THE KNELL THAT SUMMONS ALL

There is a very famous line in the Shakespeare play Macbeth when a bell is rung and Macbeth exits to murder the sleeping Duncan with the lines; ‘I go, and it is done, the bell invites me, Hear it not, Duncan, for it is a knell, that summons thee to heaven or to hell’. The book, The Bell by Iris Murdoch, is partly based on the legend of an abbey in Gloucestershire where the abbey bell flew into a lake centuries earlier when a bishop cursed the place.

There is a wonderful piece of music by the composer, Albert Ketelby called Bells Across The Meadows, it is a very evocative piece, it always reminds me of the bells of Mount Melleray Abbey ringing out over the beautiful West Waterford countryside. The bells call the monks to prayer, but bells also play a part in our own lives, they are rung on occasions of joy, but also in sadness.

In 1945, in Paris, when the announcement was made that the war was ended, the bells of NotreDame rang out over the city, soon every church bell in the city was ringing. People who were there that day wept openly as a tidal wave of emotion swept the city. Bells have almost always been associated with ceremonies of a sacred kind, they at one time were consecrated by being sprinkled with water, in fact a complete baptismal service was carried out over them.

The passing bell was rung in order to terrify evil spirits from a dying person as well as to admonish the living, but bells also had a secular purpose, they were used as a call to arms as a warning of danger, particularly of fire and flood, and they were also used by watchmen at night.

The late Maurice Geaney of Cork Road, Fermoy often wrote about the time, many years ago, when a night-watchman would patrol the streets of the town with a handbell. On a fine night he would cry out; ‘Twelve o clock and all is well’; but if there was a death in the town the ‘all is well’ would be left out.

The curfew bell made famous by Thomas Grey in his poem Elegy In A Country Churchyard is believed to have been introduced by William the Conquerer, it was rung at eight o’clock at night as a warning to all good men that it was time to extinguish their lights and go to bed. This custom was abolished by Henry 1 in 1100, but in some parts of rural England it is still retained.

In England bells have been made from the earliest times, mainly at York, London and Gloucester, but many of these were destroyed when the monasteries were dissolved. It is recorded that Henry VIII sold one hundred thousand pounds weight of bells to a London grocer named John Core for only 900 pounds. Bells often had names, many were named Jesus or Mary, others were dedicated to Saint Gabriel the Archangel and also to Saint Peter. The names of those who gave the bells were often inscribed on them, with their coats of arms.

Many also had Latin inscriptions on them such as, Ora Pro Nobis, which means Pray for Us. The bell in Saint Patrick’s Church, Fermoy is inscribed with a harp and a shamrock.