History

Baptismal & Marriage Records
The church holds baptismal records from around 1806 to the present day. During this period the church was served by 11 ministers as follows:

No records exist in the church of baptisms during the ministry of:

Andrew Stewart          1627 - 1634
Thomas Crawford      1655 - 1670
William Shaw              1671 - 1687
Francis Iredell             1688 - 1699
Alexander Brown        1702 - 1758

The Baptismal Records contain some or all of the following:

Name of Child, Date of Birth, Date of Baptism, Name of Father, Name of Mother, Address (usually

the Townland) and the name of the minister at the time.

The Marriage records are copies of the Marriage Certificates.

We also have records of deaths in the congregation from 1964.

We would point out that First Donegore Church does not have a cemetery.

There is one however at the Second Donegore Church, and also a very old one at Donegore Parish Church.

We have received quite a large number of requests for information from persons around the world. Consequently we have photographed all the Baptismal and Marriage records (758 pages covering in excess of 7,000 records) and have produced these in the form of a DATA DVD for use in a computer. This DVD will enable interested parties to carry out their own research from the original documents.

Also included in the DVD are 'spreadsheets' covering all the baptismal and wedding records from 1806. These will make searching for names, dates etc much easier and each individual record in the spreadsheet has a reference to the photograph number of the original records. In line with the General Data Protection Regulations however, we cannot provide information without the consent of the ‘data subject’, therefore records dated after 1918 will be excluded at this time.

We are deeply indebted to a very good friend in Australia, Melodie Neal, for the preparation of the spreadsheet. As you will see when you study this sheet a considerable amount of work was involved in its preparation.

Should you have any questions about our church records, or wish to obtain a copy of the DVD, please contact Alan McWhirter using the following email address.

alan.mcwhirter@firstdonegore.org

The Parkgate Presbyterians

People and Kirk over four centuries

The First Donegore Story

The history of the village of Parkgate in County Antrim, Northern Ireland, stretches over four centuries. Beginning with the Scottish Settlement of the of the Six Mile Water valley, it has continued through the momentous events of the 1641 Rebellion, the rising of 1798 and the upheavals of the 20th Century. From the Ulster Covenant against Home Rule to the emergence of Northern Ireland, it is the history of a people and their community. For many generations that community has centred on the historic Presbyterian congregation known as First Donegore, and the story of the Parkgate Presbyterians is a microcosm of Ulster history from the 1600s to 2000. Many ministers have tended First Donegore over the years, and several of them are significant figures in Irish Presbyterian history. This book tells their stories, and the stories of many members of their flocks: their travels, their battles and the impact they had on the wider world.

There are nods towards the exotic, such as Lillie Langtry, and the comic, as in that classic hoax, the Parkgate Cat Fair.

The book should appeal to those interested in the religious, political and economic development of a rural Ulster community over four centuries.

Profits from the sale of this book will go towards the Building and Maintenance Account of our church.

Copies of the book (A4 size with 251 pages) may be obtained from:

    John Hall, 15 Colinview, BALLYCLARE, N Ireland BT39 9AR

    Donald Alexander, 91 The Burn Road, BALLYCLARE, N Ireland, BT39 0RD

    John McCullagh, 14 Parkgate Meadows, Parkgate, BALLYCLARE BT39 0FA

The price is £14.00

The book can also be mailed to you and for postage costs please contact those named above, people from GB and abroad would however  be better to buy direct from 'LULU Publishing' by clicking here which will take you straight to the sale page for the book.

We invite you to write a 'review' and send this to:

donald.alexander@firstdonegore.org

With your permission these reviews will appear in future editions of this web page.

Roll of Honour

FIRST DONEGORE  AND THE 1914/ 1918 WAR.

This year will see the 100th anniversary of the beginning of the First World War. This will seem like long ago to most of us but it is an important part of our history. We need to remember especially the 30 men from this Congregation who served with British forces, of whom 3 were killed and 10 were wounded.  They are listed in the table below. We did not have access to this information until recently*.

We have returns for the 12 Congregations in the Templepatrick Presbytery.** 485 by men associated with these Congregations participated in the war effort. The largest contingent, 123, was associated with Antrim, followed by 45 from Muckamore and 41 from Killead. Twenty per cent of the total served with Empire forces e.g. Canadian or Australian. They had emigrated but their home Congregations still claimed them. Overall, 11per cent were killed and 15 percent wounded.

