Mass & Service Times
Sunday
- 11:30
- (19:00)
About Lissara Presbyterian Church
Lissara Presbyterian Church is a congregation of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland in Downpatrick, County Down.
History
The congregation was formed in 1770 as a Secession church at Ballydugan, near Downpatrick, where it met in a large room at the mill. The accommodation soon proved inadequate. An attempt to obtain a site at Glasswater was unsuccessful, and a site was eventually secured near the river in the townland of Lissara. The meeting house built there measured 60 feet by 25 feet and cost £150, the money raised by Thomas Newell of Barneymahery. The large white pulpit, the Bible and the communion vessels were brought from Ballydugan.
Not financially strong enough to support a minister on its own, Lissara was united with the Secession congregation at Ballynahinch, formerly 2nd Ballynahinch. The Rev Thomas Dobbin Fryer, minister of the united congregation in 1774, became the first minister of Lissara and died the following year. His successor, the Rev John Sturgeon, was ordained in July 1776 and on his death in 1792 was interred in the church. In 1840 Presbyterians and Seceders united to form the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland.
The building
The present church was built during the ministry of the Rev J. G. Thompson, which ran from 1858 to 1887, as was the manse on the Kilmore Road, which cost £332 10s. The foundation stone was laid on 26 August 1865 by James Sherman Crawford, on a site in Crossgar Square given by James Cleland of Tobar Mhuire. The church cost less than £1,500 and was opened for public worship on 14 April 1867, when the preacher was the Rev Samuel M. Dill, Professor of Theology at Magee College, Londonderry.
The church hall was built on the initiative of the Rev William McClure, who was installed in December 1923, and was opened by the Duchess of Abercorn on 29 November 1932. It is the same length as the first meeting house at Lissara and 5 feet wider. A programme of renovation was completed in 1985.
Notable features
A memorial to the Rev J. G. Thompson, who died in 1887, stands at the front of the church. A stained glass window commemorates the Rev John Johnston, minister from 1888 until his retirement in 1923, who died in 1935; it was provided for by his wife, who died before it was erected, and was dedicated to the memory of both. The William McClure Memorial Room, named for the minister installed in 1923 who died in 1954, was opened by his widow.
The cemetery is the property of the trustees of the congregation and contains both burial and cremation plots.
Clergy
- Minister Rev A D Burke
