Click on the video above to see Dunmurry Harvest Thanksgiving Service as recorded live
We held a wonderful service of Harvest Thanksgiving at Dunmurry on Sunday, 19th October 2025. We were particularly pleased to welcome the Quoile Area WI Choir conducted by Judith Harper with their accompanist Kathleen Gill. They sang three pieces – This Day, All things bright and beautiful(a setting by Philip Stopford), River Song, plus the vesper Go Now in Peace (arranged by I.E. Keenan), while Allen Yarr, our organist, played for the hymns and Jack Steers played Trumpet Voluntary during the collection.
The service was led by members of the Sunday School and Youth Group with Harry opening the service with words of welcome, readings being given by Jenna, Lochlan, Erin, and Bryn, and Adele and Sue, leading us in prayer. The church was beautifully decorated throughout and the Youth Group made the frieze depicting scenes from the hymn We plough the fields and scatter (which we also sang) which adorned the rail above the pulpit.
Following the service we had refreshments and a time of fellowship in the Hall, with many people coming back for that.
On the following Monday members of the congregation distributed the all the produce which had been donated to L’Arche Village, Belfast.
I was delighted to attend the launch of Balloo, Killinchy, A Hidden History by Lesley Simpson, Moira Concannon and Leanna Russell on Saturday, 15th August at Florida Manor, Killinchy. It was a wonderful occasion and a great start for a fascinating and beautifully produced book.
With Rev Dr Stanley Gamble, Rev Dr John Nelson, Lesley Simpson and Moira Concannon
The authors tell the story of the locality through maps, family history, newspaper reports, churches, mills and stores and, most of all, the local houses. Of particular interest to me is the house known as Templebrook Valley which was the home of the Rev Samuel Watson minister in Killinchy from 1797 up to his death in 1856. He was at the centre of one of the major disputes between the Synod of Ulster and the Non-Subscribers in the 1830s and the new Remonstrant meeting house was built for him in Killinchy in 1846.
When the Non-Subscribers were ejected from their original meeting-house, for three years they held services in the grounds of his house. The book tells the story of the Rev Samuel Watson and his ‘long and interesting life from his suspected involvement with the United Irishmen to his move towards Unitarianism’. One of 13 children, three of them becoming Non-Subscribing Presbyterian ministers, Samuel Watson was also a significant farmer in the locality. Sadly his house was left to fall into dereliction in the twentieth century although a new house has now been restored on the site.
There is a great deal in the book about Samuel Watson. At the stone-laying ceremony for his new meeting-house it was reported that:
…seventy clergymen and strangers joined the congregation for a celebration which culminated in a substantial dinner, in a commodious wooden house that had been erected for the occasion with the Rev. Samuel Watson presiding.
I was particularly amused by one quotation taken from James Gourley in 1874, a perhaps not entirely unbiased commentator, who asked an old man who had sat under Samuel Watson’s feet:
What sort of doctrines did he preach? ‘Ohm’ said he ‘at that time there was no word about doctrine.’ ‘And what then did he preach about?’ ’Mainly about far away countries and wild beasts’.
Samuel Watson’s obituary in the Northern Whig described him as ‘…one of the oldest and ablest Ministers of the Church.’
The book is full of detail and uncovers such fascinating stories as the 1893 excavation of Templebrook Valley by the Belfast Natural History and Philosophical Society with the co-operation of Samuel Watson’s two youngest daughters – Anna and Sarah who were photographed at the excavation which uncovered Bronze Age vessels now in the Ulster Museum.
The view from the back of Florida Manor
The book is richly illustrated throughout and is full of fascinating information. It is a credit to its authors and will be enjoyed by all with an interest in local history, the history of county Down and Irish Presbyterian history. The launch was a splendid occasion at Florida Manor, as the following photographs show.
We have a good collection of postcards of Dunmurry in our Library at First Dunmurry (Non-Subscribing) Presbyterian Church. The following video tells their story:
Here are the postcards:
Kingsway 1
Dunmurry Lane
Dunmurry Primary School
Kingsway 2
Multi-view 1
Mill Hill
Presbyterian Church
Multi-view 2
The Park
St Colman’s
Kingsway 3
All published by W. McCartney, Stationer, Newsagent & Tobacconist, Dunmurry. All with the unusual spelling of ‘Dunmurray’ on the front and back of each card!
