A Pleasent Sunday read....

Tomorrow morning I will wake, get dressed and take a stroll down to my local paper shop, my family are off to the beach tomorrow (the summer is here for a whole day) which gives me a few hours to read the newspaper but tomorrow there will be something other than the appalling state of the world economy and who is breaking up with who in the world of celebrities.

The Mail On Sunday will hold within it’s pages the much anticipated opening two chapters of ‘The Lost Key ' the next instalment of the adventures of the Harvard Professor, Robert Langdon. Believed to feature the Freemasons as central characters it has been a long time coming.

I would recommend buying the book but also order its perfect companion available in December by accomplish Masonic author Chris Hodapp ‘Deciphering the Lost Symbol’

So head to the shops in the morning and pick yourself up a copy of the Mail on Sunday and see what all the fuss is about….

read the full article at The Mail Online

GRAND MASTERS FESTIVAL: an outstanding success

THE GRAND MASTER’S FESTIVAL for Charity 2008 was an outstanding success, surpassing all expectations – especially in the current financial climate.

The Brethren throughout Ireland raised a massive €660,000 (£600.000, $963,500), a magnificent total which is being shared by the delighted beneficiaries - the Northern Ireland Children’s Hospice, Samaritans and LauraLynn Foundation.

The finale of the Festival was marked by a meeting between the Taoiseach, Brian Cowen, and the Grand Master, M.W.Bro. George Dunlop, and representatives of Grand Lodge and the charities at Government Buildings in Dublin. Mr. Cowen described the Festival as “an outstanding success” and congratulated the Brethren.

“Their generous support will strengthen the capacity of these charities to provide their invaluable assistance to families and individuals in distress and coping with adversity,”

 he said.Celebration banquets were also held in the Freemasons’ Hall, Molesworth Street, Dublin, and the Provincial Masonic Hall, Rosemary Street, Belfast.

The gatherings heard moving yet inspiring stories of the work of the hospice movement among children with life-limiting illnesses and the efforts of Samaritans to reduce suicides. Actress Olivia Nash, vice-president of the Northern Ireland Hospice, told the Belfast banquet that it was one of the biggest single donations they had ever received. The stage and screen celebrity was among a glittering guest list which also included her BBC TV “Give My Head Peace” co-star, Alexandra Ford, who is ambassador for Belfast Samaritans; Jane McKenna, founder of the LauraLynn Foundation, and other representatives of the charities.

Presenting cheques for €220,000 (£200,000) to each of the charities, the Grand Master said: “Like the rest of the community, charities are feeling the pinch of the credit crunch and our support is therefore more important and necessary than ever. The response to the Festival for Charity has been magnificent and is all the more commendable in the current economic climate. The very Impressive total which has been raised will, we hope, go a considerable way to supporting the essential and laudable work of these three very worthy charities.” He added: “The huge success of our fund-raising efforts all over Ireland down the years is an achievement of which we feel especially proud. It reflects not only the generosity of our members but also our open and active participation in the life of the community and demonstrates that we are a caring organisation and part of society.”

The Festival, launched in November 2007, was originally intended to cover a year-long programme but had to be extended by a further six months to accommodate the number of money raising events organised by members of the Masonic Order throughout Ireland, north and south. They ranged from barbeques, clay pigeon shoots, quiz and race nights and calendar sales to dinner dances, deep-sea fishing, golf outings, sponsored walks, marathon runs and whiskey tasting.

Two members completed a sponsored climb of two peaks in the Himalayas and another undertook a four-day run over the 167-mile route from the children’s hospice on the outskirts of Belfast to the site of the proposed LauraLynn hospice at Sandyford, County Dublin, … before going on to compete in the Dublin marathon.

A statement from the joint chairmen of the Festival Committee, R.W.Bros. Richard Ensor, Rodney McCurley and Basil Fenton, said: “The ingenuity of our members in raising funds for charity never fails to amaze. We could not have foreseen the major downturn in the economic climate which would take place during our Festival year and could not have been criticised for being pessimistic about the outcome. In fact nothing could have been further from the truth and the Brethren of the Irish Constitution of the Order have risen magnificently to the challenge by demonstrating their generosity and willingness to work hard for charity in what has turned out to be an extremely successful exercise in fundraising.”

The Northern Ireland Children’s Hospice cares for 250 life-limited children and their families every year.

Chief executive officer Judith Hill said:

“We rely heavily on voluntary donations and legacies to continue our work. This tremendous effort by the Freemasons will pay for three staff nurses for two years, making a huge difference to those special children in our care.”

The all-Ireland Samaritans organisation operates from 20 branches with some 1,700 volunteers to provide round-the-clock confidential emotional support to people who are experiencing feelings of distress or despair. Volunteer representative Anita Lawlor said: “As demand for Samaritans services increases in these difficult times the cost of running the charity rises. A donation of this size, for which we are most grateful, is a significant step in ensuring that we can maintain and increase the reach of our 24-hour helpline services over the coming three years and make a significant contribution to the reduction of suicide in Ireland.”

