Madam, - Tom Cooper (August 22nd) takes offence at Archbishop Brady being referred to as "Brady" but if he seeks an Irish Anglican counterpart to Archbishop Brady surely that would be Archbishop Harper and not Queen Elizabeth. The queen is not some sort of Irish Anglican equivalent to the Roman Catholic primate of All Ireland. Indeed it should be noted that the queen holds no jurisdiction whatsoever in the Church of Ireland.
Mr Cooper might be interested to note that it is not only the episcopal bench who have been stripped of their correct forms of address in Irish Timesreports. The humble Church of Ireland lesser clergy have suffered this indignity on occasion. The Rev Elaine Murray, bishop's vicar in Kilkenny, was styled "Murray" in an article by Sylvia Thompson, "Being a priest was a 'Lotto' dream" on April 3rd, 2007.
The Rev Mark Hayden, rector of Gorey, was styled "Hayden" in an article by Róisín Ingle, "Changing collars, keeping faith" on May 1st, 2007 and the Rev John Pickering, former rector of Drumcree, was styled "Pickering" in an article by Patsy McGarry on July 7th, 2007.
Of course on the other hand 99 per cent of my own parishioners call me by my first name and I take this as a sign of friendship and trust and certainly not ill breeding or the like.
In fact when I am called Rector, Vicar, Father, Mr and a host of other titles, I wonder are the callers being facetious?! - Yours, etc
ROY H BYRNE (The Rev), The Rectory, Ballickmoyler, Carlow.