On 5th June 2025 a party of about 20 of us set off on a journey to visit four Non-Subscribing Presbyterian churches in county Antrim plus an historic graveyard (including the ruins of a very historic church) and met a Non-Subscribing Presbyterian peacock along the way. We had as our expert guide the Rev Dr John Nelson whose extensive knowledge kept us informed and entertained all day.
We left Dunmurry and headed for Ballycarry where we visited first Templecorran graveyard.
The ruins of Templecorran church
The original parish church used by Edward Brice, the first Presbyterian minister in Ireland in 1613, is now in ruins but it contains many interesting items, including Edward Brice’s grave, the grave of the Rev John Bankhead and a memorial to James Orr, the Bard of Ballycarry.
Grave of Edward Brice
James Orr memorial
The church was renovated in 1622, during the ministry of Edward Brice, and being built in dangerous times was constructed to be defendable; musket loopholes can still be seen which would have covered all angles of the church should it ever have come under attack.
One of the musket loopholes
The church at Templecorran was slated (unlike the first Ballycarry meeting house which was thatched) and was occupied by Edward Brice and his congregation until he was ejected in 1637.
Inside Templecorran church
From the old church it is a short walk to Ballycarry where Dr Nelson told us the story of the meeting house, itself dating from the early 18th century.
Ballycarry plaque
Inside Ballycarry meeting house
It’s not far from Ballycarry to Raloo but some of us still managed to get lost! But we got there in the end to enjoy the Remonstrant meeting house of 1838 and adjoining modern church hall.
Raloo
Raloo interior
From Raloo we went to Templepatrick where we were able to enjoy our lunch thanks to the kindness of the congregation. Templepatrick is an attractive church which has often faced upheaval. In 1798 the brass canon used by the United Irishmen at the battle of Antrim were stored under the pews. One of these was dragged to the battle on a carriage which was fired once and blew the carriage to pieces.
Templepatrick
Later when the congregation became Remonstrant the landlord Lord Templeton evicted the minister from the manse farm.
Templepatrick interior
While we were in Templepatrick a peacock was spending some time in the car park:
Finally we went off to Crumlin, a congregation founded in 1715, which built a new church in 1835 which was a miniature version of First Church, Belfast.
Looking through some wild flowers towards the church
Outside Crumlin
It is such an elegant building that deserves to be better known.
The church was particularly associated with the Rev Nathaniel Alexander who was 6 feet three inches tall. The pulpit consequently has a trap door that was open when he preached so he could stand at a slightly lower lever.
It was a great day out, many thanks go to Rev Dr John Nelson.
Historian, Biographer, Minister of First Church, Belfast. ‘An Englishman by birth, a Scotsman by education and an Irishman by inclination’.
On Thursday, 22nd May, 2025, we had an illustrated talk in First Dunmurry (NS) Presbyterian Church about the great historian Alexander Gordon.
Talk at Dunmurry by Rev Dr David Steers
A distinguished minister in England and Ireland, he served at Aberdeen; Hope Street, Liverpool; Norwich and at First Church, Belfast, before becoming Principal of the Unitarian Home Missionary College, Manchester and a lecturer in Ecclesiastical History in the first Free Faculty of Theology in the British Isles.
The earliest known photograph of Alexander Gordon, taken in Liverpool c.1872 at the time of his marriage to Clara Maria Boult
His scholarship was widely acknowledged all over the world, contributing 778 entries to the Dictionary of National Biography, 39 articles to the eleventh edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica and much more. A superb linguist and experienced traveller his researches took him all over Europe. Among other things he was closely involved in the creation of the Non-Subscribing Presbyterian Church of Ireland in 1910.
Gordon’s distinctive signature in a personal copy of his Bible (Revised Version)
The talk looks at his education, his work as a biographer and historian, and his commitment to the churches in Ireland which he served as secretary to the Association of Irish Non-Subscribing Presbyterians and later being closely involved in the setting up of the Non-Subscribing Presbyterian Church of Ireland itself.
