WelCom December 2021
Leaders of Ireland’s Christian churches presented a united front during a ceremony marking 100 years of partition of Ireland. ‘For the past 100 years, partition has polarised people on this island. It has institutionalised difference, and it remains a symbol of political, cultural and religious division between our communities,’ said Catholic Archbishop Eamon Martin, whose overwhelmingly Irish nationalist flock seeks an end to partition. Martin was joined at the ceremony by other Christian leaders, including the heads of the Church of Ireland (Anglican), Methodist Church, Presbyterian Church, and the Irish Council of Churches.
The Christian church leaders vowed to face ‘difficult truth’ and work closer together to ensure that the fragile peace process in Northern Ireland leaves a lasting legacy of reconciliation. The three Protestant leaders, whose churches, like the Catholics, never recognised partition and maintained all-Ireland structures, said they had taken too few risks during three decades of bloodshed over Northern Ireland and the two most recent decades of relative peace.