Pew Sheet – 2nd July 2023

The Rector writes ‘ I am continuing today with some more photos from the ‘Land of the Holy One’ as I was trying to explain in my sermon last week, this is now considered the better way to call this troubled land as so much pain has come from different groups calling it THEIR Holy LAND. 

I chose these photos as our first reading today is from the  book of Genesis and talks about Abraham and his son Isaac. 

My photos in the middle pages are from what’s called Haram-al-Sharif in Jerusalem, (Al Aqsa Mosque and Dome of the Rock)   Because of the friendly relationships built up with St George’s Anglican College (which is where I was staying in Jerusalem) and the Security staff of the  Haram-al-Sharif complex, we were lucky enough to be allowed access both to the area of what Judaism calls ’The Temple Mount’  and in particular, as non-Muslims, we were so lucky to be allowed enter both the ‘Dome of the Rock’ and the Al-Aqsa Mosque buildings.   

All Muslims consider the entire area (36 acres !) to be holy ground – all of the buildings and the open spaces and olive groves —all holy ground upon which they can pray as if it were inside a Mosque.  Inside the Dome of the Rock is the actual ‘rock’ on which Abraham was to sacrifice Isaac, it is actually the top of Mount Moriah, the dome was simply built all around it. A truly amazing place.’

Random Notes CDXXIX

It is interesting to observe that today it is most likely that not a single postcard of Carrigaline will be found for sale in the village, whereas in the early years of the last century at least seven, and very possibly more, were for sale.

Of the cards published the majority were produced by the well known firm of William Mervin Lawrence (1840-1932), of 5-7, O’Connell street, upper (then Sackville street). Dublin, with from 1880 to 1915 a prodigious number of images being taken, of which today some 40,000 glass negatives are preserved in the collection of the National Library of Ireland, these providing, it need not be said, an invaluable record of the country as it appeared at that time.

Beneath are illustrated two of the Lawrence published postcards of Carrgaline,  the first, an unused card entitled ‘Main Street, Carrigaline. Co Cork.’,

the second of the ‘Entrance to Railway Station, Carrigaline, Co. Cork.’, it posted in Carrigaline, 29th July, 1910 to an address in Russell Square, London.

As an aside, and to illustrate the context of postcard publishing at the time, it is estimated that in 1875 some seventy-five million postcards went through the post in Great Britain and Ireland, whereas as by 1910 this figure had grown to a staggering total of eight hundred million.

K.L.R.