In Retrospect: Archdeacon Henry William Cooke, Rector of Drumglass (1938-1964)

THERE were giants in the land in those days. When I was ordained (along with John Paterson) in 1963 we discovered that, unusually, we were going as two deacons to the one parish and that Archdeacon Cooke was to be our rector.

It was regarded as a huge honour to be appointed by him, and a look at the list of his former curates meant one had a lot to live up to. Canon Brown, Warden of the Divinity Archdeacon Henry Hostel, described the Archdeacon to me as “rather William Cooke conservative, but a bit of a saint”; and now, sixty years later, I would not alter a syllable of this judgement. I came to regard him as one of the fi nest pastoral clergy not only in the Diocese of Armagh but in the whole Church of Ireland.

The quality of his pastoral care showed itself following a tragedy involving a seventeen-year-old boy who, unlicensed, had borrowed his father’s car, fi lled it with his friends and driven off , then crashed the car with fatal consequences for himself (although his friends survived). I went to the house, utterly at sea as to what I should say or do, when the door opened and in came the Archdeacon. I fi nd it hard to express the extraordinary way in which the room was filled with presence and a sense of peace, as he used just the right words and the right prayers to help the family in the desperation of their grief.

* Full article available in printed copies.

Michael Kennedy

Is former Rector of Lissnadill and Kildarton, Armagh Warden of Readers and Canon of St Patrick’s Cathedral, Dublin.