1859 Revival

Thanks to Jack Greenald for this:

'Among the most eminent of those ministers of the Church of Scotland who followed their countrymen to Ulster, the names of Brice, Bruce, Livingston, Blair, and Cunningham are household words in the north of Ireland to this day'.

from Heaven Came Down - the 1859 Revival by John Weir (1860). I got my copy in 1987 as a Sunday School prize from Carrowdore Mission Hall. It still has the classic "Presented to" sticker on the title page.

Here's a video called "Heal the Land" presented by the late Dr Ken Connolly about the various revivals that took place that year - the Ulster section starts at exactly 1 hour in. the sound isn't great, but the story is told well. (My guess is that this was filmed in Sept 1992 as one of the scenes is the old Forensic Science Lab which was blown up by the IRA that month.)




Most of the video is about County Antrim, but there's a great story at about 1hr 16 about the Reformed Presbyterian Church in Newtownards being the location of the first major prayer meeting in the area in May 1869, with 200 people attending.

The voiceover says:

"it happens that once the Revival hit Newtownards it started sweeping down that (Ards) Peninsula, and one after the other like a domino effect these little fishing villages fell under the spell of that great Revival. And that's how the Revival came to the north east of Ulster..."

There's also a dedicated website, but hard to tell if it's about the Ulster revival as the photograph looks like the USA to me; and Crawford recommended this book about the 1858-62 Revival in Scotland.