The Story of the Presbyterians in Ulster

In Scotland attempts by Charles I to impose his authority upon the Church provoked a hostile response which eventually led to the National Covenant of 1638. This Covenant declared presbyterianism the only true form of church government and bound the nation to the principles of the Reformation.

Many people in the north of Ireland also signed this Covenant. In response, the government insisted that all Scots in Ulster over the age of sixteen take an oath – the ‘Black Oath’ as it became known – abjuring the Covenant. This had a deeply destabilising effect on the province with many settlers withdrawing to Scotland to avoid taking the oath.

In October 1641 an uprising began in Ulster which was organised by the leading figures in the Gaelic Irish community. This insurrection quickly escalated and resulted in significant loss of life and destruction of property. Many of the Scottish settlers fled for safety to their homeland, while in 1642 an army under the command of Major General Robert Munro was sent to Ireland to protect those who remained.

The regiments in this army were accompanied by ministers who acted as chaplains. They included:

• Rev. Hugh Cunningham
• Rev. John Baird
• Rev. Thomas Peebles
• Rev. James Simpson
• Rev. John Scott
• Rev. John Aird

On 10 June 1642, in Carrickfergus, County Antrim, five of these ministers and four ruling elders, chosen from the four regiments that had formed kirk sessions, came together in what is regarded as the inaugural Irish Presbytery meeting, from which, in a formal sense, today’s Presbyterian Church in Ireland descends. This event is commemorated by a sculpture positioned beside Joymount Presbyterian Church, Carrickfergus, and by the ‘Carrickfergus Window’ in Assembly Buildings, Belfast.

Following the Restoration of 1660, ministers who refused to conform to the teachings and episcopal authority of the newly reinstated Church of Ireland were dismissed. One virulent opponent of the Presbyterian ministers was Bishop Jeremy Taylor of Down and Connor who in one day declared vacant 36 parishes in counties Antrim and Down.

In the years that followed there was considerable state hostility towards Presbyterians and at different times ministers were arrested and imprisoned. One particularly notorious incident followed the discovery in 1663 of a conspiracy by Captain Thomas Blood to seize Dublin Castle. Around 20 Presbyterian ministers were arrested on suspicion of complicity in this plot, but all were eventually released with the exception of Blood’s brother-in-law, Rev. William Lecky, who was executed.

In 1684, during another difficult period for Presbyterians, some ministers in County Donegal considered emigrating to America to escape persecution, but in the end did not go ahead with this. Despite these difficulties, Presbyterians continued to form congregations and, having been excluded from parish churches, began to build their own meeting houses.

Many Ulster Presbyterians fought for the Williamite cause at Derry, the Boyne and elsewhere. On 19 June 1690, King William III, while at Hillsborough, restored and increased the regium donum, a bounty that had first been paid to Presbyterian ministers by the government in 1672. A few months later synodical meetings resumed with the formation of the General Synod of Ulster.

The aftermath of the Williamite war saw a new influx of thousands of Scots into the north of Ireland, encouraged by harvest crises in their native land and the prospect of new opportunities in Ulster. Around 1700 William King, the bishop of Derry, observed that due to a fresh wave of migration from Scotland, ‘the dissenters measure mightily in the north’. By this time Presbyterians comprised a majority of Protestants in Ulster.

By the 1680s a majority of Presbyterians had come to a position on the Covenants of 1638 and 1643 which could be described as ‘respectful remembrance’. That is, they believed that the Covenants had been important documents, but were no longer perpetually binding on them and their descendants.

On the other hand, a minority of Presbyterians continued to believe in the continuing obligation of the Covenants and from them today’s Covenanters or Reformed Presbyterians descend.

Of the early history of the Covenanters in Ireland very little is known, save that their numbers were small and that they were widely scattered. They maintained close links with fellow Covenanters in Scotland where a Reformed Presbytery was formed in 1743. The first Reformed Presbyterian minister, Rev. William Martin, was ordained at The Vow on the River Bann, near Ballymoney, in 1757. Six years later an Irish Reformed Presbytery was established. Due to a depleted ministry this was dissolved in 1779 but was re-established in 1792. In 1811, at Cullybackey, County Antrim, a Synod of the Reformed Presbyterian Church met for the first time.

The 1830s was a decade of dissension within the Reformed Presbyterian Church over issues relating to the denomination’s historic position on political dissent and in particular on the powers of the civil magistrate. Eventually, led by Rev. John Paul of Loughmourne, County Antrim, those who challenged the accepted view withdrew from the main body of the Church in 1840 and formed the Eastern Reformed Presbyterian Church. This denomination folded in the early 20th century with most congregations either joining the Presbyterian Church or returning to the Reformed Presbyterian Church.

Today there are some 40 congregations, societies and fellowships in the Reformed Presbyterian Church in Ireland with several new causes established in recent years.

