Methodists 'glad to see' devolution

IRELAND’S METHODISTS were “glad to see devolved government at Stormont . . . [and] pleased the shared government has worked so well together,” the church’s new president, Rev Alan Ferguson, said last night. He was speaking at his installation in Derry.

At the same event the outgoing president of the Methodist Church in Ireland, Rev Roy Cooper, said of Derry, “which witnessed the genesis of what we call the Troubles”, that it was now “a place which is free as far as we can tell from the paramilitary violence which claimed so many lives.

“In that it mirrors many other places within Northern Ireland . . . we have lived to see the day when those who once shouted at each other came to laugh with each other and enemies have become fellow-workers in government.”

But, he continued, people “should never forget the part which the Christian churches played in bringing paramilitary groups into the mainstream of Northern Ireland politics; and in this respect this church of ours played a pivotal role.”

He said that “while we rejoice in economic conferences with the prospect of increased investment and with it fuller levels of employment, it would be so easy to forget those whose lives were shattered through the death or serious injury of a loved one. Sadly, while many are out enjoying the fruits of this new era of peace, many are still locked into their past.”

Eames/Bradley, established last June to propose a system of addressing the past, or other such bodies, should be encouraged “to find a way forward for such people, so that no one here in our country carried the pain of un-listened to stories”, he said.