Very Rev Gilbert Mayes: The Very Rev Gilbert Mayes, who died just a day after his 90th birthday, was a former dean of Lismore cathedral.
As honorary secretary of the liturgical advisory committee, he was one of the principal figures responsible for introducing contemporary liturgy to the Church of Ireland in the 1970s and 1980s.
Gilbert Mayes was born in Dunmurry, Co Antrim, on September 5th, 1915, the son of Richard Mayes, a company director. From Dunmurry High School he went to Trinity College Dublin, where he received a BA in philosophy in 1943 and an MA in 1961.
After receiving his Divinity Testimonium, he was ordained deacon in 1944 and priest in 1945 by Archbishop John Gregg of Armagh, serving his title as curate of St Mark's parish, Armagh. On August 2nd, 1946, he married Margaret (Pat) Martin, whose father had worked in the Indian Forestry Service, in Groomsport, Co Down.
In 1947 Gilbert Mayes became headmaster of the Armagh cathedral school and diocesan curate, but he returned to parish ministry a year later, first becoming rector of Donaghmore Upper with Pomeroy and then in 1948 rector of Dundalk, Co Louth.
In 1961 the Mayes family moved to Co Waterford when Gilbert was appointed rector of Lismore and Cappoquin and dean of St Carthage's cathedral, Lismore.
In the years that followed, he made his greatest impact on the Church of Ireland as one of the key figures in the liturgical reforms that led eventually to the 1984 Alternative Prayer Book and to the eucharistic and baptismal rites in the 2004 Book of Common Prayer. He was part of a select group - including Canon Edgar Turner and Bishop (later Archbishop) Henry McAdoo - who formed the Holy Communion sub-committee of the liturgical advisory committee from 1965 onwards.
As honorary secretary of the advisory committee, Dean Mayes went through endless meetings of the General Synod fending off amendments to the draft rites for both baptism and eucharist. He was most courageous in withstanding the tactics of one particular group in synod who opposed his eirenic and inclusive texts, and eventually "Holy Communion 1972" became the prototype of the first order for Holy Communion in the Alternative Prayer Book (1984).
The first eucharistic prayer in "Holy Communion Two" in the latest Book of Common Prayer (2004) is derived from that rite.
As dean of Lismore, his liturgical interests informed his restoration and modernisation of St Carthage's cathedral. He moved the altar into the centre of an enlarged sanctuary and moved the screen from the choir to the entrance to the north transept. That was re-
dedicated as St Columba's chapel, complete with the 18th-century communion rails from the closed church at Villierstown.
He used the canopy and pulpit from Villierstown to provide a bishop's throne in the cathedral for the first time in almost a century, cleared the nave and transepts of pews and gave the baptismal font a more prominent liturgical place close to the main south entrance.
When St Olave's church in Waterford was closed, he retrieved the oak pulpit, reroofed the cathedral chancel and nave and oversaw the imaginative painting of the vaulting ribs and bosses of the chancel ceiling.
In 1984 Dean Mayes also became chancellor of Cashel cathedral and precentor of Waterford cathedral. A year later he became prebendary of Stagonil, representing the diocese of Cashel and Ossory in the chapter of St Patrick's cathedral, Dublin.
Gilbert and Pat Mayes had three daughters Brigid, Clare (O'Neill) and Eleanor. He is also survived by his son-in-law, Dr James O'Neill, his sister, Mrs Betty Noel, and four grandchildren.
The Very Rev Gilbert Mayes, born September 5th, 1915; died September 6th, 2005