The 1914/1918 War was one of the largest in history.  More than 6 million combatants were killed.  The technical military reason for the high casualty rate was that advances in firepower were more than a match for soldiers stuck in the trenches. We can only imagine the horrors the soldiers experienced at the front. Many of those who survived could not bear to talk about if afterwards. One telling example: the life expectancy of a young second lieutenant in the trenches was put at six weeks: he had to be first ‘over the top’ whenever an advance was tried.

The trigger for the War was the assassination of Franz Ferdinand, the heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne, by a Serbian student in Sarajevo on 28 June 1914. In the month following that dire event the European powers drifted into war. The main adversaries at the beginning were Britain, France and Russia - the Allies – and Germany and Austria-Hungary - the Central Powers.  A distinguished historian*** has described the statesmen of 1914 as ‘ sleepwalkers, watchful but unseeing…yet blind to the horror they were about to bring into the world.’

Despite the developing major European crisis the politics of Ulster continued to dominate at home. During July 1914 Unionist resistance deepened against any imposition of Irish Home Rule.  It looked possible that Nationalists and Unionists would soon be fighting one another. On 3 August German troops poured across Belgium: the UK declared war on Germany the following day. Now everything changed. The outbreak of war temporarily defused the Ulster situation; it put Home Rule on ice; and averted the need for military control in Ireland.  Patriotic emotion ran high. Irish Nationalists were very sympathetic to Catholic Belgium. In the euphoria surrounding these events traditional enmities were suspended.  John Redmond, leader of the Irish Parliamentary Party, even said that  ‘the armed Catholics of the South will only be too glad to join arms with armed Protestant Ulstermen.’ (Redmond’s brother, Major Willie Redmond, was killed in action in 1917, aged 56. His Irish Division was fighting alongside the Ulster Division).

Sir Edward Carson and  James Craig  responded to Lord Kitchener’s “I want the Ulster Volunteers” with an offer of thirty-five thousand men. Kitchener  offered to keep the UVF together in one Ulster Division.  Thus we find that half of those joined up from  local Congregations were placed in various battalions of the Royal Irish Rifles. (RIR).  12 of those from First Donegore  joined the 12th Battalion RIR.  

Many thought that the war would be over by Christmas: there was no comprehension of the four terrible years which lay ahead.  Victory for the Allies was by no means assured and more and more men were thrown into the war.

Despite the speed with which the 36th (Ulster) Division was formed it was not committed to the French Front until October 1915. The Battle of the Somme commenced on 1 July 1916. Troops of the Ulster Division climbed out of their trenches and formed up in no-man’s land. In first two days 5,500 men of the Ulster Division were killed or wounded. A terrible sacrifice had been made. Back in Ulster the 12th July 1916 celebrations were completely abandoned. .

From the list we have only the most basic information about the 30 associated with our Congregation. We know their service units.  We know that 5 out of our 12 men serving in the Royal Irish Rifles were wounded.  There are five entries for Parkgate men who emigrated and served with the Canadian forces.  Of these two were killed in action, two wounded, and one was taken prisoner and escaped.  We had 4 men, presumably all doctors, who served with the Royal Army Medical Corps. Of  two Minford Doctors listed, one was wounded and the other died of his wounds.  

We had two pioneers in what became the Royal Air Force.(in April 1918)  One was George J McKinney (b.1893) son of our Minister, Alexander McKinney.  The other was a very young George Stirling (b.1899) who was to become a long serving Clerk of Session.

We know more about some of these 30 men than others.  It is hoped that making these names available will enable us to  research into who they were and what they did.  In particular we would like to have information from their descendants so that we can build a comprehensive picture of this unique group.

If you have any relevant information we would be very pleased to hear from you via the email address at the bottom of this page.

Donald Alexander

*Our thanks to Gordon Dunlop who followed up this source on the ‘Eddie’s Extracts’ website which we also gratefully acknowledge. I much regret I was not able to deal adequately with this valuable bit of our history in the Parkgate Presbyterians.

**The source of these records carries the advice that although the Congregational returns were correct at the time but it was subsequently found that a number of names had been missed. Also, some uncertainty must apply to the recording of those who were wounded.  

***Christopher Clark (2012): The Sleepwalkers – how Europe went to war in 1914.

FIRST DONEGORE  AND THE 1914/ 1918 WAR.

This year will see the 100th anniversary of the beginning of the First World War. This will seem like long ago to most of us but it is an important part of our history. We need to remember especially the 30 men from this Congregation who served with British forces, of whom 3 were killed and 10 were wounded.  They are listed in the table below. We did not have access to this information until recently*.

