Culture of music and openness

THE City’s oldest building, St Columb’s Cathedral, proved itself to be a very unique and colourful space at the weekend, with hundreds of visitors from all walks of life visiting for a myriad of reasons.

Having taken the decision to open the Cathedral as a venue for cultural events during the UK City of Culture year, the Dean, Very Rev Dr William Morton and his tour guides found themselves inundated with visitors on Saturday and Sunday. Indeed, March, April and May are shaping up to be incredibly busy months for the oldest Post Reformation Church in Europe.

“When we began to commit the events that we are hosting at the Cathedral to paper we very soon realised that we have an extensive list. There is quite a range of things happening in the coming months,” said Dean Morton.

“Saturday and Sunday have been busy days in the life of the Cathedral, not to say that other days have not been too, but we have had a very encouraging influx of visitors and tourists and our guides have been very busy with people.

“Some months ago I was asked by Catherine McGrotty in the Voluntary Arts Centre if there would be any possibility of the Cathedral being used by the Verbal Arts Centre and on Saturday afternoon between 200 and 300 schoolchildren and their parents came to hear the children’s author Derek Landy reading to them,” he said, continuing: “This is an example of how I, as the Dean I wish to see this Cathedral responding to all the different demands of the year of culture, in terms of the written word and music, as well as a neutral exhibition space reaching out into the community.”

He went on to reveal how, in the Autumn last year, he was also approached by solicitor Philip Gilliland, the High Sheriff for Co Londonderry, and former president of the Chamber of Commerce, about the possibility of an international group of 50 to 60 lawyers taking part in the International Law Conference.

“They were in the City from last Thursday and they decided to come along on Saturday, and we were immediately faced with an overlap with the Voluntary Arts Centre, but that event ended at 3.30pm and we had about 10 minutes before the lawyers’ delegation arrived. I wanted them to get the chance to see the Cathedral and hear the history of the Cathedral and the Walled City in the context of development in Europe back to before and after the Siege. Then Marylinn Rouse arrived to collect her exhibition, and amongst all this tour guide Tony Henderson arrived with a group of 30 from Dublin and a number of individual visitors toured the Cathedral, and all of them stayed for the organ recital I gave. It seems to have become a feature of the Cathedral that I am called on several times a week to give short recitals, and it really has become a ‘ministry of music’.

“The next thing a group of Apprentice boys came in for a tour, and Martin McCrossan contacted our guide Daphne to say a cruise ship was coming in from Oban, Scotaland, and Daphne opened the Cathedral on Sunday morning at 9.30am for them and I was invited to give an organ recital and they had a tour. So that was the weekend, which also included our regular services. The Cathedral has become a special shared space.”