In the early 18th century, there occurred the first major dispute within Irish Presbyterianism. This was over the issue of subscription to the Westminster Confession of Faith which had been made compulsory on all ministers by the Synod of Ulster. Led by Rev. John Abernethy of Antrim, those who denied the necessity of subscribing to this work were known as ‘New Lights’ or ‘Non-Subscribers’.

Failing to reach a consensus on the issue, in 1725 the Synod of Ulster placed those who took this stance in the Presbytery of Antrim (this did not mean that all of the congregations were in County Antrim). In the following year the Synod voted to exclude the Presbytery of Antrim from the courts of the church.

A century later the issue of subscription again arose and was exacerbated by the division on the issue by conservative and liberal elements within the Synod, the former favouring compulsory subscription. Eventually this led to the withdrawal from the Synod of Ulster of seventeen ministers, led by Rev. Henry Montgomery of Dunmurry, and the formation of the Remonstrant Synod of Ulster in 1830, which held its first annual meeting in Belfast in May of that year. In 1835 the Remonstrant Synod, the Presbytery of Antrim and the Synod of Munster came together to form the Association of Irish Non-Subscribing Presbyterians.

In 1910 the General Synod of the Non-Subscribing Presbyterian Church was formed by the Presbytery of Antrim and Remonstrant Synod. In the 1930s the Synod of Munster also joined this body. Today the 34 congregations of the Non-Subscribing Presbyterian Church are found exclusively in counties Antrim and Down, with the exception of the congregations in Cork and Dublin. The denomination has as its motto, ‘Faith guided by reason and conscience’.

Following a dispute in the Church of Scotland over the issue of patronage and concerns about doctrinal laxity, a number of ministers seceded (hence their appellation Seceders) in 1733 and formed the Associate Presbytery. The conservative evangelicalism of the Seceders appealed to many Presbyterians in Ulster and from the 1740s onwards Seceder congregations were established here.

As a general rule, it would appear that it was in those areas most strongly affected by the influx of families from Scotland in the years either side of 1700 that the Seceders made the greatest impact. The first Seceder congregation in Ireland was at Lylehill, County Antrim. In 1741 Presbyterians in this district appealed to the Associate Presbytery in Scotland to send them preachers. Occasional preaching supplies were provided for several years before Isaac Patton, a native of Myroe, near Limavady, County Londonderry, was ordained their minister in 1746.

The Seceders in Scotland divided over the issue of the Burgess Oath, giving rise to the Burghers and Antiburghers. Though this division had little relevance to Ireland, nonetheless, the Seceders here separated into the two camps. The Burghers established a Synod in 1779 in Monaghan and the Antiburghers did so in 1788 in Belfast.

A growing realisation that what they held in common was far greater than what divided them led to the Burghers and Antiburghers coming together to form the Secession Synod at Cookstown in 1818. In 1840 the great majority of Seceder congregations joined with the Synod of Ulster in forming the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church. A few Seceder congregations remained outside of this body, but in time most joined the General Assembly, though a few joined the Reformed Presbyterian Church.

The distinguished historian A.T.Q. Stewart famously observed, ‘The Presbyterian is happiest when he is being a radical.’ Political radicalism was never more obvious than in the 1790s when Presbyterians were instrumental in the creation of the United Irishmen and were heavily involved in the revolutionary activities that led to the 1798 Rebellion.

Influenced by the American and French Revolutions the Society of United Irishmen was founded in Belfast in 1791 by a group of Presbyterians led by Dr William Drennan, son of a former minister of the First Presbyterian Congregation in the town. Soon afterwards clubs were founded in Dublin and a number of other places. The aims of the Society were parliamentary reform and the elimination of English interference in Irish matters. After efforts to suppress it, the Society reorganised itself as a secret organisation and began to prepare for rebellion.

Following a failed French expedition in December 1796, the repressive measures taken by the government in 1797 severely weakened the United Irishmen in Ulster. Rebellion began in Leinster in late May 1798. On the night of 6–7 June it spread to Ulster when a party of United Irishmen advanced into Larne and forced a contingent of government troops back to their barracks. Soon afterwards Ballymena and Randalstown were taken, but at Antrim Town the rebels were defeated.

In County Down following an initial victory at Saintfield, the rebels were roundly defeated at nearby Ballynahinch on 11 June and the rebellion in Ulster was all but finished. There followed a series of executions including that of Rev. James Porter of Greyabbey, the only ordained minister of the Presbyterian Church to be put to death in what was widely regarded as a miscarriage of justice. One of the last to be hanged was the most famous Ulster rebel of them all, Henry Joy McCracken, a member of the Third Presbyterian Congregation, Belfast.

The 19th century was a period of expansion for the Presbyterianism in Ireland with hundreds of new congregations formed, partly in response to the rise in the population in the early 1800s, and also to the expansion of urban centres. This can be seen clearly in the rapidly expanding industrial city of Belfast where between 1850 and 1900 the Presbyterian population quadrupled, while the number of congregations rose from 15 to 47.