He was a distinguished minister at First Church but even after leaving for Manchester kept a very close connection with the Irish churches, particularly through Dunmurry where he was regarded as the unpaid curate of his friend the Rev J.A. Kelly, despite the incredible heavy work load of his high profile work. From 1895 until the year of his death in 1931 he only missed one communion service at Dunmurry – and that was because of an unexpected train timetable change that left him stranded in Dublin one weekend during the First World War. For a very experienced traveller, particularly rail traveller, this must have been especially galling for Gordon. The lecture also looks at Alexander Gordon as a travel writer.
The last photograph of Alexander Gordon taken at Dunmurry on 18th January 1931
It examines too his family background, which was frequently touched by tragedy. But he inspired great loyalty and affection in the generations of students he trained for the ministry.
Principal of the Unitarian Home Missionary College, Manchester
He was buried in Dunmurry, just a short time after he conducted his final service there on 18th January 1931.
The title of this post comes from the Preface to A Collection of Psalms, Hymns and Spiritual Songs written by the Rev A.G. Malcolm for his hymnbook published in Newry in 1811.
Click on the video to explore Irish Non-Subscribing Presbyterian hymnbooks
Prior to about 1800 Non-Subscribing or New Light Presbyterian churches, in common with other Presbyterians, would have worshipped with a Psalter or Psalm book. The first distinctly Non-Subscribing hymnbook appeared in First Church in 1801. What is surprising about this publication is that in the same year Edward Bunting offered to supply an organ to the church. This offer wasn’t taken up although in just a few years the Second Congregation were to become the first church with an organ, First Church not acquiring one until 1853. The Rev William Bruce edited this collection and 1,200 copies were published. A choir seems to have led the singing which initially contained boys but was later expanded to include adults.
First Church’s Collection of 1801
William Bruce’s book contained 246 hymns, with an index of first lines and a brief one page table of subjects. The next hymnbook, the Newry edition of A.G. Malcolm, contained 405 hymns with a more substantial table of subjects running over eight pages. Plus it had an index of first lines with the names of authors (for example Barbauld, Watts, Doddridge, Kippis, Merrick, Wesley, Addison, Enfield) which showed the eclectic sources the book drew on from within Dissenting circles and beyond.
An interesting preface also explained their intentions:
…care has been taken, to select psalms and hymns, which treat of of the leading points both of faith and practice; and it is hoped, that the compilation will be found to contain a sufficient variety of the best compositions, in sacred poetry, adapted to all the principal subjects of Christian devotion.
A.G. Malcolm went on:
Correctness, both in sentiment and style, has also been made an object of considerable attention. Hence, many verses have been altered; and such psalms and hymns as seemed, in any degree, unsuitable to the simplicity and solemnity of divine worship have been omitted.
As the work is intended for general use, and must be expected to fall into the hands of persons, who unavaoidably differ from one another, in their opinions, on religious subjects, all expressions, which appeared likely to give offence to any sincere Christian, have been studiously avoided.
Interestingly the next hymnbook, dated Belfast, July 1818 and edited by Rev W.D.H. McEwen, made a similar point in a slightly more forceful way in its Preface:
Some doctrines are so offensive to the societies, for whose use this compilation is principally intended, that they are carefully avoided. As to others, the same scrupulosity is not observed; for, with respect to them, there may exist a diversity of sentiment. This selection may, therefore, be thought defective, but it will not disgust by a pertinacious obtrusion of doctrine.
So certain doctrines weren’t allowed to get in the way! Some were left out all together – the Trinity, the theory of the atonement based on penal substitution – and on some doctrines Non-Subscribers were able to agree to differ.
W.D.H. McEwen,s hymnbook
The book was published for the Presbytery of Antrim and the congregation of Strand Street, Dublin but it came from the minister of the Second Congregation. Curiously they had installed an organ in 1806 and had Edward Bunting as their organist from then until 1817. So they don’t appear to have had a hymnbook of their own for the first dozen years after installing the organ.
