jewry, on the site of the present Town Hall on St Aldate’s. But he assigned Muriel a life interest in another house around the corner, at the junction of Jury Lane and Saint Edward’s Lane, and she continued to live there long after his death;

David married his second wife Licoricia of Winchester in 1242. She was an independent financier, the widow of Abraham of Kent, and the mother of three sons, Cokerel, Benedict and Lumbard, and a daughter Belia. She has been described as ‘the most important Jewish woman in medieval England.’ She gave birth in 1243 to a son for David, who was named Asher after his grandfather, but he was usually known as Douceman or Sweteman. However, shortly after his second marriage, David of Oxford died early in 1244.

Licoricia was given administration of her husband’s property after setting relief or death duty of 5,000 marks that was given to the royal Treasury. £2,591 of the amount was ordered to be paid to the new Exchequer recently established at Westminster in connection with the king’s ambitious building projects there. This was used in rebuilding Westminster Abbey and the shrine of Edward the Confessor.

David’s main residence in the Great Jewry may once have housed of a synagogue. Immediately after his death, however, his home, with all the utensils, furniture and clothing, was presented to the Home for Converted Jews (Domus Conversorum) that had been set up recently by the king in London. The house still exists today beneath the Town Hall.

Blue Boar Street on the south side of Oxford Town Hall (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

Sabbath Shalom