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Wondrous Oxford - FOUR

Well, one of my favourite places we visited in Oxford was The Eagle and Child pub - the place where the Inklings met for 23 years to enjoy one another's company, read and critique one another's works and drink beer. The Inklings included a number of notable people as shown in the sign above including C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien. The ripples of their friendship and collaborative endeavours are still running across the surface of the cultural pond worldwide. Those only familiar with Lewis and his works believe him to be English as he spent the majority of his life in England. Those more intimate with his story will understand his origin to be Irish - Belfast in fact - where he often loved to visit and roam the County Down landscape. The privilege has been mine to work in the house his clergyman grandfather once inhabited and in which he played as a child at St. Mark's, Dundela, Belfast. I blogged about the interesting lion head door handle at the rectory over a year ago here. Tolkien on the other hand is not wrongly known for being English through and through. His most popular work - The Lord of the Rings - is currently my imaginative escape and I'm thoroughly enjoying it. I'd love to see something akin to the Inklings develop here in Ireland, maybe we can call it The Artist's Cirlce. Maybe yet we'll see the face of civilization significantly changed again by a gathering of like-hearted, intentional Christ-followers . . .

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