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Sacred and secular martyrdom: a review
Sacred and secular martyrdom in Britain and Ireland since 1914 John Wolffe London, Bloomsbury Academic, 2020, viii + 197pp., £85 (hardback), ISBN 978-1-35001927-0. [A review forthcoming in the Journal of Beliefs and Values.] After the terrorist attacks in the USA in 2001, and in London four years later, the idea of martyrdom gained a new…
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Martyrs, memorials and meaning in Protestant England
Sitting in what William Morris described as ‘a great amphitheatre of chalk hills’, the market town of Lewes is one of Sussex’s particular delights. For all its quiet charm, the town is perhaps best known for its elaborate celebrations of Bonfire Night, during which the several bonfire societies in and around the town converge ina…
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On memory, migration and the idea of Europe
In a part of Newcastle that once was central but is now on the edges of the real business of the city is the cathedral of St Nicholas. It is an unassuming building, dark and quiet inside, and attracts relatively few tourists. But it remains part of my own pilgrimage trail when visiting my native…
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The politics of memory, local and national: the Battle of Bosham Clock
Nestling on one of the reaches of Chichester harbour, the life of the village of Bosham is peculiarly dominated by the changing tide. At high tide the road around the narrow channel becomes impassable; sometimes the cars of unsuspecting visitors are engulfed by the water that changes the appearance and even the sound of the…
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War memorials, bombed churches and ‘Christian civilisation’
I usually summarise my articles here, but this older one has not had such a summary before now as it predates this blog. As I’ve had cause to revisit it in the process of thinking about London’s blitzed churches in fiction, here’s a digest. Title: Beauty, utility and “Christian civilisation”: war memorials and the Church…
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