Tourists ringing Christchurch Cathedral bells

youguessedit

Anyone else in the Christchurch area fed up to their back teeth with tourists being allowed to ring the Christchurch Cathedral bells? It's driving me out of [expletive deleted] mind! I challenge anyone to listen to 60 full, agonising minutes of discordant, tortuous cacophony on a Monday evening and stay sane - especially after two full, agonising hours of the same the afternoon before.

I know, I know. It's a cathedral. They have bells and yeah, I know, they're there to be rung. But for [expletive deleted] sake, let the professionals do it! At least let there be an effort put in to get some form of musicality out of them! Please!!!

Piliger

Write to them. I agree.

adamski8

Heard some crazy sounds coming out of there on saturday afternoon, thought they were drunk doing it. That's terrible tourists are allowed do it.

reprazant

I was told that both Christchurch and Patrick's Cathedral need in the region of €5,000 a week for just the general upkeep as they are so old. At the moment, Christchurch is attempting to raise an extra €1m for what they term as vital restoration works. They cannot get this from the state due to the separation of church and state so this is one of the few ways that they have of making money.

One of the cathedrals down in Cork has been doing this for years.

You can write to them but unless you can think of a better way of enabling them to make money, I doubt anything will happen.

Piliger

reprazant wrote: »

You can write to them but unless you can think of a better way of enabling them to make money, I doubt anything will happen.

Well if enough people complain they will have to do something. You think having to make money excuses submitting the whole community to this racket ?

reprazant

Piliger wrote: »

Well if enough people complain they will have to do something. You think having to make money excuses submitting the whole community to this racket ?

In that case, petition your local TD to stop them ringing the bells full stop.

I've gone past them where they have been playing different tunes with the bells and thought that it sounded quite good but that's just me.

Bray Header

I live in the area too. I quite like the bells. I'd be more worried the day they stop ringing tbh

youguessedit

Bray Header wrote: »

I live in the area too. I quite like the bells. I'd be more worried the day they stop ringing tbh

Nothing wrong with the bells being rung by bell-ringers. No problem at all. I've lived opposite Christchurch Cathedral for 15 years and have enjoyed the bells every Friday evening and Sunday morning. But if you consider the cacophony the tourists make to be enjoyable then you're more than welcome to swap with me. (For those who haven't heard or can't imagine it, let me make a comparison: think two or more burglar alarms with iffy sounders, completely out of sync, stopping after 10 minutes only to start back up again two minutes later. Then think two long, long hours on a Sunday afternoon.)

PS Exactly how close is Bray Head to Christchurch anyway?

youguessedit

reprazant wrote: »

At the moment, Christchurch is attempting to raise an extra €1m for what they term as vital restoration works. They cannot get this from the state due to the separation of church and state so this is one of the few ways that they have of making money.

Christchurch Cathedral charge €4 to ring the bells. €4 a pop to piss the neighbours off. Enough said.

CavanCrew

never knew tourists could pay to do it, il take the bells over jacinta roaring down by my flat anyday.

emzolita

Yeah i was eating in a restaurant across the road from it a few month ago, and it started during our starters, (quite loud, but I thought it would finish soon) ... It was still ringing as we were leaving the restaurant.
I would hate to live in the area. I like the idea of letting tourists, but for 10 or 15 minutes is loads of time.

youguessedit

Well, it's getting worse not better: one and three-quarter hours yesterday evening (Monday) instead of the normal (if it can be called normal) one hour. This despite the cathedral's Director of Operations acknowledging that this could "cause disturbance to our neighbours" and her promise that "we will try to limit this as much as possible". (By the way, that promise was broken the very day it was made.)

Time for action by local residents so here are contact details for the cathedral’s Director of Operations, the Dublin City Manager, local TDs and local councillors:

Nuala Kavanagh, Director of Operations, Christ Church Cathedral
Telephone: 677 8099, email: nuala.kavanagh@cccdub.ie

John Tierney, Dublin City Manager and Chief Executive of Dublin City Council
Email: manager@dublincity.ie

Dáil Éireann TDs, Dublin South-East constituency
Lucinda Creighton (Fine Gael), email: lucinda.creighton@oireachtas.ie
Kevin Humphreys (Labour), email: kevin.humphreys@oireachtas.ie
Eoghan Murphy (Fine Gael), email: eoghan.murphy@oireachtas.ie
Ruairí Quinn (Labour), email: ruairi.quinn@oireachtas.ie

