A guid new yeir

A Guid New Year Tae Ane an Aw’

This old song is sung by Scots at Hogmanay after the bells which ring in the New Year. I can recall it being sung many years ago by Andy Stewart on the BBC Hogmanay programme.

A guid New Year tae ane an' aw’,
An' mony may ye see!
An' durin’ aw’ the years tae come,
O happy may ye be!
An' may ye ne'er hae cause tae mourn,
Tae sigh or shed a tear!
Tae ane an' aw’, baith great an' sma’,
A hearty, Guid New Year!

Chorus:
A guid New Year to ane an' aw'
An' mony may ye see,
An' durin' aw' the years tae come,
O happy may ye be.

O time flies past, it winna wait,
My friend for you or me,
It works its wonders day by day,
And onward still doth flee.
O wha can tell when ilka ane,
I see sae happy here,
Will meet again and merry be
Anither guid New Year.

Chorus:

We twa ha'e baith been happy lang.
We ran about the braes.
In yon wee cot beneath the tree,
We spent oor early days.
We ran aboot the burnie's side,
The spot will aye be dear,
An' those that used to meet us there,
We'll think on mony a year.

Chorus:

Noo let us hope oor years may be
As guid as they ha'e been,
And trust we ne'er again may see,
The sorrows we ha'e seen.
And let us wish that ane an' a'
Our friends baith far an' near,
May aye enjoy in times tae come
A hearty guid New Year!

Chorus:

A hymn for Ulster

Songs of Praise concluded tonight with a medley of four hymns reflecting the four nations within the United Kingdom. 

 

W Y Fullerton

They started with the Welsh hymn Guide me O Thou great Jehovah which was written in Welsh by William Williams and published in 1745.  It was then translated into English by Peter Williams in 1771.  The tune Cwm Rhondda was composed by John Hughes in 1907.

 

The medley continued with the hymn Spirit of God, unseen as the wind, which is sung to the Scottish tune 'The Skye Boat Song'.  The words were written by Margaret Old.

 

The third hymn was I cannot tell why He whom angels worship, which is sung to the tune known as the Londonderry Air.  The words were written by the Belfast-born pastor, preacher, author and hymn-writer William Y Fullerton. 

 

The medley finished with Jerusalem, with words written about 1808 by William Blake.  The tune we use today was composed in 1916 by Sir Hugh Parry.  The poem was inspired by the tradition that during his youth and before he began His public ministry, Jesus visited England with Joseph of Arimathea and came to Glastonbury.

 

William Young Fullerton was born in Belfast on 8 March 1857.  He was brought up in a Presbyterian church and converted as a young man.  However he was influenced by the Baptist preacher Charles H Spurgeon, who became his friend and mentor, and he joined the Baptists.  He compiled several hymnbooks and wrote several hymns including his best-known, 'I cannot tell'.  Fullerton died on 17 August 1932.

 

I cannot tell why He, whom angels worship,
Should set His love upon the sons of men,
Or why, as Shepherd, He should seek the wand’rers,
To bring them back, they know not how or when.
But this I know, that He was born of Mary,
When Bethl’hem’s manger was His only home,
And that He lived at Nazareth and labored,
And so the Savior, Savior of the world, is come.

I cannot tell how silently He suffered,
As with His peace He graced this place of tears,
Or how His heart upon the Cross was broken,
The crown of pain to three and thirty years.
But this I know, He heals the broken-hearted,
And stays our sin, and calms our lurking fear,
And lifts the burden from the heavy laden,
For yet the Saviour, Saviour of the world, is here.

I cannot tell how He will win the nations,
How He will claim His earthly heritage,
How satisfy the needs and aspirations
Of east and west, of sinner and of sage.
But this I know, all flesh shall see His glory,
And He shall reap the harvest He has sown,
And some glad day His sun shall shine in splendor
When He the Saviour, Saviour of the world, is known.

I cannot tell how all the lands shall worship,
When, at His bidding, every storm is stilled,
Or who can say how great the jubilation
When all the hearts of men with love are filled.
But this I know, the skies will thrill with rapture,
And myriad, myriad human voices sing,
And earth to heaven, and heaven to earth, will answer:
At last the Saviour, Saviour of the world, is King.

 

 

A Night to Remember

One of the highlights of the past year was the opening of the new Titanic centre in Belfast.  It has proved extremely popular with tourists and local people as well and has been an important addition to our tourism product.

Belfast was the home of the Titanic and a century ago it was a truly titanic city, an industrial powerhouse, with the biggest shipyard in the world, the largest linen factory

A Night to Remember is the title of a book and a film about the Titanic.  The book was written in 1955 by Walter Lord and the film followed in 1958, starring Kenneth More.

