Raheny's Loss

Rev. Jim Carroll
Rector of All Saints' Raheny
1992-2013
Raheny's loss, on this occasion, will be nobody's gain except maybe for Jim and his family. And I'll bet they will miss Raheny as much as Raheny will miss them.

Jim has been Rector here for the last 21 years and is enormously popular, not just within his own religious congregation, but throughout the village and its catchment area, and also in Coolock which is part of the Raheny Church of Ireland parish.


He has been privileged with a fine house and an absolutely magnificent church.

The church has, however, needed significant renovations to the roof and belfry, and the heritage status of the building has called for work of the highest standard. This led to a serious funding drive, to which the Roman Catholic parishes of Raheny and Killester contributed. The peak of this activity was surely the bible reading marathon on the 400th anniversary of the publication of the King James Bible.


After keeping the parish, and Raheny at large, informed of progress in the fundraising, the appeal sign has now been converted into the thank you sign above. The money was raised, the roof was fixed and the bell is now ringing again.

The Church of Ireland Parish Newsletter has come out with a special issue covering Jim's period in Raheny and his imminent departure. I'm told that Andrea has done a marvellous job on it and the proof of this and of Jim's popularity is that the entire issue has now run out. I'll come back to it here when I get my hands on a (hard or virtual) copy.

Jim and Valerie's departure also rates a column and a half over two issues of the Raheny News (21 & 28/4/2013). The issue of 28/4/2013 also led with a headline item on the fundraising described above.

My own contact with this church is relatively recent and dates from my (now departed) 90 year old cousin from Cill Éanna across the road filling me in on one aspect of Jim's colourful background. I later ended up more or less accidentally taking part in the first King James marathon. Some time after that episode I was run off church grounds by the BBC who I was informed were making a film about Jack the Ripper inside in the church. Dramatic stuff, but it turned out to be not quite so dramatic. Full marks to Jim, though, for getting involved in this interesting enterprise. By way of a parting shot, in the closing months of his ministry, he gave us Martin Luther, in a compelling reminder of the this heretic's continuing relevance to modern Christianity.

He took his last service at 10am on Sunday (28/4/2013), and what a memorable service it was. The church was packed to overflowing - standing room only, and the mutual involvement between Jim and Valerie on the one hand and the community/congregation on the other was celebrated in great style.

I think it is probably the only Protestant service I have ever been at, but I don't expect ever to be at one which surpasses it. It was a fitting tribute to Jim and Valerie's dedication to their congregation over 21 years (and in deference to Jim I had better make some effort to give Jesus a mention!).


Jim's last stand: a last look at the church notice with his name "up in lights".

Time to call in the painters.

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Update - November 2013

And the painters came and went. And the parish awaits its new Rector.

Virtual Penalty Points

I was just checking out the fountain trough at the Ambassador/Gate/Rotunda in Google streetview (thanks Niall McAuley) when I noticed that Google offered the option of travelling north on the roadway on the east side of Parnell Square.

The Google arrows on the ground confirm this. But the traffic arrows tell you you are not allowed to do it.

So might we be picking up virtual penalty points here to be cashed in who knows when?

At the Pearly Gates, perhaps.

God forbid.

Warhead

This is a picture of a Warhead, in fact a WMD Warhead.

Whether it is also a Cowardly Warhead is something you will just have to figure out for youself, preferably after reading this link.

More Virgins

At this stage we should be used to divine apparitions and moving statues and the like. We have had our fill of them over the years.

But they're off again. This time it's the Unnoticed Virgin of the Blackstairs (above). I'll let the Kilkenny People describe it for you.

Situated just two kilometres outside Graignamanagh near St Mullin’s, rising high above the picturesque Carrigleade golf course are the Blackstairs Mountains. A bizarre formation in the rock, gravel and the heather, with a scale in the hundreds of metres, is striking at a glance – and even more so when gazed upon for longer. It appears to depict the Madonna and Child.

Damn the bit of Virgin I can see, but then I'm an unbeliever and She may be a bit selective in the company She keeps. I'm sure the local Parish Priest, the Bishop, and all the local non-RC denominations will have their hands full making sense of this one. Not to mention Fáilte Ireland in the year of The Gathering.

Unbeliever and all that I may be, that didn't spare me a recent encounter with a Virgin of my own (after a manner of speaking).

I answered the front door recently only to find that the Sumac tree in the front garden had been blown over, and uprooted beyond repair, by the storm of the previous night. The only thing left was to cut it up and burn the logs during the next cold spell.

I may, however, have to draw the line at interfering any further with the trunk of the tree (below). No doubting what you're looking at there.


So, what, I ask myself, is she trying to tell me?

Should I

• stop Knocking Knock? I think I'll await my RIC great-grandfather's report on that apparition before I take it seriously (pace Canon Horan and Pope John Paul II).
• put it up on eBay? But then there is the trade descriptions act and all that sort of legal stuff to contend with.
• burn it? It might be the other lad trying to tempt me, but then again it might not.

or

• just keep trying to improve on my Photoshopping? Yes, that sounds just about right!

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Update 23/8/2013

Well, I thought I should report progress.

The virgin is gone and the tree stump is ageing like the picture of Dorian Gray in Oscar's attic. In fact, I'm beginning to think there is something obscene about it but I can't quite put my finger on it.

The 134th anniversary of Knock has come and gone and the Pope has not restored the silenced to ministry.

So, who knows what next?

Homer nods ... again

Lost for words: portrait of
literary giants up for grabs


Click for larger imageThe caption reads

LITERARY GIANTS: From left, Louis MacNeice, TS Eliot, Ted Hughes, WH Auden and Stephen Spender at the Faber party

So who's who then? Five names, three people. Into won't go.

Ah, the arrows. Now I see all five (below).

Why did they first hide two?

The same photo twice, the first with the wrong crop.

Oh dear !

Yesterday the Central Bank, today the Sunday Independent.

Pillars crumbling.

Good thing Brewster isn't still around or they'd never hear the end of it.


Click for larger image

A Government Easter Egg

Last Sunday, in the very early morning, the clocks went forward. That was probably just as well as everything else seems to be going backward.

It emerged in the course of this gravity defying exercise that Alan Shatter is the Minister for Time. Clearly not the most taxing element in his portfolio, reminding people twice a year, to go forward in the Spring and backward in the Autumn.

That got me meditating on the distribution of Cabinet portfolios, and the Alice in Wonderland world we live in, and it occurred to me that this particular portfolio might be more appropriate to another member of Cabinet.

But then I realised that that particular Cabinet member is already the Minister for E=MC². Giving him charge of the speed of light, which is supposed to remain a constant, would surely constitute a conflict of interest of the highest order?


What a confusing world we live in.