BBC Songs of Praise - Vote for the Nation's Favourite Hymn

This BBC online vote presents the voting public with 100 hymns, but you can only vote for one! The final results will be revealed in the Autumn. Quite a few have Northern Ireland / Ulster connections:

• Abide With Me
Written by Henry Lyte, whose Scottish parents separated and he was raised at Portora Royal School in Enniskillen where an Ulster History Circle blue plaque marks his time there.

• All Things Bright and Beautiful
Lyrically dubious on a number of levels! But famously written by Mrs C F Alexander of Londonderry

• Amazing Grace
Written by John Newton after seeking refuge from a hurricane in Lough Swilly, Donegal. The famous tune New Britain emerged from Scotch-Irish communities in Pennsylvania, as chronicled by the late musicologist Michael Scoggins, of the Scotch-Irish Society of America.

• Before The Throne of God Above
Written by Fermanagh teenager Charitie Smith around 1863; published by Charles Spurgeon. I have assembled fragments of her life story in this previous post.

• Be Thou My Vision
Thought to be Irish in origin, very very old!

• Great is Thy Faithfulness
Its author William Chisholm was, I have been told, from rural Kentucky. So potentially a connection there, research pending.

• Here Is Love, Vast As The Ocean
The anthem of the Welsh Revival; melody by the Pennsylvania Baptist writer and composer Robert Lowry whose parents were from Killinchy

• Praise My Soul The King of Heaven
Another by Henry Lyte of Enniskillen

• What A Friend We Have In Jesus
Writte by Joseph Scriven, born and raised in Banbridge. More on that soon....


The list also includes four contemporary hymns by Keith and Kristyn Getty, both from Northern Ireland and as far as I know now living in Nashville.

So out of the 100 there are around a dozen with plausible links to Ulster.