The producer of the film was William MacQuitty (1905-2004), who was born in Belfast, the son of the managing-director of the Belfast Telegraph.  On 31 May 1911 he was just six years old when he went down with his father to the Harland & Wolff shipyard and watched the launch of the Titanic.  Many years later, in his autobiography, he recalled the launch of the great ship and wrote, 'I felt a great lump in my throat and an enormous pride in being an Ulsterman.'

MacQuitty had a remarkable life and in 1959 he helped to found Ulster Television, becoming its first managing director.   In 1991 he published his autobiography under the title A Life to Remember.

The sinking of the Titanic was indeed A Night to Remember but there was another night that was much more deserving of the title A Night to Remember. 

 

Two thousand years ago in Bethlehem there was a wonderful night when the Saviour of the world was born.  Angels announced His birth to a group of shepherds, who were out in the fields nearby, keeping watch over their sheep, and they came to the stable to see the new-born child.

 

Christ by highest heaven adored;

Christ the everlasting Lord;

Late in time, behold Him come,

Offspring of a virgin's womb.

Veiled in flesh the Godhead see;

Hail the incarnate Deity

Pleased with us in flesh to dwell,

Jesus our Emmanuel.

The Lord Jesus Christ left the glory of heaven and was born on earth so that we might be born again.  He came into this world so that He might die at Calvary as our sinless Saviour, taking our sins upon Himself.

That night when the Son of God was born on earth was truly a night to remember! 

A 17th century Presbyterian session

Templepatrick Old Presbyterian Church - congregation founded in 1627, present building 1784

The other day I was in Antrim for an appointment and as I was early I went into Antrim Library to pass the time. 

 

Browsing through the local history section I came across a copy of the booklet for the Templepatrick Masonic Bazaar, which was held from 24 to 26 June 1897.  It contained something of the history of Templepatrick and my attention was taken by this extract from the minutes of the session of Templepatrick meeting-house from the middle of the 17th century:

The qlk day John Cowan, being summoned, compeered and confessed his breach of Sabbath in beating his wife on ye Lord's Day, and yerefor ye Session ordains him ye next Lord's Day to stand leigh (forgans ye pulpit, and being called by ye minister to confesse in ye face of ye congregation his offence.

The extract is interesting on two fronts, first in the use of some Scots words such as compeer (put in an appearance), leigh (low) and forgans (over against).

The second is the way in which a Presbyterian session viewed 'beating his wife'.  John Cowan's offence was not that he beat her but that he beat her on the Sabbath and thereby breached the Sabbath!

The cost of the AV referendum

In May 2011 the United Kingdom held a referendum on changing the national voting system from 'first past the post' to AV (Alternative Vote).

 

The demand for AV came from Nick Clegg and the Liberal Democrats while the Conservatives backed keeping the current system and Labour was split on the issue.

 

In the end voters decisively rejected the Liberal Democrat proposal to introduce the AV system.  More than 19 million voters turned out for the referendum, which was a 42% turnout, with 6,152,607 voters backing the proposal and 13,013,123 rejecting it.

 

Afterwards Nick Clegg said, 'I wish I could say this is a photo finish but it isn't and the result is very clear. This is a bitter blow for all those people like me who believe in the need for political reform.'

Recently the Electoral Commission announced that the referendum had cost £75 million.  This was lower than the estimate of £100 million which was often quoted diring the referendum campaign but £75 million is still a very large figure.  Jenny Watson, who chairs the Electoral Commission, said, 'The public have a right to know how their money is spent at major polls and we've been able to set this out for the first time today.'

With the Conservatives against AV, the Labour Party divided and only the Liberal Democrats supporting it, the outcome was fairly predictable but in order to placate the Lib Dems the Coalition government squandered £75 million that would have been much better spent on public services.

Shall we gather at the river?

This afternoon I watched The Searchers, an American western film made in 1956 by John Ford.  It was based on a 1954 novel by Alan Le May and was set during the Texas-Indian Wars, a series of conflicts between the settlers in Texas and the Southern Plains Indians which lasted from 1820 to 1875.

 

The film starts in 1868 with Ethan Edwards, played by John Wayne, returning from the Civil War and extends over a period of several years.

 

Early in the film there was a funeral scene in which the mourners sang the hymn Shall we gather at the river?  The hymn was sung again later in the film during a wedding.

 

I wondered if this was an anachronism but in fact the hymn was written in 1864 and first appeared in a hymnbook the following year, 1865, several years before the scenes depicted in the film.

