'It looks like I’ll live to over 100:' Ireland's oldest bell-ringer gets set to ring up his 90th
The Dean of Christ Church, Bruce Hayes, with Richard De Courcy, Ireland’s oldest bell ringer, as he prepares to make his weekly climb up the bell tower of the Waterford cathedral. Picture Chani Anderson
One of Ireland’s oldest bellringers will spend his 90th birthday doing what he loves best in what is set to be a memorable morning at Christ Church Cathedral in Waterford.
January 26 will begin like any other Sunday for Richard de Courcy as he braves the 50 steps leading to the belfry of the stunning city landmark. There he will ring the bells and, after the service, will head with some 40 friends and relatives to the nearby Granville Hotel for a birthday celebration.
What started off as a sprint has now become a marathon for the humble bachelor who has been ringing the bells for more than 60 years. Richard says:
Even health struggles, ranging from a heart bypass in 2020 to a cancer diagnosis, weren’t enough to dampen Richard’s determination.
“The only time I’ll be retiring is when I can no longer make it up the steps.
"After I got the bypass I asked my surgeon if there were any special exercises that I should be doing. He said that if I continue walking this will keep me going for another 15 years. I go for a walk every day now so it looks like I’ll live to over 100.”
Richard said there are about 13 bell ringers in total at Christ Church Cathedral, and while people love the sound of the bells, few stop to think about who is ringing them.
“It’s very much a case of out of sight, out of mind but we are always there.
“It’s good aerobic exercise,” he says jokingly. “It’s also good fun. That, with a lot of other things keep me young. It’s probably in the genes as well, combined with the few pills I take.”
Richard’s passion for bell- ringing began when he was in his 20s: “A friend of mine up the road from where I lived on Water St called to my door one Saturday. He told me that a member of the choir said that he and I were going to learn bell-ringing.
“He was going at 7.30pm that night to start learning. I can remember saying ‘you must be joking’.
“I knew that if I agreed to it I would be stuck doing it every Sunday. He’s dead now but I’m still at it.”
However, there have been a few close shaves in the Belfry.
“Sometimes when you have a young boy or girl they are not tall enough to reach that high. They have the option of standing on different height boxes. However, if your toes veer out over the edge, the tail end of the rope catches your feet and pulls you upside down.
“This happened to one chap who is a very good ringer now. He was only a little fella back then.
“There was another unfortunate incident 40 years ago involving a little girl of about 13. We have eight bells and, located where the smallest bell is, there’s a trapdoor that you stand on. She was ringing the first bell, which is known as the treble, when somebody knocked on the trap door. She stepped forward and they opened the trap door before putting the latch on it to keep it open.
“She stepped back and fell down the stairs but held on to the sally which pulled her back up again. Luckily, she was alright in the end.”
He explained the mechanism: “The bells are actually upside down and the stick at the top of the bell stops it from falling right over. That’s the slider. The sally is the furry part. At the bottom there is about 6ft of rope.
“You catch the end of the rope and hold on to it and you don’t let go. You pull the sally, the bell goes around to a full circle and the stick stops. It hits the slider and stops it from falling over. That pulls your arms up straight at the tail end of the rope. Then you pull that and it goes through a full circle again, hits the slider, and that’s the second stroke.
“You keep doing that. However, you have to pull just the right amount to get it to go up so that it balances. If you don’t pull hard enough it will fall back down again. It requires a lot of practice.
“We have eight bells in total but one is out of order so we’ve only been ringing seven for the last two years.
“The hope is that it will be fixed by the end of January.”
Richard also helps to co-ordinate bell-ringers each week: “I ring around every Friday or Saturday to see who’s available. If I haven’t got enough for that week then I’ll ask somebody who doesn’t come very often.
“We usually always find someone.”
He has witnessed many changes over his long bell-ringing career.
“Of course there were lots more people coming to church in those days. Then again, there wasn’t very much to do back then. Nobody really had televisions.
“In the Roman Catholic churches it was obligatory to go so their churches were always full. Our churches were pretty full too. A lot has changed since I first started out.”
• Discover more online at the Christ Church Cathedral, Waterford website.
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