The Leper Window

Carrickfergus is my hometown. The castle, around which the town took its shape, was built in 1177. In 1182, the Anglo Norman, John de Courcy, who had the castle built, turned his attention to the building of a church, which today along with the castle dominate the town’s landscape.

Please give yourself a treat and open the following link to learn about the church and the Leper Window, and view wonderful photos of both the inside and outside of this anglican church. https://www.belfastentries.com/places/places-to-see/st-nicholas-church-carrickfergus/

As a child and youth I walked past the rectory almost daily, taking little or any notice or interest in the commemorative stone at the entrance reminding all who passed, that the poet Louis Macneice lived here as a child.

CARRICKFERGUS
I was born in Belfast between the mountain and the gantries
To the hooting of lost sirens and the clang of trams:
Thence to Smoky Carrick in County Antrim
Where the bottle-neck harbour collects the mud which jams

The little boats beneath the Norman castle,
The pier shining with lumps of crystal salt;
The Scotch Quarter was a line of residential houses
But the Irish Quarter was a slum for the blind and halt.

The brook ran yellow from the factory stinking of chlorine,
The yarn-milled called its funeral cry at noon;
Our lights looked over the Lough to the lights of Bangor
Under the peacock aura of a drowning moon.

The Norman walled this town against the country
To stop his ears to the yelping of his slave
And built a church in the form of a cross but denoting
The List of Christ on the cross, in the angle of the nave.

I was the rector’s son, born to the Anglican order,
Banned for ever from the candles of the Irish poor;
The Chichesters knelt in marble at the end of a transept
With ruffs about their necks, their portion sure.

The war came and a huge camp of soldiers
Grew from the ground in sight of our house with long
Dummies hanging from gibbets for bayonet practice
And the sentry’s challenge echoing all day long.

I went to school in Dorset, the world of parents
Contracted into a puppet world of sons
Far from the mill girls, the smell of porter, the salt mines
And the soldiers with their guns. Louis Macneice

This poem is about the poet’s childhood memory of growing up in Carrickfergus just prior to WWI, before he left for boarding school in Dorset. Although he describes the church he does not mention the Leper Window. A window long and narrow and built close to the ground allowing those who were in the Leper colony to look in and see the service and through this window bread and wine would be passed so they could participate! What a thought for us today when as people and nations we seem more intent on walls and exclusion than open windows and hearts to welcome and embrace.

Prayer:
Lord God,
so often we take for granted
the place of our birth.
Some are “stayers” never thinking ever to leave,
while others are “leavers” who journey far.
Today, O Lord,
we pray for those who out of fear and desperation
can no longer be “stayers” and must become “leavers”.
Their journey treacherous, uncertain and sadly all too
often they are offered no welcome, little hope, and
least of all dignity or charity as they seek a place
to lay their heads and rest their souls.
Help us O Lord as individuals, as communities
and as nations to do better, much better,
remembering that we are all temporary sojourners
in this place we share, called planet earth. Amen.