The Presbyterian Historical Society is a long-standing agency of the church for which Mr Mervyn Gilmour and Mr James Moffett were recently appointed joint honorary secretaries.
The society offers a wide range of interesting publications on a great variety of subjects, many as might be expected relating to Irish Presbyterianism. Most recent of these are booklets on the Rev Sinclare Kelburn by Douglas Armstrong. With a ministry in both the south and the north, Kelburn was a prominent Volunteer (1778-93) and had the reputation of appearing in the pulpit on the Lord's Day in full, colourful military apparel, with his musket close to hand.
Interesting essays on the United Irishmen by such authorities as A.T.Q. Stewart, Finlay Holmes and James Seery are presented in booklet form. A succinct but fully informative biography of the late Very Rev Dr A.J. (Jack) Weir has been prepared by Ivor Smith. Weir was a distinguished missionary to China, a minister at home, clerk and moderator of the General Assembly, and an administrator and ecumenist par excellence. A number of other publications are in preparation. Request for these may be made to the Historical Society, Room 220, Church House, Fisherwick Place, Belfast.
There are limited facilities for research of primary and secondary sources in the society's rooms. These are open Monday through Friday 10 a.m.-12.30 p.m., excepting Wednesday when open from 10-12.30 p.m. and 1-3.30 p.m. An assistant is on call.
A Sunday school and youth project (MAD) raised £82,703 sterling in 1999-2000. Sums have been disbursed to the Northern Ireland Hospice Children's Service; to Stewart's School, Dublin, to buy a specially adapted bus; and for the production of materials for overseas workers in Brazil, Malawi and Jamaica.
For the year 2000-2001 proceeds from the Sunday school and youth project will assist in large building projects in co-operation with our partner church in Gujarat, India, where quite recently dwellings and churches were demolished in a massive earthquake. The development of supported housing for people with a learning disability at Millbrook Road, Coleraine, will also be supported.
For a while, the Sunday School Department published, with a due Presbyterian emphasis, Teachers' Guides and the work sheets The Bible in Presbyterian Worship,. The Home Mission in the South and West of Ireland, India - the Church and Woodstock School, and Presbyterians.
People and Places is the title of a book by the Rev George Wesley Ferguson, available from Small Publishing Company or directly from him at 110, Coolamber Park, Dublin 16, costing £10 plus £1.50 for p. and p.
It is partly autobiographical: school and work in insurance in Dublin; preparation for and ministries in the North and South. There is nostalgia as he writes of vanished places and things and people.
An annual remembrance ceremony for the victims of two World Wars will be held tomorrow, November 18th, at 11.30 a.m.-12.45 p.m. in the Glencree War Cemetery.
After the service and wreath-laying and lunch, at 1.45 p.m. the German ambassador, Dr Gottfried Hass, and Mr Ian White, director of the Glencree Centre for Reconciliation, will welcome all and introduce a panel discussion on "Minority Ethnic Groups". Ms Esteves, formerly of the German Department of Multicultural Affairs, and Bobby Gilmore (Irish Refugee Council) and Julianne McDonagh (Clondalkin Travellers Group) will speak.