Dublin City Councillors, South East Inner City
Councillor (Ms.) Gerry Ashe (Labour), email: gerry.ashe@dublincity.ie
Councillor Kieran Binchy (Fine Gael), email: Kieran.Binchy@dublincity.ie
Councillor Mannix Flynn (Independent), email: mannix.flynn@dublincity.ie
Councillor Maria Parodi (Labour), email: maria.parodi@dublincity.ie

Mountjoy Mugger

I would suggest you also get in touch with Environmental Health in the City Council. 1850 365 121 (Environmental Complaints Hotline). http://www.dublincity.ie/WaterWasteEnvironment/Pages/EnvironmentalComplaintsHotline.aspx

who_me

youguessedit wrote: »

Christchurch Cathedral charge €4 to ring the bells. €4 a pop to piss the neighbours off. Enough said.

Maybe if you offered €5, and chose not to play. More money for the church repairs, peace and quiet for you.

Piliger

OP ... make sure you have been keeping a diary ... times ... durations etc. And GOOD LUCK !!

adamski8

ive heard them a few times now when ive been in the city center, disgraceful that they can subject people to that noise pollution. so horrible. cant believe its not law that only bell ringers can do it. im not a fan of bell ringers but this is a million times worse. im not living in the area but i will be complaining.

Sundew

adamski8 wrote: »

cant believe its not law that only bell ringers can do it.

So how do bell ringers get trained to be efficient bell ringers?

Yip

unfortunately i live on Patrick street in between Christchurch Cathedral,Patrick's Cathedral and there is another church behind me on Francis street.
i have kinda gotten used to them by now,but sometimes they take the piss
like last night going off at 2 in the morning.not sure what that was about....

Sundew

I have a feeling the same folks complaining about the bells would complain about cattle lowing in the country...if they lived there!!!!
I live on a busy railway line and constantly have to put up with trains shunting along the line and drivers tooting fellow railworkers during the dead of night.
Bell ringing is part of living in a large city.....get yourself a pair of earplugs.
There are much more serious issues to be writing letters about in my opinion!!!!!!!

username123

Sundew wrote: »

I have a feeling the same folks complaining about the bells would complain about cattle lowing in the country...if they lived there!!!!

It must be lovely to know so much about complete strangers based on one valid complaint :rolleyes:

I agree re the bells. I dont live in the area but if I did I would be lobbying every TD. Its absolutely disgraceful noise pollution and affects residents, businesses in the area and just the general public walking or driving through. Its so discordant, I honestly do not know how they are getting away with it. For the 20 or so tourists they claim they allow do it over one session, its actually affects thousands of people.

Christ Church Cathedral

Dear All,

I am so sorry that the bell ringing tours have caused annoyance to our friends and neighbours - this is the last thing we want. As part of our ongoing campaign to raise much needed funds for the urgent repair of the Cathedral, including the Belfry, the bell tower and tours were highlighted both on the news and in the newspapers. This saw a large increase in belfry tours and therefore an increase in the frequency of the bells being rung throughout the day. Once we learned that it was causing disturbance we immediately arranged for a damper to be made which will vastly decrease the sound level and hopefully provide a satisfactory compromise so that people can still experience the joy of bell ringing but without causing disturbance. Unfortunately it is taking a little longer than we hoped but hopefully they will be ready this week.

Again, sincere apologies for any annoyance caused and I hope this will prove a happy resolution for all.

Sincerely,
Nuala Kavanagh
Director of Operations

username123

reprazant wrote: »

They cannot get this from the state due to the separation of church and state so this is one of the few ways that they have of making money.

Why should they get it from the state? The states coffers are not only empty, but in massive debt. The Catholic Church on the other hand is one of the wealthiest organisations in the world, owning billions upon billions in property, land and art just as some examples. Why dont they ask the Pope for a few shillings for restoration works?

UDP

username123 wrote: »

Why should they get it from the state? The states coffers are not only empty, but in massive debt. The Catholic Church on the other hand is one of the wealthiest organisations in the world, owning billions upon billions in property, land and art just as some examples. Why dont they ask the Pope for a few shillings for restoration works?

I thought it was a protestant church

Christ Church Cathedral

username123 wrote: »

Why should they get it from the state? The states coffers are not only empty, but in massive debt. The Catholic Church on the other hand is one of the wealthiest organisations in the world, owning billions upon billions in property, land and art just as some examples. Why dont they ask the Pope for a few shillings for restoration works?