The withdrawal of the liberals in the late 1820s helped to clear the way for the union of the Synod of Ulster and the Secession Synod. In 1840 the ruling bodies of these two denominations came together to form the General Assembly that comprised nearly 450 congregations and some 650,000 members.

The 19th century saw the Presbyterian Church in Ireland establish overseas missions. In 1840 the General Assembly commissioned Rev. James Glasgow and Rev. Alexander Kerr to go as missionaries to India. Many others would follow as other missions were established in China as well as missions to the Jews and Colonial and Commonwealth missions.

One of the most dramatic events in Irish religious history was the 1859 Revival. A spiritual awakening, of a depth and power that had never been experienced before, spread through Ulster at a remarkable pace. While the Revival affected Protestants from all denominations, it was particularly associated with the Presbyterian Church.

The position of Presbyterians within wider society was also improving. Most Presbyterians became reconciled to the reality of the union with Britain and were liberal in their political outlook. They welcomed the disestablishment of the Church of Ireland (which also saw the ending of the regium donum) and the land reforms that benefited farmers introduced by the Liberal government at Westminster led by W. E. Gladstone. However, from 1886 onwards, Presbyterians overwhelmingly rejected Gladstone’s proposals for Home Rule which proposed a devolved parliament in Dublin.

The Presbyterian Churches have always placed a high premium on education, not only in terms of an educated ministry, but also in having a literate membership. Many Presbyterian ministers organised their own schools. One of the earliest of these was the school established by Rev. James McAlpine at Killyleagh, County Down, in 1697 where Rev. Francis Hutcheson, later Professor of Moral Philosophy at Glasgow University, received some of his early education.

In the second half of the 18th century notable academies were found at Rademon, County Down, by Rev. Moses Neilson and at Strabane, County Tyrone, by Rev. William Crawford. The driving force behind the opening of Belfast Academy in 1786 was a Scotsman, Rev. Dr James Crombie, minister of the First Presbyterian Congregation, who wanted to establish a school along the lines of a Scottish collegiate institution.

Prior to the 19th century the overwhelming majority of Presbyterian ministers received their university education in Scotland, for the most part in Glasgow. However, the opening in 1815 of Belfast Academical Institution with its collegiate department meant that it was now possible for Presbyterians to receive a higher education without having to travel to Scotland. Later in the 19th century Assembly’s College was founded to train ministers for the Presbyterian Church, while Magee College in Londonderry, founded through the generous bequest of the widow of a Presbyterian minister, offered courses in arts and divinity.

In the 19th century many Presbyterians became actively involved in ventures designed to promote moral improvements in society and reach out to the unchurched. These included the Temperance movement, championed by such figures as Rev. Dr John Edgar in Belfast and Anne Jane Carlile, the subject of a blue plaque at Trinity Presbyterian Church, Bailieborough, County Cavan. Organisations founded by Presbyterians, or with which they became actively involved, included the Presbyterian Orphan Society (now the Children’s Society) and the Belfast Town (later City) Mission.

For more than three centuries Presbyterians from Ulster have been carrying their faith across the globe – to North America, Australia, New Zealand and elsewhere –and have founded many congregations and built numerous places of worship.

Emigration to North America by Ulster Presbyterians began in the late 17th century. Immigrants from Ulster made a huge contribution towards the development of Presbyterianism in America, none more so than the Donegal-born Rev. Francis Makemie who sailed across the Atlantic in 1683. His pioneering ministry earned him the title, ‘Father of American Presbyterianism’.

Presbyterian ministers have been key drivers of emigration from Ulster. In 1718 Rev. James McGregor of Aghadowey in the Bann Valley led part of his congregation to New England, as did Rev. James Woodside of Dunboe. In 1764 Rev. Thomas Clark of Cahans, County Monaghan, led 300 Presbyterians to America, while in 1772 Rev. William Martin led a major exodus of Covenanter families, mainly from County Antrim, to South Carolina.

Regarded as the man who introduced the Scottish Enlightenment to America, Rev. Francis Alison was born into a family of relatively modest means at Leck, County Donegal, in 1705. Several of his students would go on to sign the Declaration of Independence. Around the time of the 1798 Rebellion a number of Presbyterian ministers and probationers withdrew to America on account of their support for the United Irishmen. They included David Bailie Warden from Bangor who went on to serve as US Consul at Paris.

More than a dozen of the descendants of Ulster Presbyterian migrants succeeded to the presidency of the United States, among them Andrew Jackson, James Buchanan and Woodrow Wilson. One of the most highly regarded presidents, Wilson was born in the Presbyterian manse in Staunton, Virginia, and grew up very conscious of his heritage. He once said, ‘The stern Covenanter tradition that is behind me sends many an echo down the years.’