Archbishop calls for fresh thinking on centenaries of key political events

CHURCH OF Ireland Archbishop of Dublin Michael Jackson has called for fresh thinking about our past in the run-up to a series of important centenaries, including that of 1916.

Facing into a decade of commemorations, we had to re-evaluate the great events rather than simply reheat history, he said. 

“We really have to do more than microwave the past.”

Speaking to The Irish Times, he was referring to centenaries ahead such as that of the founding of the Ulster Volunteers in 1912, of the Irish Volunteers in 1913, the Larne and 

Howth gunrunnings and the signing of the Ulster Covenant in 1912.

He was also referring to the Easter Rising and Battle of the Somme in 1916, the First Dáil in 1919, the War of Independence from 1919 to 1921, the establishment of the Stormont Parliament in 1920, and the founding of the Free State in 1922.

“We should address the context out of which these events happened, in which we shared, and how and why we now live in a different type of world,” he said.

Archbishop Jackson, who assumed duties as Archbishop of Dublin and Glendalough on April 11th, will be formally installed in a ceremony at Christ Church Cathedral in Dublin next Sunday. The office brings with it the title of Primate of Ireland.

He said the Church of Ireland was probably a unique institution on the island in that members participated on all sides in the events referred to including, for example, those who fought and died in 1916 at the Somme and in the Easter Rising.

The archbishop was ordained a priest at Dublin’s Christ Church Cathedral in 1987 and served as curate at Zion parish in Rathgar, as well as chaplain at nearby St Luke’s Hospital in Dublin until 1989, while also lecturing at Trinity College Dublin and the Church of Ireland Theological College. 

Between 1997 and 2002, he served at St Fin Barre’s in Cork, becoming Dean of Cork before being elected Bishop of Clogher in 2002. He is highly regarded for his ecumenical and 

interfaith work, in Ireland and internationally.

In 2004 he became chairman of the Church of Ireland’s Hard Gospel project, which set about vigorously addressing sectarianism within its own ranks following the Drumcree crisis.

Last week his Roman Catholic counterpart, Archbishop Diarmuid Martin, revealed he had asked Archbishop Jackson to take part in next year’s Eucharistic Congress in Dublin. 

Archbishop Jackson said he had been “tremendously honoured” to be invited to lead a reflection on baptism at the Monday event of the Congress in June 2012.

This, he said, was “an act of trust and generosity” on the part of Archbishop Martin.

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