Thank you for your suggestion, however, since Christ Church is a Church of Ireland, not a Catholic Cathedral it would be inappropriate to ask the Pontiff. In this modern age of ecumenism we are of course always happy to work together with our brothers and sisters in the Catholic Church, but we cannot rely upon them in financial matters such as this.

username123

UDP wrote: »

I thought it was a protestant church

I apologise, it is. I was reacting to reprazants comment about the lack of funds due to seperation of the church and state, which generally means seperation of catholic church from the state.

username123

Christ Church Cathedral wrote: »

Thank you for your suggestion, however, since Christ Church is a Church of Ireland, not a Catholic Cathedral it would be inappropriate to ask the Pontiff. In this modern age of ecumenism we are of course always happy to work together with our brothers and sisters in the Catholic Church, but we cannot rely upon them in financial matters such as this.

See above comment, brain was not in place when I posted.

reprazant

username123 wrote: »

I apologise, it is. I was reacting to reprazants comment about the lack of funds due to seperation of the church and state, which generally means seperation of catholic church from the state.

I was referring to it being a historical building, which would normally receive grants from the state for the general upkeep. Since it is a functioning church, this is not allowed.

username123

reprazant wrote: »

I was referring to it being a historical building, which would normally receive grants from the state for the general upkeep. Since it is a functioning church, this is not allowed.

Yes, brain has been inserted since - apologies all round for wrong end of stick etc...

I still disagree with the discordant noise emanating from the bells.

As no one has any idea if the poster purporting to be Director of Operations on this thread really has any connection with the church or is just some internet imposter, I would still advise residents in the area to lobby their TDs until a satisfactory solution is found.

hogans4

It her all right. Had some dealings with Christchurch before.

They are actually quite helpful.

I suggest you make your peace with the bell ringing thing.

There is not much you can do about daytime nose from a building there for hundreds of year.

The council will do nothing.

Plus its a a tough objection to up hold....I dont mind the bells its just what they play!

ProudDUB

Apologies to the OP, but I was one of those noisy bell ringing tourists over the summer. I had visitors coming over from the US, and I was scouting out fun and unusual things for them to do, so I gave it a whirl. The bell tower is in a lovely old part of the structure that you have to go out on a parapet (with amazing views over the city) to get to. Then you go up a winding stone stair case which is straight out of Harry Potter that I thought my nieces would love. I can see tourists and kids loving it.

Anyway, we were up in the bell tower for about 45 mins while tour guide explained how each bell works, how the music for them is written, the training that goes on for becoming an official bell ringer (I think he said that it takes 2 years) & the history of cathedral bell ringing both here and in other countries. He showed us a trophy that the Christchurch bell ringers recently won at some international bell ringing competition that (thankfully for the OP) was held in the UK. They do quite a bit of practicing so I think that it is them that the OP is largely hearing and not the tourists.

Then we had a go on the bells. I don't think we were at it for more than 15 minutes. It is actually quite hard. There really is a technique to it to be able to do it in such a way that is actually musical. I'm sure all that we did was create a racket. The bells are so heavy, you have to time your pulling & letting go of the rope in such a way that you are not dragged up off the floor by its weight. My arms and upper chest were quite sore afterwards. I was there at 4 o'clock at the height of the summer tourist season, and my tour of the belfry was the last one of the day, so I think its probably the actual bell ringers practicing that is causing so much noise and not "us".

I love Christchurch. It is a wonderful old historic building and we are lucky to have it still here and still in use 1000 years later. I love hearing the bells ring, be it there or in other cities. Then again, I don't have to live next to it !

Alflie

Never been to Ireland before, staying in Christ Church at the end of this month. Just googled Christ Church and look what I find, thanks guys. You mean I can swing from the robe like they do in the Movies, Yaaaay. Could someone clarify, is it just £4 a go for 10 minutes of chime? That's a bargain AND it's for charity. Can I buy the full two hours in advance does anyone know, who should I speak to, £48 for two hours of sheer clangability, Sundays only? or can I get some practice in during the week whilst I'm there? Neighbours, try living in Detroit, I mean really who has the time for this, take a walk in the opposite direction or something. Anyway thank you, if it wasn't for you all, I would never have known about Christ Church Cathedral. You Irish folk are the best.