THE devastating German bombing raids on Belfast in April and early May 1941 will be especially remembered by the parishioners of the Church of the Holy Family in the north of the city, writes Wesley Boyd.
Belfast suffered the heaviest raids of any city outside London, with bombs falling at the rate of one per minute. More than 900 people were killed and many areas were flattened. Years later those raids have led directly to the building of a new place of worship for the Holy Family parish. The snag list has been ticked and the last nail driven and the parishioners can now fully appreciate its grandeur. Like the birthplace of the poet Louis MacNeice, the new church nestles "between the mountain and the gantries".
Over the years the parish, like others, both Protestant and Roman Catholic, in the divided city, has had its share of triumphs and tribulations, with some unique to itself. It sits in what is known in Belfast as a "respectable" area of mixed class and creed between the lower slopes of Cave Hill and the flat shores of the Lagan estuary.
The first church in the parish was opened in 1912 with a congregation of about a thousand. Since then, through civil unrest, street riots, the Nazi blitz, terrorist bombs, bigoted defilement and arson, the parish has survived and expanded and now has more than 10,000 parishioners. Belfast is an old host to communal strife. On July 18th, 1935 a pastoral letter from the Bishop of Down and Connor, Most Rev Dr Daniel Mageean,exhorted the faithful to pray earnestly for the restoration of peace and order in the city.
By 1937, a bigger church was needed. The foundation stone of the Church of St Therese was laid in January and the building was completed within the year at a cost of £12,000. By December 1940, war was again raging across Europe and the Civil Defence authorities arrived to convert the boys' school into a rest centre to be used by the citizens of the neighbourhood in the event of an air raid. It was not long in coming. A parishioner, Colette Keenan, recalls the first blitz on Belfast. Various stories had circulated explaining why the area around the parish got such a blasting. "One was that the large Jewish population was the target," she writes. "Another was that the German pilots mistook the two ponds of the Waterworks for the docks. Strangely, not one Catholic church was damaged and it was said that the Pope was in the leading plane and pointed out the churches to be avoided."
Her reminiscences are among several from parishioners contained in a comprehensively illustrated booklet published to mark the recent formal dedication and blessing of the new church. The booklet, edited by Pat Carville, has extracts from the parish chronicles dating back to 1933, dealing with everything from contracting for a supply of coke to the renovation of the organ. In April 1948, it notes, an appeal came from Catholics in Italy asking for financial help to fight the Communists in the general election. Holy Family Parish subscribed £165-9s-3d.
June 1948 had an entry which may not have gladdened the heart of all: His Lordship the Bishop made an announcement that the law of abstinence would come back into force on Fridays. It had been discontinued during the war years because of the scarcity of food. In September 1951 the people were asked to increase their offerings at the door from 1d (penny) to 3d; the Sunday take went up from £13 to £27. On March 7th, 1965 it was noted that Mass in English began. "The people answer their part quite well. Most people are pleased with the change. Older members of the congregation do not like it."
In December 1968, "because of heightened tension caused by the violent reaction to Civil Rights marches, a special day of prayer was requested by the Bishop." The Troubles were back. On to May 1st, 1977. "Today sees the start of the strike organised by Mr Paisley, and in order to look after the elderly in the parish during what may be a troubled period dinners will be served in the Youth Centre." There was more sectarian trouble the following year. The entry for April 3rd, 1978 records that St Therese's Church was painted with Loyalist slogans. Priests were awakened when firebombs were thrown into the grounds and the youth club minibus was burned out. A curate told the Irish News that the doors of the church "were daubed with the most vile and obnoxious slogans". The attack was condemned by the Presbyterian Moderator, Rev Thomas Patterson, who described it as "another expression of the sickness that infected our society."
The parish had already decided to build a new church on Cavehill Road to cater for expansion and the Pope blessed the foundation stone during his visit to Knock in September 1979. Two months later, the parish chronicles recorded that "a bomb severely damaged the new Church of the Resurrection at Cavehill Road" and the dedication ceremony planned for December 30th had to be postponed. Hard work saw the church rise quickly from the ashes and it was completed in time for the opening on Easter Sunday, 1980.
Community relations were slowly improving. On January 23rd, 1983 500 people took part in a Church Unity service in St Therese's led by the priests of the parish and ministers from the main Protestant churches in the area. In the following years the Cavehill Road church was the target of a couple of Loyalist arson attacks and a member of the management committee was shot dead in the street.
The new Holy Family Church at Newington Avenue was completed at a cost of over £2 million and after more than two years of work, co-ordinated by the Administrator of the Parish, Fr Sean Emerson. It is a fine achievement of North-South co-operation.
Designed by the Dublin-based architect Eamon Hedderman and built by the old Northern firm of O'Neill and Brady, the red brick structure has a curved glass roof which allows natural light to flood the interior. Inside the church is dominated by a magnificent green and gold stained glass window, the work of Dublin artist George Walsh. The mosaic flooring and the Stations of the Cross were designed by another Dublin artist, Laura O'Hagan.
The new building replaces the century-old church which had to be demolished when it was discovered a few years ago that its foundations had been damaged - by the German blitz.