Virtual Methodist

The Mission operated out of Hermon Hall until January 1890 when Mr Ginnett needed the building back again, meaning that they had to decamp once more, leading Crawford Johnson to describe them, in thoroughly un-PC terms, as “ecclesiastical gypsies" (I used a less controversial synonym for the title). Their primary Sunday venues for the Mission were St. George’s Hall in High Street and the Ulster Hall, with repeated returns to Hermon Hall, from time to time until it was knocked down to prepare for the building of the Opera House. The weekday activities of the Mission were even more scattered... in lecture rooms and halls in north, south and east Belfast... Some of these were Bible studies and classic Methodist Class meetings, but increasingly more of them were working to address social needs of the people around, including food programmes rudimentary alcohol support groups, men’s and women’s groups, and work with (in another un-PC phrase) “street Arabs” – children running wild on th...