CHRIST CHURCH LECTURES ON CHURCH LEADERS

Christ Church cathedral will hold a series of lunchtime lectures in the atmospheric setting of the cathedral crypt on the Tuesdays of November 2007 at 1.15pm. The title of the lecture series is 'Priors, deans & bishops: leadership at Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin', and there have been quite a few of them over the years. The Very Revd Desmond Harman is somewhere between the thirty-first and thirty-fourth dean of Christ Church by various reckonings, and at least thirty-four priors are known before the Reformation, a veritable treasure trove of biographies in the making.

The first lecture on Tuesday 6 November will be given by Dr Barra Boydell of the Department of Music in NUI Maynooth. The acknowledged authority on the cathedral music, his subject will be 'Prior David Winchester (1489-99): founder of the choir school?'. This will be followed on 13 November by Dr John McCafferty of the School of History and Archives at University College Dublin, who will speak on 'Dean Jonas Wheeler (1595-1618): constitutional and cathedral rebuilding'. Dr McCafferty has just recently published an important new book entitled The reconstruction of the Church of Ireland: Bishop Bramhall and the Laudian reforms, 1633–1641 (Cambridge University Press, 2007).

The former director of the Public Record Office of Northern Ireland, Dr A.P.W. Malcomson, will deliver the third lecture on 'Bishop Richard Robinson (1761-5): Kildare & Christ Church in commendam' on Tuesday 20 November, while Dr Kenneth Milne, the honorary keeper of the cathedral archives and Church of Ireland Historiographer will give the final lecture on 27 November entitled 'Archbishop Richard Chenevix Trench (1871-84): steering a church through disestablishment'.

The lecture series is funded by the Friends of Christ Church and organised, in association with Dublin City Council, by the cathedral Culture Committee. Admission is free and all are most welcome.

Further details of lectures can be found on the cathedral website.
An printable A4 poster can also be found online.

- ENDS –