Killinchy Presbyterian Church

Most of the Scots settlers who arrived in North Down and Ards as part of the Hamilton Montgomery Plantation were members of the new Presbyterian faith. In the early years of the 1600s they were able to worship at parish churches, those that belonged to the established church. But in the 1630s, the bishops banished ministers with Presbyterian sympathies from Ulster. Nearby Killinchy parish church saw two of it ministers deposed, despite the Presbyterian faith of many of the congregation.

The first Presbyterian meeting house was founded in Killinchy in 1670, while Michael Bruce was influential here. He had been deposed as rector at the parish church for his strong Presbyterian views and later became a famous ‘field preacher’ in Scotland, before being banished back to Killinchy. The present church dates from 1739. On the building is inscribed the same piece of scripture as Sir Hugh Montgomery had carved on Newtownards Priory in 1607 –

“Keep Thy Foot when Thou Goest to the House of God and be more Ready to Hear than to Give the Sacrifice of Fools”.