greenisland church fire

National World

Rev Dr Isy Hawthorne-Steele, minister at Greenisland Church of Ireland, speaks to the Carrick Times following a fire at the Station Road church on September 1. Police are treating the blaze as arson.

Transcript

00:00Okay, I'm Reverend Dr. Izzy Hawthorne-Steele and I'm the Minister of Greyhound Church

00:25of the Holy Game, Church of Ireland, Parish Church. We were informed last night about

00:34an incident, there was a fire, it was some rubbish from a bin outside the back, which

00:42we thought was just a normal, just a small fire. However, I arrived down about five minutes

00:51later and the whole place was ablaze. And the police have stated that they're treating

00:58it as an arson attack. So we would just ask that anyone who has any information about

01:05this, that they contact the PSNI and try and avoid people from speculating what was happening.

01:17We are deeply, deeply saddened and the whole community have been so kind and rallying around

01:26and in true Greyhound community spirit. This year's celebration service, it started on

01:33Saturday and we had a community festival. And we had such a joyous, joyous event of

01:41people gathering together, the like of which we haven't seen for a long time. And the people

01:46gathered from Greyhound, we had musicians from the local Fleming Mutes ukulele band,

01:53we had David Brannagh Currie, we had a group from all different nations, the All Nations

02:03Ministry group came over. There was cultural, different food, there was barbeque, there

02:08was a tea dance, we had circus, people here with stilts and things. It was just an

02:16amazing community time. We had a footfall of something like 350 people. And on Sunday

02:24we had the Primate with us, Archdeacon John McDowell, and we had our Bishop, Bishop of

02:31Conrad, George Davison, and we had the Mayoress from Mid and East Antrim, and a load of people

02:39who represented different organisations. All the churches were represented there. We had

02:47clergy from all over the diocese, and we had people who had been in the church for years

02:57and years, and we had people who had some sort of connection with the church who came.

03:03We also had significantly every single minister who had ministered in the church was represented

03:10either they were there, or Hardin Johnson, most of the community of Green Island and

03:16Carrickfergus would have known him, and his sons were there, and one of his sons came

03:21over from England, especially for the day. So this community, 70 years this church has

03:28served. I've been a parishioner from when I was seven years old, and I became a lay

03:35leader, and then was very privileged to be ordained and brought to the church to serve

03:41this community. So I know they, I've got my finger on the pulse of that, I know the

03:47community, I know we'll rally together. We've had so many text messages, Facebook, people

03:54have gathered here today to talk, to give their best wishes, and to offer help in every

04:03way they can. We're going to hold a service on Wednesday evening, and we're hopeful

04:11that our adjoining church will have to get that sorted, but we welcome all people from

04:17the community to be there at seven o'clock, so that we can do two things. We can say how

04:25awful this has been, we can help each other through this, but we want to be that beacon

04:32of hope, and we're going to say we were here for 70 years, we will continue on, and

04:37we will rise out of the ashes. This is a tragedy, and we've lost a hall, but we're hopeful

04:47that our church structure is good, we probably lose the roof, and we've got a lot of flood

04:57damage, so this is going to be a long term of rallying support and care, and we will,

05:06we're proud of faith.

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