Over the last couple of years I’ve been working part-time on the Ports, Past and Present project, which was funded by the European Regional Development Fund through the Ireland Wales Co-operation Programme to work with the communities around the five ferry ports that connect Wales with Ireland.
The project has been exploring the heritage of these places to promote tourism and deepen a sense of shared identities connected by the Irish Sea. In the last year of the project I led a couple of guided walks to see the stained glass in the towns, and gave talks on stained glass and medieval stories of the saints who journeyed across the sea.
The stained glass sometimes embodies or visualises the links between the two countries, such as the image of St Ffraid, or Brigid, in the east window of the church at Trearddur Bay, near Holyhead, travelling across the sea to Wales on a turf of grass. In the medieval church in Holyhead, the east window by C.E. Kempe was given in memory of William Watson, the managing director of the City of Dublin Steam Packet Company, and two windows by the Dublin firm of Clarke’s were made for the Catholic church in Fishguard.
Some of these stories of the saints with associated imagery can be found in my book Welsh Saints from Welsh Churches, and I have written a series of short pieces for the Ports, Past and Present website, which are presented as an online tour, ‘Saints and Stained Glass across the Sea’.
In the closing months of the project I also produced small books on the stained glass in and around Holyhead and Fishguard.
Stained Glass from Welsh Churches 