of Paisley
We did not ask anyone we interviewed about Paisley, but most of the ministers brought him up. They said that the Presbyterian Church in Ireland (PCI) – from its local ministers to the leaders of the denomination – feared Paisley would attract Presbyterians into his Free Presbyterian Church. The result was that PCI became more conservative and less open to peacemaking than it might have been. One put it this way:
We were under pressure from the Paisleyite faction who would be very quick to say ‘Traitor!’ Paisley was a great problem for our ministers. A lot of our members were influenced by Paisley. A lot of ministers would have loved to have said and done more but that Paisley threat inhibited them from saying too much, too plainly, too publicly.
Another minister recalled how when Paisley emerged as a public figure in the 1960s, people at first treated him as ‘a figure of fun, a relic of another century’. He was only a teenager at the time, but he recalled one ‘very decent Presbyterian elder, saying late one night: “I don’t agree with his methods, but there is a lot in what he says.” And I should maybe have paid more attention to that at the time.’ After he became a minister, he was dismayed at the impact Paisley had on PCI. ‘If you were a Presbyterian minister in a small community and you did something that displeased some of your people, then the Paisleyites were in like a shot. You’re in a small congregation. The Free Presbyterians are starting up the road. You’re not going to do something that’s going to see forty families disappear.’ In 1980, PCI voted to leave the ecumenical World Council of Churches (WCC). There were concerns that WCC humanitarian aid was being diverted to terrorist groups in Africa. But it is likely that Paisley’s anti-ecumenical activism was another factor. This minister continued: ‘I think a lot of people within Irish Presbyterianism shared Paisley’s basic theology. Did he bring us out of the World Council of Churches? I doubt it. But did he have an influence in that? I think he did.’
Many Presbyterian congregations were bitterly divided in their opinions about Paisley. We spoke to one minister who served in a rural congregation with many members of the Orange Order. ‘There were a succession of special services: for the local Orange Lodge, the District Orange Lodge, the Black, etc.’ On one occasion, ‘one of these firebrands wanted Paisley to conduct the service in my church’. The minister – taking a considerable risk – refused. A man standing nearby said, ‘Then we’ll just let him speak in the field.’ He was met with this pithy retort from another man: ‘It’s the right place for him!’
David Armstrong
Some ministers said that what had happened to David Armstrong in First Limavady, Co. Londonderry, served as a cautionary tale: anyone who tried to reach out to Catholics would not be welcome in PCI. Just as we did not ask people about Paisley, we did not ask people about Armstrong either – but they wanted to talk about him. We also interviewed him.
David served in Limavady from 1981 to 1985, making a series of reconciliatory gestures towards Catholics. The most widely known were on Christmas Day in 1983 and 1984, when David walked across the street from his church to Christ the King Catholic Church to shake hands with Fr Kevin Mullan. Armstrong and his family received death threats from loyalist paramilitaries, and eventually the elders of his church asked him to resign. He resigned in May 1985 to train for ministry in the Church of England. He later became a Church of Ireland minister in Cork before retiring to Northern Ireland.
First Limavady was David’s first post after serving an assistantship in Carrickfergus. He was an evangelical, and he threw himself into his duties. He also became a chaplain in nearby Magilligan prison.
I found there was absolutely no difference in the UVF and IRA prisoners. I couldn’t say one was worse than the other. I was in the cells with Catholic prisoners and I was not ever wanting to make them into Prods [Protestants]. There were people writing to me and saying, ‘David, it’s lovely the way the Catholic prisoners listen to you. I hope you’re saving them into the Protestant church.’ I was saying, ‘No, even though I’m an evangelical Christian, my duty is to love people and not make them into me.’ So people felt like you’ve fallen down in your job for not ‘saving’ Catholics.
Christ the King Catholic Church was still under construction when David arrived. In October 1981, as it neared completion, it was damaged in a loyalist bomb attack. ‘When the roof was restored and the church was opened, the clergy all got invitations. I said I would go. But the replies the priest got: “Dear Mr Priest, regarding the opening of your premises, I will not be going to your Papish house of Satan.” That was one of the nicest replies.’ David received threatening phone calls and his children were harassed at school. ‘They came home with spittle on their faces being told: “Your daddy better not go to the mass house.”’ David told his congregation he was attending because it was the right thing to do. Some people left his congregation after that. No other Protestant clergy accepted the invitation, but the governor of Magilligan, a former Presbyterian minister, accompanied David.
On Christmas Day 1983, Kevin met David at the door of his church and asked, ‘Would you object if I shook hands with your people on Christmas morning coming in to church?’ David invited him to greet his people from the front of the church, and Kevin did. When David’s service ended, he walked across the road and stood at the back of Kevin’s church. The service was about to conclude. Kevin saw him, and asked him to speak from the front. ‘When I finished, they burst into applause. They stood and cheered. Old ladies of ninety said, “This is the happiest Christmas we’ve ever had. We never thought a Protestant minister from across the road would ever be seen in our church.”’
On Christmas Day 1984, David and Kevin were set to repeat the goodwill gestures. About forty Free Presbyterians protested outside David’s church. Three were inside among the Presbyterian worshippers. When Kevin went to the front to speak, a Free Presbyterian stood up and accused David of ‘treason before God’. There were scuffles in the church. David sighed as he recalled these incidents. ‘Saying Happy Christmas – the Free Presbyterians and the Orange Order went absolutely berserk.’
The pressure on David intensified. On a trip to Belfast, he was abducted by loyalist paramilitaries.
I went through to a back room of an illegal bar and I said something stupid: ‘Men, I think you’re more frightened of me than I am of you.’ But they came to the conclusion that if the fundamentalists want to kill me, let them do it. They didn’t accept my outlook but they admired my guts. One of them said they were going to give me twenty minutes to get away.
David finally accepted an invitation from sympathetic clerics in the Church of England to retrain for Anglican ministry. As he was leaving for England, Rev. David Bailie from Bangor West Presbyterian invited him to come as an assistant.
The police said, ‘David, the people who want to kill you will find it easy to get you in Bangor.’ I feared that some of my colleagues would say, ‘He never really intended to go. It was all a bit of drama.’ I didn’t want my children to suffer anymore. Now they’re pretty proud to say, ‘Yes, the Rev David Armstrong is my dad. We can hold our heads high.’
Making Peace
‘Maybe another word for faith is risk.’
Ruth Patterson took a deep breath. Along with her elders, she had travelled for a weekend away in an enclosed convent in Dublin. It was the early 1990s, and Ruth’s congregation was in Seymour Hill, Dunmurry, in a loyalist estate with a heavy paramilitary presence. One of her elders was an Orangeman. She had not been sure if he would come. As is customary in an enclosed convent, the Sisters sat behind a grille. The Presbyterians sat on the other side. They had just shared their experiences: what it was like to be a Presbyterian elder; what it was like to live in an enclosed Catholic community. They had shared an act of worship, singing together, ‘Jesus is Lord, creation’s voice proclaims
