Parish Notices Sunday 18th December 2016

The Rector writes ‘Last weekend’s Live Crib event ‘The Road to Bethlehem’ was everything we hoped for and more. I was amazed at the talent in our parish. People built the structures, advertised, planned, put up the Marquee, shopped, catered, acted, made the costumes, organised the logistics of the pageant, served, decorated, cleaned, sang, played, created the props, tidied up, stewarded, sold raffle tickets, lent us their animals, ferried animals to and for (and cleaned up after them!). It was a huge amount of work and there were a huge amount of people involved so a huge thanks to you all. As the Rector, I was perhaps more visible so a lot of people were thanking me as they left!  Some were so moved by the event that they had tears in their eyes. It was an amazing weekend and while it was exhausting, I truly believe that we have produced something very special for the whole community and once again I thank you all.’

DIOCESAN MAGAZINE SUBSCRIPTIONS for 2017 are due by 31st January. The annual subscription is €25. Please pay Rowland Newenham or the Church Wardens.

CHRISTMAS FLOWERS. If anyone would like to bring an arrangement to decorate St Mary’s Church over Christmas please contact Caroline Bateman on 086 109 8573.

TWINNING NEWS. We are celebrating our 30th Anniversary with Guidel next year. If anyone would like to join us for the week the dates are 24th June to 1st July. For more information contact Olna at 087-9525969.

CONFIRMATION  If there is anyone you know of in the parish who might wish to be confirmed, please contact the Rector immediately. At the moment there is only one young person on the list so if no others come forward before mid January, there will be no Confirmation Service in the Carrigaline Union in 2017.

BUS ESCORT Responsible trustworthy person required as Bus Escort for morning and afternoon collection and drop off at St Mary’s Primary School.  Approx. 2 hours per day.  Please email Letter of Application and C.V. to carrigalinens@eircom.net  Any queries 021-4371995

DATES FOR YOUR DIARY

 

19th Dec        Toddlers plus One 10am

Monday Club 3-5pm Parish Hall

24th Dec       Carols around the Crib Service 4pm St Mary’s

First Eucharist of the Nativity 11:30pm St Mary’s

25th Dec          Services at normal times

9:30am St John’s and  11am St Mary’s

1st Jan             United Christingle Service 11am St Mary’s

25th Jan         Ecumenical Service for the Week of Prayer for  Christian Unity 7.30pm St Mary’s

Preacher : Dr Andrew Pierce, Trinity College

 

Random Notes CCXVI

Illustrated above are two photographs, taken on the afternoon of Saturday, 12^th August, 2006, in the Churchyard of Kilcrohane, in the Diocese of Ardfert and Aghadoe, and town of Sneem, Co. Kerry, of the burial place of William Spotswood Green (1847-1919), formerly the Revd. William Spotswood Green, Rector of Carrigaline from 1880 to 1889, and his wife, Belinda Beatty Green, nee Butler (1850-1940).An interesting brief account of the life of this remarkable and most interesting man is to be found in ‘Some Irish Naturalists, a Biographical Note-book’ by Robert Lloyd Praeger, Dundalk, 1949, here transcribed:

‘Rev. William Spotswood Green, M.A., C.B., was born at Youghal, passed in due course through Trinity College, Dublin, took his M.A. degree and entered the Church. He was for many years Rector of Carrigaline in Co. Cork, a quiet country parish. But he was by nature a man of great energy, a lover of adventure, and a naturalist and he soon made opportunities for work suited to his ardent temperament. Thus he was the first to attain, in 1881, accompanied by two Grindelweld guides, the summit of Mount Cook (12,349 feet), the highest of the New Zealand Alps. Work in tropical forests resulted only in fever and ague, so he returned to the mountains and carried out in 1888 surveying for the Canadian Government among the peaks and huge glaciers of the Selkirks. But his most fertile work was among the fishes and invertebrates of Atlantic waters. In 1885 and 1886, under the aegis of the Royal Irish Academy, he and A.C.Haddon were leaders of expeditions to explore the marine flora of the 100-fathom line off the south-west of Ireland; and in 1888 a third and more ambitious expedition pushed out and dredged and trawled in up to 1,200 fathoms with excellent results. The expense was met mainly by the Royal Irish Academy. These explorations, the success of which was largely due to the indefatigable energy in calm or storm of W.S.Green , greatly increased knowledge concerning the fauna of the waters lying off Ireland.

Green left the Church in 1890 to become Inspector of Fisheries, and he remained in the Fisheries service until he retired. Combined with this work he was a Commissioner on the Congested District Board, where his intimate knowledge of human conditions in western Ireland was of great service. In 114 he shook off the trammels of office, and retired to West Cove in Kerry, on the edge of the ocean that he knew and loved so well; and there he died five years later.

He wrote two very readable books giving an account of his mountaineering experiences- ‘The High Alps of New Zealand (1830), and ‘Among the Selkirk Glaciers (1890)’

 K.L.R.