About
Even as a student, Arthur Easterby was tipped to become a bishop.Ambitious and able, he carefully plotted his progress to preferment including marrying his rector/archdeacon's daughter. So it was no surprise when in due course he was elected as bishop of Daneford, just outside Dublin.In a hurry to make his new diocese a flagship for Growth and Renewal and make a name for himself in the process, Arthur became autocratic rather than a 'pastor pastorum', alienating both clergy and laity.What nobody realised was that he also carried a dark secret. I am a retired priest of the Church of Ireland, now living in Liverpool.I served in a number of parishes in Ireland, North and South, most latterly in Rathfarnham, Dublin. I was a General Synod member, a Director of Ordinands, and worked in The Theological College looking after intern deacons in their final year.For many years, I wrote a column on ministry for the Church of Ireland Gazette. For five years before retirement, I wrote a weekly 'soap' – 'Down in St. David's' – for the Gazette about the ups and downs of clerical life. On my retirement, another writer took over.I have self-published a book on Kindle – And Some There Were… – a light look at 'the Good, the Bad and the Ugly' in the clergy of the Church of Ireland's past. The book includes twenty-five sketches, historically accurate, of priests and prelates from Reformation times to the twentieth century. With the aim of informing and entertaining, And Some There Were… features the rogues as well as the righteous, the murdered and the murdering, priests and bishops alike.