Following the establishment of the Remonstrant Synod of Ulster in 1830 Non-Subscribers moved towards the development of a hymnbook for all churches. This is Psalms, Paraphrases, and Hymns, for Christian Worship published in Belfast in 1841:
Psalms, Paraphrases, and Hymns, for Christian Worship 1841
This is the first edition of what became Hymns for Christian Worship, a book which went into at least four further editions before the end of the century and was followed by a supplement in 1899. Throughout this time this was the main series of hymnbooks in use in the churches in Ireland. More detail can be seen in the video above.
One of the recently discovered items in the Very Rev William McMillan Library is the election address produced by Harry Midgley for the Dock Constituency in the 1938 Stormont Election. This is a fascinating piece of history, a very rare survival, that tells us about the career of a controversial figure in Belfast political history:
Click above to see the video
Harry Midgley was born in North Belfast, in Tiger’s Bay, and from his youth was involved in the nascent Labour movement in Northern Ireland. According to the ‘Dictionary of Irish Biography’ as a boy he attended a Sunday School connected with the Independent Labour Party in Belfast and he certainly met Keir Hardy in Befast as a youth and began speaking on behalf of the ILP on the Custom House steps while still a teenager. In his early days, right up to the early 1920s, Harry Midgley supported the all-Ireland Socialist ideals of James Connolly, nevertheless on the outbreak of war in 1914, along with his brothers, he joined up, enlisting in the Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers and served throughout the First World War. Later, in 1924, he published his reflections on his war-time experiences in poetic form. Much influenced by Kipling his verses also show the mixture of Christian values coupled with utopian socialist ideals which underpinned his politics throughout his career.
On his return from the war he immersed himself in politics, firstly getting a job as a shipyard joiner with Harland and Wolff, and soon after being appointed as organising secretary of the Irish Linenlappers’ and Warehouse Workers’ Union. This was his entry into the Labour movement and he became active in different organisations particularly the Belfast Labour Party.
He also became a member of York Street Non-Subscribing Presbyterian Church (see picture at the top of this page) at a time when it was perceived as very left-orientated under the ministry of the Rev A.L. Agnew. Indeed when he fought the West Belfast Westminster constituency in 1924 (gaining over 21,000 votes, although not proving victorious) A.L. Agnew and the Rev E.I. Fripp, minister of All Souls’ NSP Church, were amongst his most prominent supporters. York Street Church was also characterised by very open political debate in the early 1920s, and welcomed speakers of all political backgrounds to its ‘mock parliaments’.
The Belfast Labour Party had proved very successful at its inception. In 1920 it won 10 out of the 60 seats in the municipal elections in Belfast. The Party gradually transformed to the Northern Ireland Labour Party and Harry Midgley became the first secretary.
In 1925 he was a elected to the council as a representative of the Dock Ward and a few years later, in 1933, he was successful in winning the Dock Constituency in the Stormont Parliament. However, in 1938 he lost this seat, partly due to the fall out from the Spanish Civil War. It is this from this election that the printed address in the Dunmurry Library comes. To see it and find out more about it click on the video above.
Gradually the Northern Ireland Labour Party adopted a pragmatic view of partition and Harry Midgley went along with this view. But for a party that tried to stand outside the sectarian divide the issue of the border was one that would not go away. The Northern Ireland Labour Party itself became divided over the position to take on the question of the border and eventually Harry Midgley was expelled, partly because of the strongly pro-Union position he ultimately adopted. He then formed his own Commonwealth Labour Party which enjoyed some success and as a Member of Parliament in Stormont he served in the war-time government, the first non-Unionist representative to be in government in Northern Ireland. Later he joined the Ulster Unionist Party, reconciled by the party’s willingness to follow the post-war social policies of the Westminster government. Having been elected as the MP for the Belfast Willowfield constituency at a by election in 1941 he continued to represent the same constituency up to the time of his death in 1957, first for the Northern Ireland Labour Party, then the Commonwealth Labour Party and ultimately for the Ulster Unionist Party, the only member of the Stormont Parliament to represent the same constituency for three different parties.
In later life he joined the Orange Order and the Royal Black Preceptory. A life-long supporter of Linfield FC he became a director of the club and ultimately the Chairman. At the time of his death he was Minister of Education.
A recent post looked at the two wonderful Rowel Friers cartoons which hang on the wall of the Library in Dunmurry, as well as the video which explains the story about them. As the post explains these pictures were commissioned by the Rev William McMillan for his impressive Exhibition illustrating the history of the Presbytery of Antrim held in January 1976.
