Enthronement of new primate held at Cathedral Church of St Patrick, Armagh (1939)

After his enthronement the new Primate preached a sermon, in the course of which he said: “I come among the people of this Diocese as almost a stranger to Northern Ireland, except for the first three years of my clerical life which I spent in Co Antrim 40 years ago. I have many things to learn, and for that I shall need time. Your problems are not at all the same as those that I am accustomed to, and people do not learn as quickly when they have passed 65 as they do in earlier life. So I must feel my way, and I must crave your patience and goodwill.”

There were clergy and laity present from all over Ireland, and these included the following Bishops the Right Reverend Dr MacNeice, Down and Connor and Dromore, the Right Reverend Dr Macmanaway, Clogher, the Right Reverend Dr King Irwin, Limerick, the Right Reverend Dr Harvey, Cashel and Waterford, the Right Reverend Dr Barton, Kilmore, and the Rught Reverend Dr Hearn, Cork. In the procession to the cathedral was the Chancellor of the Diocese, Lord Justice Best.

Both the Northern Ireland and Eire governments were represented. The acting Prime Minister, Mr J M Andrews, represented the former, and Senator David Robinson the latter. Commander C A R Shillington represented the Governor of Northern Ireland, and Mr R Gransden, the Prime Minister.

The mandate from the House of Bishops was read by Metropolitan Registrar, Reverend I H King, MA, and Dr Gregg, having made the declaration, was enthroned by the Very Reverend T J McEndoo, MA, Dean of the Cathedral. The Reverend Precentor F Moeran, MA, read the lesson in the Evensong which followed.

Dr Gregg, in his sermon, said that it was not quite a full year since they had met in the Cathedral Church of Armagh on the occasion of the funeral of Archbishop d'Arcy, “who had been bishop of this diocese for some 18 years”, and they had mourned the loss of one “whose gifts had been recognised far beyond Ireland”.

He added that in that short space of time yet another had been installed in the seat of government of that diocese, “and he, too, had come and gone”.

“A man greatly beloved, Archbishop Day was welcomed in that diocese for the work we were all sure he would do for Ireland and the Church of Ireland; and yet in five short months, his life had ended. Thus it came about that within a year a third Archbishop held the See of Armagh.”

It was not just friendly goodwill to the Diocese of Armagh that had brought so many to the Cathedral, said Archbishop Gregg.

“We are here because of the special relation which the See of Armagh bore to the other Sees and Bishops of Ireland. The dioceses of the Church of Ireland has inherited a rule which has come down to them from a remote antiquity, namely, that the holder of the See of Armagh was the first Bishop in the Church. All the Irish dioceses recognised that as the holder of the See founded by Saint Patrick he took precedence among them.”

He added: “There can be no manner of doubt that this hilltop whereon this cathedral stands, is the one which was made over by its owner to the saint himself and has been the scene of divine worship through an unbroken continuity of 1,500 years. The See of Armagh was one of the really ancient Sees of Western Europe.”

Having spoken of the important part that their early Christian Church had played in ancient Europe, His Grace said he trusted most of those present would be alive to see the commemoration of the 1,500th anniversary, of the founding of the See of Armagh in the decade beginning in 1940.

He said: “It is well to remind ourselves that the Church of Ireland has inherited a tradition which made it to a large extent what it was. The line of bishops holding that See in uninterrupted descent from its first bishops was now recognised as numbering more than 100.”

That continuity with the past was awe-inspiring, he said.

Dr Gregg remarked: “Out of the past there reaches down into the present something which gives point to the saying: ‘The dead rule the living.’ We are not free to do just what we like with church principles and church order. Many matters stand decided for them. We are not free agents where fundamental doctrines of the faith and rules of church order are concerned. Our inheritance is a check upon us and at the same time it is our guide. While we acknowledge our past, we have to live In the present, and we have to be like the scribe of whom our Lord spoke. ‘Bringing out of our treasure, things new as well as things old.’”

Dr Gregg concluded: “If I am to give of my best in the not very many remaining years of working life, I must have your help and support, and the first and best way in which you can give it is by your prayers and then by your co-operation.

“I would ask of you members of the clergy and of the laity not to place a man in a position of grave responsibility, and to leave him marooned there, but I would ask you to uphold me with your prayers and to ask for me the grace that I so greatly need.”