On This Day / August 29, 1970

Farewell to Peacemaker Rev Roy Hill

CATHOLIC and Protestant people united last night to say farewell to one of Belfast’s men of peace.

Rev Roy Hill is leaving his Broadway Presbyterian Church next week with his wife and three children to minister in Forfar, Scotland.

The farewells came when St Paul’s parishioners from the Broadway and Iveagh areas gathered in a local hotel to hand over a presentation to mark Mr Hill’s outstanding services to community relations.

In his three years at Broadway the clergyman showed the people the way to reconciliation in this tiny area between the Falls and Donegall Roads.

And last night Catholic and Protestant people responded by uniting in their thanks to a man of wonderful sincerity and toleration.

The parish priest of St Paul’s, Very Rev Gerard Montague led the Catholic community in presenting Mr Hill with a Prince Charles Regent cut-glass set.

He wished Mr Hill, with whom he had patrolled the riot-torn streets of Belfast, a fruitful mission in his new ministry.

Mr Hill, he said, had sowed the seeds. But Mr Hill leaves Belfast with a heavy heart.

Like many others who tried to bring peace to a strife-torn city, the tall, handsome and patient minister is giving up almost in despair.

For as he confessed in a recent press interview: ‘The awful thing is – I just don’t know where we’re going at all. I see no answer. I cannot see one glimmer of hope on the horizon of Ulster.’

What disturbed him most, he said, was that ‘the bitterness and intolerances had found their way into the souls of a new generation’.

Mr Hill’s church lies in a sector of Belfast where there are about 90 Catholics to every 10 Protestants.

‘The trouble broke out last August. Once things settled down again, a lot of Protestant people were still afraid and decided to move.

‘We are a church of 300 families and we lost 40 of them. Then the other thing happened – their houses were occupied by Roman Catholics who came up from areas where there had been shooting and burning.

‘They were of a different type. … All my efforts have been towards living together – towards conciliation. But I am giving up. … A man can contribute so much … When you are trying to be a Christian, it is hurtful to find yourself being constantly misrepresented…’

(Note: In his efforts to work with Catholic clergy and community leaders in the Broadway interface after the violence of August 1969, Rev Hill was undermined by Rev Ian Paisley who openly fomented unrest in the mixed area.

Rev Hill’s historic Broadway church is now the Culturlann.)