The LauraLynn Foundation was set up in 2001 as a result of an enormous personal tragedy in the lives of Dublin couple Jane and Brendan McKenna that saw them lose both of their daughters, Laura and Lynn, in the space of just two years. It has teamed up with the Children’s Sunshine Home to establish the first hospice for children in the Republic. Said Jane McKenna:

“We realise the huge effort which went into the organisation of the many events run by the Freemasons and sincerely appreciate their kind and generous support. The donation raised is astounding and will truly make a wonderful difference to many sick children and their families in the future.”

Below – letters from the grateful beneficiaries.

this article appeared in the September issue of The Grand lodge News

Irish Lodge of Research Emergency Meeting

On Saturday the 31st of October, at 2:30pm, the Irish Lodge of Research will open an Emergency Communication in the Provincial Grand Lodge Room, Rosemary Street, Belfast to welcome W:. B:. Dr John Wade, appointed by the U.G.L.E. to be the 2009 Prestonian lecturer in England.

Dr Wade will then become the first Prestonian Lecturer to present his 2009 lecture live to an audience in Ireland, during his year of office.

This lively lecture, focused on the topic of Public Masonic Processions over the past 300 years, will comprise a mixture of power-point presentation, written text and video clips. The entire presentation will last for approximately 1 hour.

The Provincial Grand lodge Librarian will mount a display in the old dining rooms on the theme of Masonic Parades and will have on show some very rare examples of Masonic Banners , Freemasons' Drum, carrying warrant Frames and other similar material.

The Provincial Grand Lodge Museum will also be open from 12 noon for anyone wishing to look around.Below is a map of where The Lodge Rooms can be found.

Please make an especial effort to attend this special occasion on 31st October 2009.

News Flash originally included in the September Summons of the Lodge Of Research CC

New Website check it out

http://www.freemasonlostsymbol.com/

The Masonic Society, the Masonic Service Association of North America, and the George Washington Masonic Memorial have combined their talents and created a new website aimed at answering the questions that will appear with the release of Dan Browns new novel 'The Lost Symbol'

One of the leading archetects of this new web site will be Chris Hodapp who already has well in the works his own book in 'answer' to the upcoming Dan Brown novel, Deciphering the Lost Symbol available in December you can order it from Amazon via MAE web site

If I had the power to make it an order I would do and demand you go along and check out the site (wether a mason or not) before your mind is in a turmoil from reading this book most of all remember 'it's just a story'

Art isn't just pictures - Rudyard Kipling an introduction

How best to continue with this blog?

...........until I have the time or opportunity to write something new I have decided to 'reprint' a short article from issue one of the newsletter found here issue 1 in which I wrote a very brief outline introduction to Rudyard Kipling. Hope you enjoy....

Art is quite an all encompassing word and covers many different medium (is that the right word). Art is not just paintings or logos or photographs or illustrations, it is also books, poems and other written forms. The Masonic Art Exchange Group was created to mainly cover the ‘pictorial’ form of Art but I think it is important to include the other forms.

Some of the world’s greatest artists and authors have been members of this great craft and I am hoping that over the coming months someone out there would like to investigate some of them and put pen to paper (or fingers to keyboard) and tell us a little bit about them.

I will leave it up to your imagination on how to define an artist as the definition is as varied and exciting as the definition of Art itself.

I will attempt to start the ball rolling with a very light introduction of just such an artist, and do not consider this attempt to be a definitive example because as I have pointed out at the beginning of this newsletter my strengths have never really been in the written word, and also as we are not printed newsletter we are not limited for space. Unlike the gentleman below.

Rudyard Kipling - An introduction to an artist of the written word

My awareness of Rudyard Kipling came probably first at about the age of 15 when I watched the movie, ‘The Man Who Would Be King’ starring Sean Connery, and Michael Caine as the main characters and Christopher Plummer as Kipling himself, this lead me to read his short story of the same name I later realised this was also my first real encounter of the ‘world’ of fraternal societies, the mystery of Daniel Dravot and Peachey Carnehan being able to rely upon a ‘brother’ so much as they did in the tale, and their encounter of the symbolism of the craft in that far away land of Kafiristan.

The man who wrote this story and many others that are familiar from our own youth and passing into adulthood such as; ‘The Jungle Book’ (how many read the book BEFORE seeing the movie?) and Gunga Din was born in Bombay, India on December 30th 1865 to Alice Kipling (née MacDonald) and (John) Lockwood Kipling. Lockwood was a Freemason [3] and an artist himself and taught architectural sculpture at the Sir Jamsetjee Jeejeebhoy School of Art and Industry in Bombay. [1]

Kipling was soon joined by a younger sibling and as was the custom in British India, at the age of six he and his three-year-old sister, Alice ("Trix"), were taken to England to be schooled with a couple who took in children of British nationals living in India. The two children were live with the couple, Captain and Mrs. Holloway, at their house, Lorne Lodge, in Southsea (nr Portsmouth) for the next six years. Kipling wrote later in memoirs that he was treated appallingly whilst in their care [2], in the spring of 1877; Alice Kipling returned from India and removed the children from Lorne Lodge.

