St Patrick’s Cathedral to stream Sunday services
Saturday, January 28th, 2012
This weekend, St Patrick’s Cathedral in Dublin will commence live streaming of its Sunday services, in a new departure aimed at making provision for online participation in liturgies by those unable to attend church in person.
The service is being officially launched at 3:15pm on Sunday with a performance of a ceremony of carols by Benjamin Britten. Thereafter, coverage every week will include a Eucharist or Mass at 11:15am and Evensong at 3:15pm.
St Patrick’s is the only Church of Ireland Cathedral currently offering this facility, though it is hoped others will follow. The infrastructural work and installation was undertaken by ChurchServices TV.
According to St Patrick’s Administrator, those who, due to illness, emigration, or other reasons cannot attend the cathedral’s sung services will now be able to participate in worship online with the cathedral congregation.
“They will be able to see and hear our services live,” Gavan Woods explained.
He added that the idea of live streaming the services came about because it is seen as a way to further the mission of the National Cathedral of the Church of Ireland and to bring its traditions and message to as wide a congregation as possible. The cathedral, “is open to all who wish to worship there regardless of their denomination. The Church of Ireland extends a welcome to all to come and attend worship or join in worship with us,” Gavan Woods commented.
The new online venture is a way of extending this welcome.
“It is not that we are trying to evangelise or proselytise. It is just a way of allowing the wider community and members of the Church of Ireland from further afield to worship with us.”
Those accessing services online will, he underlined, “be welcomed by the clergy as part of the wider congregation joining with us. I think it is also a way of reinforcing the nature of the cathedral and its relationship with the wider Church of Ireland across the island of Ireland,” he said.
Initially only the two main Sunday services will be available each week. “We hope to include Evensong on weekdays in the near future,” Gavan Woods said.
“St Patrick’s Cathedral has a wonderful and vibrant tradition of sung worship and this is now available for all to share in regardless of where they are in the world. All anyone needs is access to broadband and a computer,” he added.
Worship at the cathedral is choral so it is nearly always sung.
“The choir is a wonderful tool of the cathedral as regards worship. It is a very long and beautiful tradition and it has a lot to offer. It is an interesting way for people to engage with the message we are trying to get across.”
“We have a core choir of professional musicians who are vicar chorals or lay vicars,” Gavan Woods explained. “We also have a very good boys' choir who attend our choir school which was founded in the 1430s to provide choristers for the cathedral and is still doing so. We also have a very fine girls’ choir now as well, which is drawn from our two cathedral schools including the choir grammar school and some other schools.”
“It is a very vibrant tradition of worship and a very long one. The cathedral was founded in the middle of the 1200s and we know for certain that there has been a choir here since the 1400s, it is probable that it was there before that,” he explained.
The national cathedral of the Church of Ireland is one of the busiest visitor attractions in Ireland.
To view Sunday services go to www.stpatrickscathedral.ie and click on Live Screening.
by Sarah Mac Donald
