PART of West Belfast history was restored to the Falls Road on Thursday as the Broadway Bell was sounded 130 years to the day when the first ever meeting of the Broadway Presbyterian community was held. 

This celebratory event concluded the year-long celebration of custodianship hosted by Forbairt Feirste and Cultúrlann McAdam Ó Fiaich. 

Helen McKelvey, who is the daughter of the Reverend Wilbur Gillespie, the last minister of Broadway Presbyterian Church on the Falls Road, sounded the bell. The bell was donated to Forbairt Feirste by the Belvoir Presbyterian community.

Gaelscoil na bhFál join the historical event
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Gaelscoil na bhFál join the historical event

The first sounding of the bell in four decades was broadcast worldwide on Raidió Fáilte at 1:30pm. Students from Gaelscoil na bhFál joined to sing songs before the bell was rung and musicians from Coláiste Feirste played afterwards. 

Speaking at the event, Helen McKelvey said “I am honoured to have been asked to ring the Broadway Bell now restored to the building in which it tolled for many years.

“On behalf of my late father, the last minister of Broadway, and all the Presbyterians who lived round and worshipped in the church over ninety years, I commend the vision and work of Cultúrlann in honouring the past and building bridges in the present to secure a future for us all in peace and mutual respect and freedom. It gives me great pleasure to ring this bell.”

Piarais Mac Alastair, Project Officer at Forbairt Feirste, said: “It’s great to have it back in the centre of the community again, open to the public in the Cultúrlann to come and see that history.

“It’s important for the Cultúrlann and to keep that connection. It’s important for the people who were here at the time in the '80s that they can come here and see it as An Chultúrlann.”

Ballykeel Presbyterian Church Minister Reverend Marty McNeely has been involved in helping to track the bell down. Speaking at the event he said: “Presbyterians have long been associated with the Gaeilge language. My own surname and background is Scottish Gaelic, my mother, her sisters and all my cousins grew up in Donegal as Presbyterians learning Irish and my mother herself was a staff sister in the 1960s in the Royal Victoria Hospital down the street and occasionally she worshipped in this church as it was in the 1960s.

The Broadway Bell is brought out by Jake Mac Siacais
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The Broadway Bell is brought out by Jake Mac Siacais

“I’m also here on behalf of the Presbyterian Church as a member of the celebrating custodianship committee set up by Jake Mac Siacais. 

“As part of this year’s event we endeavoured to find the original bell which was part of Broadway church. The truth was nobody exactly knew what happened to the bell, where it was after the closure of Broadway. Rumour had it that it was donated to Belvoir Presbyterian Church in South Belfast. 

“We found an original piece of Belfast’s physical history from the Falls Road. Jake has had it refurbished and it looks fantastic.”

Former Lord Mayor and local historian Tom Hartley spoke of the significance of the Presbyterian Heritage in the Gaeltacht Quarter.

“In ringing out the bell it is a sound of hope, it is a sound of connection that we hear, it is a sound of history and what formed us and what shaped us sometimes positive, sometimes negative but we are shaped by the Presbyterians of Belfast and all of us we need to hang on to that. We need to get Presbyterians back onto the Falls Road, because they are such a part of us.”