I Shall Find Grace: Quaker Ministries in Northern Ireland

"And Ruth the Moabitess said unto Naomi,

Let me now go to the field,

and glean ears of corn after him

In whose sight I shall find grace.

And she said unto her, Go, my daughter."

Ruth 2:2 KJV

Our 'host'

We visited Bessbrook, a historic Quaker planned mill community in Northern Ireland. I really enjoyed this visit very much, from seeing one of the homes, complete with a lovely fire burning in the fireplace, and hearing about how life would have been. To me, this was very much like a visit to Conner Prairie here in Indiana - historical pioneer village set back in the year 1865. Our host for this is a member of Bessbrook Friends Meeting.

Number 6,
College Square
East

Our visit took us to 'Number 6, College Square East.' It was built and first occupied in 1881, and has been acquired by Bessbrook Development Company and restored to its original lay-out. It has been furnished to show the living arrangements of a 'late Victorian linen-mill worker's family.' According to the plaque by the front door.

Kitchen -
looking in
from the
backyard

Front room on
the ground floor

There were just 3 small rooms on the ground floor - a sitting room in the front and a small 'mother-in-laws' room and kitchen area in the back. Upstairs there were two rooms - one across the front, about the same size as the sitting room below, and one across the back, about the size of the two rooms below it. Not all of the rooms had 'proper' furnishings in them, expect they might be a bit hard to come by, and they were using the 'mother-in-laws' room for an office and the backroom upstairs had a display case and several old photographs on the walls - a kind of museum setting along with some boxes. What was there was very sparse furnishing and I expect there wouldn't have been much more when the family lived there.

Bessbrook
Meetinghouse

After seeing and hearing about how life would have been, we drove over to Bessbrook Meetinghouse where we were warmly welcomed by several members of the Meeting, and the granddaughter of one of the members, and enjoyed cups of tea and some delicious biscuits and wonderful conversation.

Conversation
in the
Meetingroom

Our host then paired us up with a member of the Meeting for some one on one conversation. After a bit, we all moved into the Meetingroom for a bit of conversation followed by 15-20 minutes of worship.