Beginnings: I smile with much delight and some disbelief when I look back at our efforts to renew music and liturgy at the end of the 1960s. We were so blessed to be involved and to have such good company. The Glasgow Church Music Association held a very successful Music Day at St Aloysius’ Garnethill in 1969 - that was the occasion when we launched ‘Christ be Beside me’ and ‘Be thou my vision’ - and promoted Mass parts and psalms. For that occasion we had the support of our ‘ad hoc’ choir to encourage participants and were so pleased with it that Frs David Trainer and Des McGinty, Kathleen Donaghy (now Donnelly) and I decided to establish a proper liturgical choir which became known as the St Mungo Singers, a name given it by Archbishop James Scanlan, when it was launched with Canon Sydney McEwan singing Philip Green’s Mass of St Patrick in 1971. 

The choir was founded to promote the development of liturgical music in the Archdiocese of Glasgow, to support Music Days, and to help parishes on request. Archbishop, later Cardinal, Thomas Winning let me know that he really didn’t want a choir but wanted people to sing, and was reluctant to be persuaded that in fact the choir could and would give a strong lead to the congregation in the singing of the psalm and Mass parts, enrich it with harmony, find new repertoire, and encourage creativity. Within five years we had sung in or supported 70 parishes throughout the Archdiocese with choir or the loan of cantors and he gradually changed his mind. I wonder if he quietly became rather proud of us. Cardinal Winning was no great singer, but on several occasions he courageously sang the Eucharistic Prayer written for him. He even asked for a setting of the Liturgy of St Basil the Great. 

Social events: The choir has mixed liturgy with social events, prayer with friendly celebrations. As singers we wanted to enjoy beautiful music, but we also needed to enjoy each other’s company, so we had after-choir social gatherings, days out, a memorable Car Rally, pilgrimages and parties, holidays abroad.  

Education: From the start we supported Cantor Courses and Music Days - a Course could involve up to 300 people! - and there was a serious appetite for liturgical music in the diocese. Our singers also made lots of teaching tapes and CDs of psalms, initially with the help of Fr Tom Connolly and his associates at the Catholic Broadcasting Centre. We also published booklets including ‘Psalms for Parishes’ in co-operation with the St Thomas More Centre, London, ‘More Psalms for Parishes’ with a loan from Fr Joe Chambers of the RE Centre (which sold so well that the loan was repaid within the month), and dozens more by ourselves, or with Milton Press, or with Kevin Mayhew Ltd. We visited many parishes with Vespers of Our Lady, of Advent, of Easter, St Paul, St Mungo, the Year of Faith, St Andrew, St John Ogilvie, and the SCIAF Stations of the Cross. For a few years we even held an annual Music Conference at Tombae in the Moray. Our Archdiocesan Music Bulletin, ‘St Mungo’s Music’, provided news and publicised events until the web took over and we were blessed for more than 20 years with many photographs of events taken by Paul McSherry and Gerald Barry and archived by Mary Bradley. 

Concerts: in the 1970s and 80s we organised Concerts with the Glasgow Jewish Choral Society and the Kedron Choir, we enjoyed the St Cecilia’s Days in the early 1980s, and led in another concert with Glasgow Churches Together for the Great Jubilee. We also provided a concert at Dormition Abbey in Jerusalem and another at the Cathedral in Salamanca. However, liturgy was and is our main concern.  In 2013 The East End Deanery Choir and the St Mungo Singers staged a Concert of Liturgical Music in St Thomas’s. Riddrie and broadcast it on radioalba.org 

Repertoire: a liturgical choir has to have a repertoire which supports people in their prayer - ‘active participation’ - and yet, the choir itself needs to be enriched by quality music. So we gladly continued with some plainsong along with a variety of motets and anthems from Palestrina to Bach, Handel to Elgar, and with contemporary music from Rutter, Chilcott and so many others. We enjoy our great tradition of liturgical music while taking care to ensure that music serves the liturgy and not the other way round.  I have never forgotten the words of St Paul 6^th advising choirs against ‘narcissistic complacency in their own sonority.’ 

Archdiocese: Looking back we are glad to have served the Archdiocese in the annual ‘ordinary’ events such as the RCIA on the 1st Sunday of Lent, the Chrism Mass, and the Pentecost Mass, but we also helped to organise and sing for the funerals of Archbishops, Bishops and Priests, the Annual Archdiocesan Requiem for the Clergy, the Ordinations of Bishops, Priests and Deacons, the re-opening of the Cathedral, the Installation of 3 Archbishops, the welcoming of the Papal Legate then the Nuncios, the Kirking of the Council, and events with civic links such as the deaths of Princess Diana and the Queen Mother, the 16th Centenary of St Ninian, the 14th Centenary of St Gregory the Great, of St Columba, and of our own St Mungo. A highlight was the Kelvin Hall Ordinations in 1989, and another was the 1999 Mass for Musicians for the Great Jubilee - we even sang the plainsong Te Deum for that one! 

