A familiar face that was in evidence around Sandymount for many years was that of the Reverend Philip Irvine. Philip, pictured right, was a minister for many years at St John’s Anglican Church on St John’s Road just off Park Avenue.

Having retired some years back, Philip went out to live in Dun Laoghaire. I meet him at Sandycove when he is out on his daily walk.

Philip Irvine was born in Philadelphia in 1930, the son of a gentleman farmer, Captain Gerard M. F. Irvine, who served as Captain with the Royal Enniskillen Fusiliers in the great war from 1914 until 1918. When he retired after the war he went to Philadelphia where he married an American lady and they had two children, one girl and one boy.

In 1939 Captain Irvine decided to return with his family to live on the family farm at Killadeas near Irvinstown just outside Enniskillen in county Fermanagh. When Philip was thirteen he was sent to boarding school at Rossall, a renowned private school in Lancashire, where he spent five years.

In 1948 he went on to Queen’s University in Belfast and subsequently to Edinburgh where he entered the Scottish Episcopal College. He was ordained a curate in 1959 and served for a number of years at St Andrew’s in Aberdeen.

On his return to Belfast in 1961 he served as curate until 1966 and came to Dublin in 1967, where he was appointed chaplain to the sisters of St. John Evangelist, a nursing home on Pembroke Park in Ballsbridge.
Having spent a number of years there, he was appointed curate in St John’s Anglican Church. I always give him a copy of the paper when we meet and he is very happy to be kept up to date with news of his old parish.
Philip has now moved to Dalkey and I met him again when I was picking blackberries in Killiney. All at ‘NewsFour’ wish him a long and happy retirement.