Carrickfergus Baptist Church

History

The church's own history records the earliest reference to a Baptist church in Carrickfergus in the 1640s, associating it with Cromwell's troops garrisoned in the town and noting that it disappeared when the garrison was removed at the restoration of the monarchy.

The present congregation was formed in 1862, when three businessmen of the town were publicly baptised in the sea and three others joined them. The first meetings were held in Larmour's school room, and in 1863 a building was erected and the congregation called its first pastor, William Hamilton, who served until his death in 1888. Records of his ministry note relief work in the West of Ireland during the potato famine.

Numbers fell in the early twentieth century as Carrickfergus declined as a port and a manufacturing centre and members moved away for work; the formation of a church at Whitehouse took 20 members at the turn of the century. The congregation was without a pastor for 23 years, and depended on the Irish Home Mission for financial support until the 1950s. Electric lighting was not installed until 1959, the town gas works having supplied both heat and light until then.

The building

A hall was erected in Lancastarian Street in 1964 to serve the children's work that had developed in the Sunnylands area. The original building backed onto the ancient town walls and could not be extended, and in 1979 the congregation moved to a green-field site next to the Sunnylands housing estate. A further church hall was built within the grounds, and a purpose-built church building was opened in 2015.