This Sunday morning the bells of St Audoen’s will officially ring out over Dublin city by the hands of their own ringers for the first time the late 19th century.
As the modest society of bell ringers met on Tuesday evening, it marked not just a new era for the church but perhaps for the art of campanology itself.
While the bells have been rung by volunteers from neighbouring churches in recent years, “the ringing [by the church’s own group] stopped in St Audoen’s about 1898, so there was a gap of the best part of 100 years,” explained Kathleen McEndoo, who chaired the meeting and learned the skill herself as a teenager in the late 1960s. “The bells were in a bad state and the tower was in a bad state but in 1983 work was done to restore [them].”
The assortment of ringers who subsequently volunteered at St Audoen’s came from surrounding churches, including Christ Church Cathedral which, with 19 bells, proclaims to have the world’s largest number of bells for full-circle ringing.
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Three of St Audoen’s bells date to 1423 but, despite its rich history, a shortage of ringers in the 1980s and 1990s meant this inter-church dependency continued until 2023. Today, the Irish Association of Change Ringers has about 300 members but a new generation has emerged.
“We are starting to see younger people from about [their] 30s or 40s,” said Ms McEndoo’s husband, Derek, who teaches the skill. “It’s hard to tell [why], everyone has their own reason for doing it.”
He joked that unlike in the 1800s when ringers would be fined for non-appearance in what was a crucial duty to the Dublin community, there would be no such sanction for members of the new St Audoen’s Society. But one tradition they do value is having their own ringers – an ancient practice now restored.
“It’s about putting it on a better footing for the future,” said Ms McEndoo, “and hopefully keep the bells ringing for another 600 years.”