 

Robert Lowry

The author of the hymn was Robert Lowry (1826-1899), a Baptist pastor who was born in Philadelphia., and he later recalled: 'One af­ter­noon in Ju­ly, 1864, when I was pas­tor at Han­son Place Bap­tist Church, Brook­lyn, the wea­ther was op­press­ive­ly hot, and I was ly­ing on a lounge in a state of phys­ic­al ex­haust­ion…My imag­in­a­tion be­gan to take it­self wings. Vi­sions of the fu­ture passed be­fore me with start­ling vi­vid­ness. The im­ag­ery of the apoc­a­lypse took the form of a ta­bleau. Bright­est of all were the throne, the heav­en­ly ri­ver, and the ga­ther­ing of the saints…I be­gan to won­der why the hymn writ­ers had said so much about the “riv­er of death” and so lit­tle about the “pure wa­ter of life, clear as crys­tal, pro­ceed­ing out of the throne of God and the Lamb.” As I mused, the words be­gan to con­struct them­selves. They came first as a quest­ion of Christ­ian in­quiry, “Shall we ga­ther?” Then they broke in chor­us, “Yes, we’ll ga­ther.” On this quest­ion and an­swer the hymn de­vel­oped it­self. The mu­sic came with the hymn.'

Lowry wrote around five hundred gospel hymns including such great hymns as Low in the grave He lay and Nothing but the blood.

 

Yet he once wrote, 'Music, with me has been a side issue... I would rather preach a gospel sermon to an appreciative audience than write a hymn. I have always looked upon myself as a preacher and felt a sort of depreciation when I began to be known more as a composer.'  However it is as a hymnwriter that he is remembered and he wrote several of the most popular hymns of all time.

 

The hymns written by these great hymnwriters are an important aspect of Ulster-Scots culture and particularly the culture of the Ulster-Scots diaspora.

 

Lowry was a Scotch-Irish American and the son of an Ulster-Scot from county Down.  He was one of a number of Scotch-Irish hymnwriters who made a major contribution to gospel hymnody.

Shall we gather at the river,
Where bright angel feet have trod,
With its crystal tide forever
Flowing by the throne of God?

Refrain

Yes, we’ll gather at the river,
The beautiful, the beautiful river;
Gather with the saints at the river
That flows by the throne of God.

On the margin of the river,
Washing up its silver spray,
We will talk and worship ever,
All the happy golden day.

Refrain

 

Ere we reach the shining river,
Lay we every burden down;
Grace our spirits will deliver,
And provide a robe and crown.

Refrain

 

At the smiling of the river,
Mirror of the Savior’s face,
Saints, whom death will never sever,
Lift their songs of saving grace.

Refrain

 

Soon we’ll reach the silver river,
Soon our pilgrimage will cease;
Soon our happy hearts will quiver
With the melody of peace.

Refrain

Mary Ann McCracken and the Union

Many of the Ulstermen who fought in the ranks of the United Irishmen in 1798 came to accept and indeed approve of the Act of Union.  A small minority of them did not become unionists but the vast majority of them did.

Those who died in 1798, such as Henry Joy McCracken, went to their graves before there was an Act of Union and so we cannot know what their views would have been had they survived.

However I was interested to read the following quotation which I came across in old newspaper cutting.  It is taken from a letter in the Irish News (29 October 2008) and includes an extract fom a letter written by Mary Ann McCracken (1770-1866), sister of Henry Joy McCracken:

While I'm not qualified to ascertain what the leaders of the 1798 rebellion may have thought of the Act of Union, I think Mary Ann McCracken, sister of Henry Joy McCracken, may have been.  A letter from Mary Ann McCracken is quoted in her biography.  It states: '... in thinking of those who were gone, and how delighted they would have been at the political changes that have taken place...'

I do not know the date of the letter or the precise significance of this short extract but it does raise interesting possibilities and I intend to check it out.

Later in the letter to the Irish News the contributor noted that the 1798 rebellion in Ulster was very different from that in the rest of Ireland.

 

As for me separating the 1798 rebellion in Ulster from the rest of Ireland I stand guilty.  From the historical evidence it is veryclear the rebellion in Ulster was of a totally different character, particularly in sectarian terms, from that in the rest of Ireland.  So in that sense, it was a different separate rebellion.

In conclusion, and returning to the key point of my original letter, unionists, particularly Presbyterian unionists, have as much right to claim a heritage from the Ulster 1798 rebels - they have more right than the sectarian republicans of the 21st century.

In terms of denominational ties, heritage and ethnicity the unionist Presbyterians of [today] are the children of the Ulster rebels of 1798 and this is something to be cherished and promoted.

 

I find this interesting in the context of Clifton Street cemetery, which holds the grave of Mary Ann McCracken and possibly the remains of Henry Joy McCracken, as well as the grave of Dr William Drennan.  A few years ago dissident republicans, led by the Henry Joy McCracken Republican Flute Band held a commemoration in Clifton Street.  Subsequently I pointed out that Drennan had turned his back on republicanism and become a unionist.  At their next commemoration they dropped Drennan, who was obviously now an embarassment, and commemorated McCracken, gathering at the grave of Mary Ann McCracken.

 

However it is just possible that their claim on the McCrackens may not be such a solid claim as they imagine!