Kipling remembers,

".....often afterwards, the beloved Aunt would ask me why I had never told anyone how I was being treated. Children tell little more than animals, for what comes to them they accept as eternally established. Also, badly-treated children have a clear notion of what they are likely to get if they betray the secrets of a prison-house before they are clear of it". [2]

In January 1878 Kipling was admitted to the United Services College, at Westward Ho!, Devon, a school founded a few years earlier to prepare boys for the armed forces. Towards the end of his stay at the school, it was decided that he lacked the academic ability to get into Oxford University on a scholarship and his parents lacked the ability to finance him; consequently, Lockwood Kipling obtained a job for his son in Lahore (now in Pakistan), where Lockwood was now Principal of the Mayo College of Art and Curator of the Lahore Museum. Kipling was to be assistant editor of a small local newspaper, the Civil & Military Gazette. It is a similar scene where ‘Kipling’ first meets Daniel Dravot and Peachey Carnehan as they are about to head out on their great adventure.

So with his new career ahead of him Kipling sailed for India on 20th September 1882 and arrived in Bombay almost a month later 18th October. He described his arrival years later:

"So, at sixteen years and nine months, but looking four or five years older,
and adorned with real whiskers which the scandalised Mother abolished within one hour of beholding, I found myself at Bombay where I was born, moving among sights and smells that made me deliver in the vernacular sentences whose meaning I knew not. Other Indian-born boys have told me how the same thing happened to them."[2]

In 1885 the Lodge of Hope and Perseverance #782 of the English Constitution was looking for a secretary[3] Kipling’s Father Lockwood was approached as the brethren had heard of young Kipling and with special dispensation at the age of twenty years and six months Rudyard Kipling became a Freemason and secretary of his Lodge .Kipling worked hard at the Civil & Military Gazette which was published six days a week and soon started to write his own prose and short stories in 1886 with the change of the editor Kipling was asked to contribute short stories to the publication. Then in the January of 1888 Plain Tales from the Hills, Kipling's first prose collection was published in Calcutta. His writing continued at a frenetic pace and during the following year, he published six collections of short stories: Soldiers Three, The Story of the Gadsbys, In Black and White, Under the Deodars, The Phantom Rickshaw, and Wee Willie Winkie, containing a total of 41 stories, some quite long. By now he had also transferred to the sister of the Civil & Military Gazette in Allahabad.

In early 1889 after leaving The Pioneer after a dispute and selling rights to some of his work he used the money which included six months’ severance pay from The Pioneer to return to London which he and many others considered to be the literary centre of the world. On the 9th of March 1889 he set of on his travels after roving through much of the USA and meeting giants of the writing world such as Mark Twain he arrived at Liverpool Docks in October 1889. He was soon to take the London literary scene by storm.

Rudyard Kipling was in London and went from strength to strength in both his literary and Masonic career. Kipling died at the age of 70 and in his long life he played quite a big role. As far as freemasonry he also received his Mark Master Degree in a Lahore Lodge and affiliated a craft lodge in Allahabad.

In London he affiliated as an honorary member to Motherland Lodge number No. 3861, was a member of Authors Lodge No. 3856 and was also a founding member of Lodge Builders of the Silent Cities No. 4948. He also joined fellow mason Robbie Burns as one time poet laureate of Canongate Kilwinning Lodge No. 2 in Edinburgh. [3]

As I mentioned in the introduction this is just a very brief delve into the life of a man who in my humble opinion was a true artist and still continues today to delight many generations with the tales of a young boy raised in the Jungle and I personally thank him for an early introduction into a fellowship of men who I am now very happy to count myself part of.

For more articles on Masonic Art and Artists visit our website and have alook at the newsletters http://masonic-ae.com/news.html

I have put this together from a few sources some which I am unable to credit as there was no author given however the three main references were as follows for the life of Kipling:
[1]Gilmour, David. 2002. The Long Recessional: The Imperial Life of Rudyard Kipling, Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, New York.
[2] Kipling, Rudyard (1935/1990) Something of myself and other autobiographical writings. Cambridge University Press.
And for the information on his Masonic ‘career’:
[3] http://www.freemasons-freemasonry.com/kipling.html
I do recommend reading this paper if you get the chance.

MAE enters the world of Blogs

Well here we are we finally had to do it I suppose, yep the Masonic Art Exchange has stated a blog.

I am not entirely sure what I will be blogging about but hopefully it will be of interest to anyone who may happen to pop by. I think I will be able to give a new perpective to the world of Masonic Blogs with an insight into the world of Irish Freemasonry.

Check back often or even subscribe to see what I'm chatting about.