It must have been an attractive display in the McCleery Hall, the Rev Mac sourced portraits, books, communion plate, swords and pikes from the ’98 Rebellion, sculptures by Rosamond Praegar, commmunion tokens, copper collecting pans and all sorts of material from all over Northern Ireland. There was even a mould for making eighteenth-century communion tokens from Ballycarry and – something I had not previously heard of – an eighteenth-century family token box, described as ‘a wooden box holding a small leadbox in which the token was taken to the meeting house.’
One feature of the Exhibition for the 250th anniversary of the Presbytery of Antrim is that there were in fact three, not two, Rowel Friers cartoons included. Unfortunately one of these has been missing for fifty years. However, we have now discovered a photograph of the lost picture and this features in our latest video:
Click on the video to see the video about the 1626 Antrim Meeting
The Exhibition was held in January 1976 and covered both the creation of the Presbytery of Antrim in 1725 and its separation from the Synod of Ulster. It was also intended to cover the anniversary of the creation in 1626 of the original Antrim Meeting. The Exhibition must have been fascinating but unfortunately in that pre-digital age there were very few photographs taken. There is only one that shows the Exhibition in the Non-Subscribing Presbyterian magazine at the time:
Betty Kelly at the Exhibition in the McCleery Hall in 1976
There were a large number of dignitaries invited to the dinner that followed the Exhibition, representatives of all denominations, figures in public life, historians and international figures. Many of the speeches are recorded in the Non-Subscribing Presbyterian magazine and the Rev John Radcliffe, clerk of the Synod, made reference to the third Rowel Friers cartoon:
‘There are two extreme forms of the expression of religious sentiment. There is one that is very well expressed in the person here described: “His mind and voice had precisely the fluid quality of some clear, subtle liquid: one felt it could flow around anything and overcome nothing.” That is the extreme of presenting the Christian faith in such delightfully attractive style, with such a fluency of language, with such a vividness of imagery, that it will flow around anything and overcome nothing. At the other extreme there is another sort of Christianity, corybantic Christianity. There is a cartoon on the wall there, a drawing of four rather austere clerics, and the date is 1626. Outside you see somebody rousing a rabble – not unheard of in these days. The four rather serious looking clerics are trying to bring a bit of reason into it all; and the man outside is an exponent of corybantic Christianity, the Christianity that is the direct oppposite of that I have been describing tonight – and appeals all the time to the emotions in which people get carried away, and leads in the end to a very dangerous, in fact terrible, fanaticism – the very negation of the Christian spirit.’
Detail from the photograph
It is a fascinating footnote to our previous post and video about our Rowel Friers cartoons, another part of the story that takes us back even further in time, in this case to 1626.
Our latest video (Number 7) exploring the collection of the Very Rev William McMillan Library at First Dunmurry looks at some Christmas readings. We also have O Come all ye faithful played by Jack Steers on the trumpet.
The video also includes some of the Christmas decoration in the Church including the excellent frieze created by the children of the Youth Group along the rail behind the pulpit, which can be seen in more detail below:
Episode 6 of our explorations of the Very Rev William McMillan Library at Dunmurry looks at the writings of the Rev John Abernethy (1680-1740). Without doubt the most prominent Presbyterian minister in Ireland in the early eighteenth century and the foremost exponent of Non-Subscription, he was minister at Antrim (see picture above) and later Wood Street, Dublin.
Click on the video to see John Abernethy’s books
Some of his books were the best sellers of their day and some of his publications were seen as either controversial theological statements or the key to opening up a new way to understand faith, depending on your point of view. Ironically at the time of the first subscription controversy the minister of Dunmurry, the Rev John Malcome, was a vocal opponent of the Non-Subscribers and was the first to use the term ‘New-Light’ about them. But Dunmurry Library has a good selection of his published works, most of them published after Abernethy’s death.
The founder of the Belfast Society in 1705, an outspoken advocate of the rights of the dissenting minority in Ireland and an established philosopher of some importance, John Abernethy’s books had considerable influence and this video looks at his publications held by our Library in Dunmurry.
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