Clark Brydon, who moved to Ireland from England in 2020, sometimes feels the weight of history on his shoulders as he navigates life as a British member of the Church of Ireland.
“A lot of uncomfortable things happened as a result of Protestantism here in the Republic,” Brydon says.
Brydon (28), who is taking the steps required to become a Church of Ireland rector, did not always plan on becoming a member of the clergy.
“It was Easter Sunday 2016 when I went up for communion for the first time because I thought, well, maybe there is a greater calling in this for me. That was the moment really.”
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What drew Brydon to the church initially was music.
He laughs thinking back to it: “I kind of fell into that by accident. Maybe divine providence? Who knows.”
At school he learned how to play the organ and sang in a choir. After leaving school he spent a year singing with Hereford’s Cathedral choir.
“We were given free housing and we had to sing every day. There was a group of four of us who were all just leaving-school age and spent the year in Hereford in a beautiful house overlooking this lovely green part of the cathedral.”
That year confirmed to him he wanted to pursue music professionally and afterwards he studied music at York University.
After graduating, Brydon was shortlisted for two jobs, one in Florence with a Church of England parish in Europe as a conductor and the other in St Patrick’s Cathedral in Dublin to sing with the choir. His interview in Italy was scheduled to take place on March 21st, 2020.
“It was the first day that all of the flights out of the UK were cancelled due to Covid.”
As it happened, Brydon had done his interview in Ireland a few weeks before and was offered the job.
“It was a little bit weird that we were singing in an empty building and live-streaming everything, and we were singing far apart from each other.”
To make ends meet he took up a job as a teacher at Headfort School in Kells, Co Meath, which is Ireland’s only boarding school for primary school children.
“I went to a boarding school myself, so I knew how that whole vibe works,” he says.
There he taught Latin, English and Maths and was a form tutor. He ended up moving there as he was offered free accommodation in the school.
“But every day at, three or four o’clock, I’d drive down the M3 to Dublin to come to sing at St Patrick’s. Then I would get back in the car and fly back up the M3 to be at Headfort to do the evening duties for the boarders.”
Every time he drove through Phoenix Park he would be stopped and have to hand over a letter to the guards from the Dean of St Patrick’s Cathedral saying he was an essential worker and that was why he was travelling across county lines.
“It was funny to be considered an essential worker as someone who sings in a Cathedral choir. We were apparently essential to the daily worship of God in this place.”
After two years at Headfort, Brydon was offered a job as education officer at St Patrick’s. During that time, he undertook a PhD at Trinity College Dublin studying the changes in the Church of Ireland’s music from 1960s onwards. Last year he took a sabbatical and moved to Donegal to work as a housemaster at the Royal School.
“They gave me a house and I had to mind the children in the morning and evening but it gave me time during the daytime to work on the PhD, which I would like to say was really fruitful. But I ended up filling that time with loads of other things like becoming the editor of the Church of Ireland Gazette.”
I wanted to be a part of that big community of countries all working together for the good of its population
Today he is back in Dublin as the diocesan safeguarding compliance officer for the Church of Ireland’s dioceses of Dublin and Glendalough and still singing in St Patrick’s everyday as a vicar choral.
“I thought I would be here for five years, tick the boxes, get the passport, run away and do something else. But here I am in my sixth year now. It’ll be the seventh after June. I’ve got friends and connections in this country that I never believed I would have had in those five years.”
Brydon’s mother lives in Luxembourg and was recently granted Luxembourgish citizenship. He says that a part of him has always felt European.
“I wanted to be a part of that big community of countries all working together for the good of its population.”
Recently, the Department of Foreign Affairs contacted him to help organise a visit by some loyalist and unionist groups from the North to St Patrick’s. He told them he was happy to help and was asked to welcome them off the bus.
“I said: ‘that’s fine but do you not want somebody who has a bit more of a local voice, rather than somebody who’s a blow-in in a way?’ They said: ‘no, we think you actually would set them at ease.’”
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