United Dioceses of Dublin & Glendalough

This month Christ Church Cathedral is holding a lunchtime lecture series looking at perspectives on the disestablishment of the Church of Ireland 150 years on. The lectures will be held on the next four Fridays in January at 13.10 in the music room.

The lectures will look at Disestablishment from the perspectives of government, history, the Roman Catholic and Church of Ireland churches, and will be delivered by an esteemed line–up of speakers.

The first will be delivered this Friday, January 10, at 1.10pm and will be given by Mary E. Daly, former professor of Modern Irish History at UCD, and who from 2014–17 served as the first female president of the Royal Irish Academy. Her edited volume with K. Theodore Hoppen on ‘Gladstone: Ireland and Beyond’ (Four Courts Press, 2011), ideally qualifies her to give a governmental perspective on the disestablishment of the Church of Ireland, given that Gladstone was largely the architect of the legislation.

Later speakers include the early modernist, Professor Alan Ford with a historical perspective on disestablishment, while Dr Colin Barr of the University of Aberdeen will give a view from the perspective of the Roman Catholic church.

Archbishop Richard Clarke, perhaps the ultimate insider as archbishop of Armagh, whose doctoral thesis was on the disestablishment revision of the Book of Common Prayer in the 1870s, will conclude the series with his insight into the Church of Ireland.

Admission to the lectures is free and all are welcome.