The Irish Association of Change Ringers

IACR COVID-19 Guidance: COVID-19 Guidelines for ringing must be within the guidelines of the respective Churches, and at all times with mind to the safety of the participants.

September 2022

September 20, 2022

Added 21 September 2022: Next Eastern District Practice will take place on Saturday 8th October 2022 in St. Patrick’s Cathedral – 14.00 to 16.00.

Added 11 September 2022:  Please note the change of locations for the Northern District Practices in October and December.  The October Northern District Practice on Saturday 1st October 2022 will now take place in Drumbo, Holy Trinity 14.00 – 17.00 and the December Northern District practice on Saturday 3rd December 2022 will now take please in Kilbroney, St Bronach 14.00 – 17.00.

Added 08 September 2022: SD Ringing Master Niamh has called to say there will be a Southern District practice on Saturday 17th Sept in St. Fin Barre’s Cathedral. 2pm to 5pm. All are very welcome.

As post-pandemic life continues to crank-up again after summer holidays, listed below (and elsewhere) are some upcoming ringing events you might like to check out.

There is a Northern District practice on 3rd September in Greyabbey, from 2pm.

On 10th September there is the Galbraith Cup in Taney. Contact Helen or any of the Taney ringers if you would like to attend – Darrell is barbequing, so need to have an idea of numbers.

On 17th September, slightly outside our space, but not by much – as part of the LUA celebration ‘of wild water’ taking place in Killaloe, there will be a presentation on the history of the bells of St. Flannan’s Cathedral, in the Cathedral. It is planned that it will include a visit to the tower and an opportunity to chime them. As part of the event, there will be a presentation to Bryan Brislane to recognise his many years training, developing and encouraging new “chimers” (Bryan is a former ringer in St. Mary’s Cathedral and an Honorary Life Member of the IACR).

The IACR Autumn Ringing Festival returns and will take place in the Northern District. Dates are Saturday 29th and Sunday 30th October 2022.

Annual Ringing Festival 2022

Provisional timetable (Mostly confirmed)

Saturday 29th October:

10:30 to 12:30 Holy Trinity, Drumbo,

14:30 to 16:00 St. Thomas, Belfast

16:45 to 18:30 St. Malachi, Royal Hillsborough

19:30 Dinner at the Hillside, Royal Hillsborough

Sunday Oct. 30th 2022:

14:30 to 16:00 St. Mary, Kilmood.

Big thank you to the ringers (and their friends) in Waterford for a most enjoyable days ringing back on 30th July. Lunch was top-drawer! – check out the photos in the Gallery.

The IACR will be 125 years old next year (2023) and the President would like if one of you would design a “125th” logo that could be used as the Association’s logo for the year – to be used on letterhead, shirts, and other items which will be for sale during the year. Send your ideas to Julia at iacrpresident@bellringingireland.org

In addition to that, does anyone have access to the “pull-up” advertising panels that are seen in banks, churches, hotels, etc. The thought is that there should be 2 or 3 available to the districts to have at church entrances when there is a ringing event taking place.

The web site committee has been busy over the last few weeks! It was recognised that various documents have been uploaded to the website as news or reference items, but depending on the author, there were many fonts and styles used. It has been decided to standardise on an Association “identity” and slowly documents are being updated to the new look. Done to date include Tower Histories, Competitions and Obituaries under the History Archive as well as the Rope Sight series of papers under Ringing Advances.

Also added in recent days were the Irish Bells News – 2015 to 2017 – edited by Simon.

On the 20 August 2022, 125 Grandsire Triples was rung at St Patrick’s Cathedral Dublin to mark the occasion of the donation of the new peal of bells by the Guinness family on the 20 August 1897.
Please see the full details on Bellboard.

Matthew has completed the Southern District and Northern District towers inspections – an Observation report was left in each tower. A full report to each tower will follow.