There was a time when the train ran non-stop from Paddington to Taunton; hard now to imagine that there was once an express service from London to Somerset; hard to imagine Taunton station requiring a multiplicity of platforms. The train must have been long after that era, for it stopped at Castle Cary in east Somerset on its journey from the capital.  It must have been winter time, for beyond the carriage windows there was darkness. Pulling out from the lights of Castle Cary, the British Rail diesel locomotive gathered …

‘I would never refuse anyone’s hospitality’, he smiled.

He must have caught sight of me screwing up my nose at the thought of tea in a particular house, for he told of taking tea and sandwiches with an old countrywoman.

‘She cooked on an open fire; not even a range. The old kettle hung above the flames. She would have been sat with a cat, or maybe even a chicken in her hands. She offered me tea one day and picked up the teapot from the ashes at the edge of …

Travelling north on the M9 motorway in Co Carlow, there is a moment when infrastructure and landscape match those in a part of rural France; an unremarkable stretch of autoroute through an unknown département, yet one lodged deep in the recesses of the brain as emblematic of holidays deep in the French countryside.  Memories of an atmosphere, a mood of well-being, have the capacity to transform the bland uniformity of concrete and tarmacadam.

Soon after being appointed to a Dublin parish in late-1998, there was a journey south to make …

Buying Matthew Hollis’ book Now All Roads Lead to France: The Last Years of Edward Thomas because of a single poem, ‘Adlestrop,’ there is a pondering of what it is in the poem that prompts the purchase.

Yes, I remember Adlestrop –
the name, because one afternoon
of heat the express-train drew up there
unwontedly. It was late June.

The steam hissed. Someone cleared his throat.
no one left and no one came
on the bare platform. What I saw
was Adlestrop — only the name

And willows, willow-herb, and

…

Journeying through Somerset last Thursday, we travelled the road the road between Shepton Mallet and Glastonbury. In the last light of a January afternoon, mist lay in the valley below Pilton; Glastonbury Tor was silhouetted against the western sky; a view that would have inspired mystic thoughts and legends in centuries past.

Glastonbury was the centre of the world when I was a child; the stories with which we grew up made it the most important place in Britain. It was the place where in ancient times those feet had …

It was the album cover that caught the eye, a cartoon depiction of a young couple sitting at a booth in a diner. Buying ‘The Cruisin’ Story 1957,’ fifty tracks of American music from Buddy Holly, Chuck Berry, The Everly Brothers, Sam Cooke, Little Richard, Elvis Presley and a string of others: childhood memories surfaced of how rich Americans had always seemed when compared with pictures of post-war Europe.

The diner seemed to epitomize that age of optimism.  There was nothing in Britain to match the brightness and the brashness of …

Three years ago the Church of Ireland embarked upon discussion of a ‘code of conduct’ for its clergy.  It was a bad idea then, and, as questions arise over those discussions, it is a bad idea now.

‘Codes of conduct’ and their ilk are a case of hard cases making bad law.  Where all is well, then no code of conduct is necessary and where there are problems, the rights introduced by a code would stymie whatever progress might have been made under the plain, traditional guidance of the bishop.…

Twenty monologues on the life of Jesus.

The Shepherds        The Magi      Mary      Herod       Simeon

Anna      John the Baptist       Andrew       The Woman at the Well       Matthew

Martha       Lazarus        Judas        Pilate        Peter

Claudia Procula       The Centurion       Joseph of Arimathea…

Christmas Services

Christmas services begin at 7pm on Saturday, 24th December with Holy Communion at Seir Kieran.  This is followed by Borris-in-Ossory at 8.15 pm and Lacca at 9.30 pm.  On Christmas morning, we begin with Roskelton at 9.30 am and then have services at Annatrim at 10.30 am and Mountrath at 11.30 am.

Vintage Tractor and Car Run

Come along for fresh air and a great spectacle at the Vintage Tractor and Car Run assembling at Mountrath Mart at 11.30 am on Wednesday 28th December and departing at 12.30 …

John Creedon played two tracks from the golden era of Fleetwood Mac, ‘Gypsy’ and ‘Little Lies’.  He recalled that ‘Gypsy’ had come from the ‘Rumours’ album and that he had been at a birthday party in 1979 where the person celebrating their twenty-first birthday had been given no less than four copies of ‘Rumours’ by various of those invited to the celebration.

The story sounded odd. By 1979 in Somerset, I can remember no-one celebrating their 21st birthday. Maybe they did, by the time my class was 21, we were …