Letter: We regret the fact that fellow Free Presbyterian ministers would allow themselves to be used over the Irish language

As Free Presbyterian ministers, we wish to respond to recent media reports of a meeting held in Farranshane House Antrim, on the history of Presbyterianism and the Irish language.

The meeting was organised by Rev Paul Thompson who gave subsequent media interviews to the BBC and Cool FM, and was attended by Sinn Fein chair Declan Kearney who claimed to have been personally invited by the Rev Thompson.

No one can deny our history and the fact our Protestant forefathers used the Irish language as a means of evangelising native Irish speakers in the 17th-19th centuries. They are to be honoured and commended for their efforts. However, the context and use of the Irish language is completely different today.

It has been hijacked by violent republicanism to fight a culture war against Protestant and unionist traditions and culture. Whilst symbols, emblems and expressions of unionist tradition are opposed and have been removed from public places, Sinn Fein has aggressively pushed the Irish language into the public arena, even into places where only a minority desire it.

We are dismayed that Free Presbyterian ministers would allow themselves and their event (regardless of their intentions) to be used by Sinn Fein and the media to promote their republican objectives. We are also aghast at claims that at least one Sinn Fein member was personally invited to this event and thereby afforded a predictable opportunity to promote his political agenda.

We stand with the victims of republican terrorism, not with those who continue to support and glorify the terrorists who murdered and maimed innocent people in an immoral terrorist campaign, and as such we wish to publicly disassociate ourselves from it.

It is noteworthy that while there may have been a Gospel presentation, this was absent from the coverage in the media. Tellingly, the BBC kept back an interview recorded last week with the secretary of state, Hilary Benn, in which he questioned opposition to Irish signage, and deliberately ran his interview alongside the report on the event in Farranshane House, on the same day.

We regret that the organisers allowed themselves to be used in this fashion.

Rev Darryl Abernethy, Rev Graham Middleton, Rev Brian McClung, Rev David McLaughlin, Rev Daniel Henderson, Rev Andrew Patterson