PERHAPS the most consulted sources in the Representative Church Body Library in Dublin, which is the principal reference library of the Church of Ireland and the major repository for the Church's archives and manuscripts, are the biographical succession lists of clergy. These were compiled mainly by Canon J. B. Leslie who at the time of his death in 1952 had published volumes on the clergy of Ardfert, Armagh, Clogher, Derry, Down, Ferns, Ossory and Raphoe and left manuscript and typescript succession lists for most of the other dioceses.
The published volumes are long out of print, although mostly not out of copyright, and despite much talk, nothing was done to prepare the unpublished material for the press until recently. In 1993, the Down, Connor and Dromore Diocesan Library Committee published a reworked and updated version of Leslie's succession list for the diocese of Connor, and building on its experience in producing Clergy of Connor has now published Clergy of Down and Dromore.
This substantial reference work contains brief histories of each parish with an illustration of the parish church, biographical entries for clergy from 1930 until 1995, and it reproduces J. B. Leslie's and H. B. Swanzy's published biographical succession lists for the dioceses of Down and Dromore which first appeared in 1936 and 1933 respectively.
Clergy of Down and Dromore makes readily available a wealth of information on clergy and their families, and on parishes and their churches and no self-respecting historian or genealogist will be without a copy. It is published by the Ulster Historical Foundation and the Library Committee of the Dioceses of Down & Dromore and Connor at £40.
This evening in St Matthias' Church, Ballybrack, Co Dublin, Cappella Cantorum from Connecticut will give a concert, the proceeds of which will go to the Dr Rajkumar Ambulance Fund in South India.
Tomorrow, RTE will broadcast Morning Service from St Multose's Church, Kinsale, where the rector, Canon David Williams, along with the Bishop of Cork, the Rt Rev Roy Warke, will be on board Le Eithne for a service marking the 50th anniversary of the Naval Service in Ireland.
The Church Missionary Society Ireland, has arranged Short Term Experience Placements (STEPS) for a team which this week begins a month in Uganda. The team has been invited to Bishop Balya Theological College near Fort Portal on the western border of Uganda, where they will participate in some of the College's lay training activities and visit local church groups. One member will share his skills in computer programming with the hard-pressed administration of Kiwoko Hospital in the Luweero Triangle about 50 miles North of Kampala.
At lunchtime on Tuesday in St Nicholas' Collegiate Church, Galway, a recital will be given by the Chapel Choir of St Catherine's College, Cambridge. On Friday, the choir will sing Evensong in St Patrick's Cathedral, Dublin.
In Dublin on Wednesday, the Church's Ministry of Healing will hold its Annual Thanksgiving Service and Gift Day in the Dublin Central Mission, where the preacher will be the Dean of Kildare, the Very Rev Robert Townley, while in St Patrick's Cathedral there will be a lunchtime recital by Mark Duley, Organist of Christ Church Cathedral.
An exhibition on the Huguenots in Ireland which has been assembled by the Irish branch of the Huguenot Society of Great Britain and Ireland is on display in the Dublin Civic Museum. Many of these French refugees became members of the Church of Ireland and the exhibition includes material from the recently established Irish Huguenot Archive in the Representative Church Body Library. The Dublin Civic Museum, South William Street (beside the Powerscourt Town House), is open Tuesday to Saturday from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. and on Sundays from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m.