Consecration of Bishop Kerr is a 'historic occasion' (1945)

The gathering was representative of the church throughout the province, “the number of clergy in the procession being very large, while, in addition to the laity of the Church of Ireland, there were many visitors from other Christian churches”.

The new bishop's five brothers, laymen, were also in the congregation.

Impressive in its dignity and ritual, remarked the News Letter, the service of consecration was presided over by the Archbishop Armagh and Primate of All Ireland, the Most Reverend J A F Gregg, D.D. The bishops who attended were the Bishop of Tuam, the Right Reverend J W Crozier, DD, the Bishop of Connor, the Right Reverend Charles King Irwin, DD, the Bishop of Kilmore, the Right Reverend A E Hughes, DD, the Bishop of Clogher, the Right Reverend Richard Tyner, DD, and Bishop John Hind, DD.

The procession having taken their appointed places during the singing of the processional hymn, composed by Richard Mant, former Bishop of Down and Connor and Dromore, the Archbishop began the service of the Holy Communion. The Epistle was read by the Bishop of Tuam, and the Gospel by the Bishop of Connor.

The sermon was preached by the Reverend Canon T W E Drury, MA, Precentor of St Patrick's Cathedral, Dublin, who took for his text the words: “If a man desire the office of a bishop, he desireth good work.”

The proceedings that day, he said, must have a peculiar interest for those connected with that great church where the bishop-elect had for some 12 years been serving as a faithful pastor and administrator, and also for those among whom he was about to be called to a new ministry.

He said: “He has been chosen by those who had had full opportunity of knowing his character, his abilities, his worth; who had confidence his integrity, who recognised in him a full man (in the old literary sense), apt to teach, possessing a facile and gifted pen, which he has used in the defence of the Gospel and in the confirmation of historical truth.”