We have returns for the 12 Congregations in the Templepatrick Presbytery.** 485 by men associated with these Congregations participated in the war effort. The largest contingent, 123, was associated with Antrim, followed by 45 from Muckamore and 41 from Killead. Twenty per cent of the total served with Empire forces e.g. Canadian or Australian. They had emigrated but their home Congregations still claimed them. Overall, 11per cent were killed and 15 percent wounded.

The 1914/1918 War was one of the largest in history.  More than 6 million combatants were killed.  The technical military reason for the high casualty rate was that advances in firepower were more than a match for soldiers stuck in the trenches. We can only imagine the horrors the soldiers experienced at the front. Many of those who survived could not bear to talk about if afterwards. One telling example: the life expectancy of a young second lieutenant in the trenches was put at six weeks: he had to be first ‘over the top’ whenever an advance was tried.

The trigger for the War was the assassination of Franz Ferdinand, the heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne, by a Serbian student in Sarajevo on 28 June 1914. In the month following that dire event the European powers drifted into war. The main adversaries at the beginning were Britain, France and Russia - the Allies – and Germany and Austria-Hungary - the Central Powers.  A distinguished historian*** has described the statesmen of 1914 as ‘ sleepwalkers, watchful but unseeing…yet blind to the horror they were about to bring into the world.’

Despite the developing major European crisis the politics of Ulster continued to dominate at home. During July 1914 Unionist resistance deepened against any imposition of Irish Home Rule.  It looked possible that Nationalists and Unionists would soon be fighting one another. On 3 August German troops poured across Belgium: the UK declared war on Germany the following day. Now everything changed. The outbreak of war temporarily defused the Ulster situation; it put Home Rule on ice; and averted the need for military control in Ireland.  Patriotic emotion ran high. Irish Nationalists were very sympathetic to Catholic Belgium. In the euphoria surrounding these events traditional enmities were suspended.  John Redmond, leader of the Irish Parliamentary Party, even said that  ‘the armed Catholics of the South will only be too glad to join arms with armed Protestant Ulstermen.’ (Redmond’s brother, Major Willie Redmond, was killed in action in 1917, aged 56. His Irish Division was fighting alongside the Ulster Division).

Sir Edward Carson and  James Craig  responded to Lord Kitchener’s “I want the Ulster Volunteers” with an offer of thirty-five thousand men. Kitchener  offered to keep the UVF together in one Ulster Division.  Thus we find that half of those joined up from  local Congregations were placed in various battalions of the Royal Irish Rifles. (RIR).  12 of those from First Donegore  joined the 12th Battalion RIR.  

Many thought that the war would be over by Christmas: there was no comprehension of the four terrible years which lay ahead.  Victory for the Allies was by no means assured and more and more men were thrown into the war.

Despite the speed with which the 36th (Ulster) Division was formed it was not committed to the French Front until October 1915. The Battle of the Somme commenced on 1 July 1916. Troops of the Ulster Division climbed out of their trenches and formed up in no-man’s land. In first two days 5,500 men of the Ulster Division were killed or wounded. A terrible sacrifice had been made. Back in Ulster the 12th July 1916 celebrations were completely abandoned. .

From the list we have only the most basic information about the 30 associated with our Congregation. We know their service units.  We know that 5 out of our 12 men serving in the Royal Irish Rifles were wounded.  There are five entries for Parkgate men who emigrated and served with the Canadian forces.  Of these two were killed in action, two wounded, and one was taken prisoner and escaped.  We had 4 men, presumably all doctors, who served with the Royal Army Medical Corps. Of  two Minford Doctors listed, one was wounded and the other died of his wounds.  

We had two pioneers in what became the Royal Air Force.(in April 1918)  One was George J McKinney (b.1893) son of our Minister, Alexander McKinney.  The other was a very young George Stirling (b.1899) who was to become a long serving Clerk of Session.

We know more about some of these 30 men than others.  It is hoped that making these names available will enable us to  research into who they were and what they did.  In particular we would like to have information from their descendants so that we can build a comprehensive picture of this unique group.

If you have any relevant information we would be very pleased to hear from you via the email address at the bottom of this page.

Donald Alexander
*Our thanks to Gordon Dunlop who followed up this source on the ‘Eddie’s Extracts’ website which we also gratefully acknowledge. I much regret I was not able to deal adequately with this valuable bit of our history in the Parkgate Presbyterians.

**The source of these records carries the advice that although the Congregational returns were correct at the time but it was subsequently found that a number of names had been missed. Also, some uncertainty must apply to the recording of those who were wounded.  

***Christopher Clark (2012): The Sleepwalkers – how Europe went to war in 1914.

PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH IN IRELAND - ROLL OF HONOUR 1914 - 1919

For further information please use the Contact Us link at the top of the page.