In Retrospect – John Ward Armstrong (1915-1987)
My first encounter with John Ward Armstrong was in the role of the Wallace Lecturer in Trinity College where he was engaged in exercises with Divinity Students in “Reading the Liturgy”. Looking back, the setting (in a large lecture room in the Museum Building) was far removed from the ambience of the churches in which most of us would be spending our lives and one often wondered, subsequently, why some of the Dublin churches including the College Chapel could not have been used for the purpose. And there was a certain artificiality in separating the spoken parts of the services from the liturgical context in which they would actually occur. However, it was a good thing in principle for future members of the clergy to learn how to speak clearly and well in public and so, on balance, this was a beneficial exercise, lightened by the genial manner of the Dean of St Patrick’s (as he was then) and the occasional one-liner, of which the most memorable, in relation to dealing with one’s mistakes was, “If you drop a brick...don’t kick it around!”
One was of course aware of aspects of his life and ministry up to that date, including his upbringing in Belfast and musical formation as a choirboy in St Anne’s Cathedral, and his ministerial service as a curate in All Saints’ Grangegorman, as Dean’s Vicar in St Patrick’s Cathedral, Dublin, and his incumbency of Christ Church Leeson Park, succeeded by his rather controversial election as Dean when there seems to have been much canvassing by leading academics in Trinity on his behalf and against his rival, the much-loved Archdeacon Raymond Jenkins (“Jenkie”). Very unfortunate, but he himself does not appear to have been at fault. In the 1970s one became more aware of his inter-church activities not only as a pioneer of the Glenstal Ecumenical Conferences and one also remembers his participation in the annual gathering at Greenhills school in Drogheda.* Full article available in printed copies.