Church of Ireland: Notes

This year St Ann's parish, Dublin, will celebrate its tercentenary and to mark this milestone a number of special events will…

This year St Ann's parish, Dublin, will celebrate its tercentenary and to mark this milestone a number of special events will take place.

The celebrations will begin tomorrow with a service on RTÉ 1 during which the address will be given by Canon Jack Black, former headmaster of Kilkenny College and a curate in St Ann's from 1968 to 1973.

Subsequent events will include a parish think-in in the spring, a dinner and harvest thanksgiving reunion service in the autumn and a songs of praise evening in November.

When the parish was founded in 1707, Dawson Street was a rural part of Dublin and the church was known as "St Ann's in the Cornfields."

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A downtown parish, its focus is on outreach to the community passing its doors everyday.

The description, "the church in the heart of the city with the city at its heart," is more appropriate for these times.

Over the years many people have found a spiritual home in St Ann's. Amongst famous names associated with the parish are Wolfe Tone, Bram Stoker, Hugh Lane and Dr Barnardo, while those from more recent times include Douglas Hyde and Erskine Childers.

As a city centre parish, members of the congregation were often transient as they were in Dublin studying at one of the educational institutions in the city. Other young people lived in the GFS, the YWCA or the Harding Boys' Home until they became established in business or married and returned to the country.

Great efforts have been made by the tercentenary committee to contact former choristers, parishioners, and others associated with the parish to let them know of these events, but inevitably some people will be left out.

Anyone who would like to know more about the celebrations can e-mail: stannschurch@eircom.net or call St Ann's church at 01-6767 727 or Cyril Wright, chair of the tercentenary committee, at 01-4906 831.

Today, the Open Christian Network will meet in Taney parish centre at 2pm when the Revd Andrew Furlong will introduce the topic Understanding Fundamentalism in World Faiths.

In Blarney there will be a weekend of celebration to mark the 10th anniversary of the refurbishment of the Church of the Resurrection.

This evening there will be a songs of praise service and tomorrow the Bishop of Cork will be the celebrant at a united service of holy communion at which the Bishop of Down and Dromore, the Rt Revd Harold Miller, who is a former rector, will preach.

Tomorrow, the preacher in the chapel of Trinity College, Dublin, will be Prof James Piscatori, director of the Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies, who will speak on The Idea of the People in the Islamic Traditions.

On Tuesday evening at 8pm in Christ Church, Dún Laoghaire, the Papal Nuncio will give the address at the Dún Laoghaire area service for the week of Prayer for Christian Unity.

Meanwhile in Belfast, Canon Kenneth Kearon, secretary general of the Anglican Consultative Council will preach in St Peter's cathedral and on Wednesday he will be the preacher in St Patrick's Church of Ireland cathedral, Armagh.

The standing committee of the General Synod will meet on Tuesday in Church of Ireland House and the House of Bishops will meet on Wednesday, while that evening the Archbishop of Dublin will chair The Irish Times debate in TCD.