Parishes: From the beginning the choir was involved with helping parishes, either by supporting special events such as Jubilees and funerals, or by providing cantors for weeks and months at a time. Archbishop Winning once asked a cantor whom he met in more than one parish if she was following him around, and was heartily amused when she replied ’No. this is my parish! Are you following me around’? 

Ecumenism is a serious part of our work - support for Kerr Spiers and the Baptists at the Coats Memorial  and Church of Scotland events in Paisley and Elderslie in the 1980s, the Mission to Seamen in Govan with John Rafferty and  Fr Geoffrey Hartley, the Concerts with Christians and Jews, the Glasgow Garden Festival in 1988, the City of Culture in 1990, the launch of Glasgow Churches Together in 1990 with an ‘agape’, the Year of the Celtic Saints in 1997, the National Ecumenical Assembly of the Year 2001, the St Mungo Festival, the Songs of Praise in the People’s Palace, the VIP series based in the Henry Wood Hall, . . . . . We have much enjoyed the St Mungo Festival Services in the Cathedral - initiated by Archbishop Mario Conti and Dr Laurence Whitley and continued with the Rev Mark Johnstone and were glad to be able to support the GCT St Andrew’s Day events, the Clutha Vaults Service and many others. 

Civic Services: Glasgow is twinned with Bethlehem, and we were very happy to organise Carols for Peace at the request of Lord Provost Alec Mosson in 2000 and to initiate ‘Glasgow the Welcoming City’ in 2003 at the request of Lord Provost Liz Cameron. We were part of the beginning of the of Blessing of the Crib in George Square and always involved a school in it along with either a Salvation Army Band or ‘Alba Brass’. The first Blessing of the Crib was hilarious - the weather was so atrocious that the civic and church dignitaries had difficulty in keeping in tune with choir and band! We played a significant part in the Glasgow Garden Festival and the Year of Culture. 

Schools: the choir supported the first few annual Children’s Masses (notably on Palm Sundays with Anne Tiffney’s choreography) and Cantatas and then as the schools grew more assured left them to it. Our biggest collaborative event was the St Mungo Cantata in the Kelvin Hall, when we had 68 Primary Schools and the St Andrew’s Brass, which surpassed in size even the Mass at the Glasgow Garden Festival. For more than 30 years we supported a chain of school Masses and then Cantatas - St Mungo, St Columba, St Ninian, St Patrick, St Bridget, St Constantine, St Julie, Jesus’ Journey to Jerusalem, David and his Song, Saul became Paul, The Story of Joseph and Mary, John Duns Scotus…... Many of the schools are now supported by Glasgow Churches Together for the St Mungo Festival including Mungo’s Bairns with Liz Bovill’s drama and the Vita Kentigerni at the Mitchell. We have also enjoyed support from the very start from Gordon Galloway and then Des McLean with St Andrew’s Brass; from Winnie Dean and the Bellarmine Strings,  from Sr Maureen who introduced the harp and Noel and Carissa who continue it, the instrumentalists: Monica, Pauline, Anne Marie and Annette which still perform for The Celtic Roots, the St Mungo Mass and other occasions; from John, Clare and Carissa in their Ensemble; and from so many schools for Cantatas, Masses and other events. The librettos of the Cantatas were provided by a variety of writers including Stephen Eric Smyth, Loreno Rinaldi, David Morris, Mary Dickie, Des McLean, Fr Sean Fitzgerald, and Fr Noel Colford provided a song for the Columba Cantata.    Our liturgies were much enhanced by the wonderful vestments designed and created by Netta Ewing and the embroiderers, the Sacred Threads. 

 radioalba.org the ecumenical radio station, was established nearly 8 years ago. Its menu of prayer depends hugely on the recordings made by the St Mungo Singers and cantors as well as the support of members of the churches which are part of Glasgow Churches Together. Today, there are more than 40 people involved in radioalba.org with Pat Connor our Webmaster and it is nice to think that its roots lie in the Catholic Broadcasting Centre pioneered so long ago by Fr Tom Connolly, Hugh Kelly, Gerry Bayne, Bill McKelvie, Stephen McAndrew, Paul Connor and so many. 

Pilgrimages and choir holidays have been a very significant and fun part of the life of the choir - Dumfries and New Abbey, Whithorn, Iona, Jerusalem, Rome, Malta, Salamanca, Barcelona and the Sagrada, Sorrento and Monte Cassino, Tuscany, Dublin and Glendalough, York, Scarborough, Wales, St Andrew’s. . . . . . 

We, the St Mungo Singers, have enjoyed friendship and support over these 50 years - being absent, due to Covid19, for more than a year from what we do has been difficult. We look forward to continuing our friendship, enriching the church’s life and helping others and ourselves in our prayers through music. We have recently celebrated our Golden Jubilee Mass, received a Papal Blessing, have postponed our  Civic Reception, are enjoying some nice Jubilee Wine  - and are preparing for the Copt 26 service, the Vigil of St Andrew , the Carols for peace  and so on.  And please jnote that we still encourage new members to join us.

I thank all the members present and past, the organists and conductors, the Archbishops and clergy, Glasgow Churches Together and all who have valued our presence in the Archdiocese and beyond.  

Let Glasgow Flourish - and we with it.