For the first time in almost a quarter of a century a Presbyterian Minister serving in the Republic is being installed as Moderator of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland. Rev Dr Sam Mawhinney (61) has been the Minister at Dublin’s Adelaide Road Presbyterian Church since 2008. Ordained in 1997, he was Minister of the joint charge of Fermoy and Cahir Presbyterian Churches in Cork and Tipperary for 11 years before serving at Adelaide Road.
His installation as Moderator takes place in Belfast on Wednesday night at the opening of the Church’s 2023 General Assembly. He is the first Minister serving in the Republic to become Moderator since Rev Dr Trevor Morrow in 2000, then Minister at Lucan Presbyterian Church, Co Dublin.
Rev Dr Mawhinney is the 178th person to hold the office of Moderator and the 10th to come from a Dublin congregation since the establishment of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland in 1840.
From Ballycastle Coy, Co Antrim, Rev Dr Mawhinney is married to Karen and they have three adult sons. Last February he was elected by the Church’s 19 regional presbyteries across Ireland when they met to choose the Church’s Moderator for the June 2023 to June 2024 year.
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Approximately 96 per cent of the Presbyterian Church’s 200,000 membership is in Northern Ireland, making it the largest Protestant Church there. However it has experienced recent growth in the Republic with new Presbyterian Churches at Maynooth in Co Kildare, as well as Donabate and Balbriggan in Co Dublin.
Last February then Moderator Rev Dr John Fitzpatrick officially turned the first sod for a new purpose-built Presbyterian church building in Maynooth. The inaugural Minister there Rev Dr Keith McCrory serves a congregation of some 53 families with around 140 people. The €4.5 million new church is being built is on a 3.2 acre greenfield site at the heart of Maynooth, opposite the Tesco shopping park.
The new Presbyterian congregation at Donabate and Balbriggan in Co Dublin is one of the youngest of the church’s 534 congregations on the island of Ireland has 70 families, made up of around 200 people. They are served by Minister Rev Andy Carroll with Sunday services at the Donabate Portrane Community Centre
