Doagh Methodist Church

In 1738 John Wesley and his brother Charles started the movement that soon acquired the name of Methodism. John Wesley made his first visit to Ulster, where the movement had already established itself in many of the major towns, in 1756. He visited Ulster regularly for the rest of his life. By 1778 a Methodist Society had been established in Doagh.

It seems likely that John Wesley himself visited Doagh in that year. He recorded in his journal that while travelling between Ballymena and Carrickfergus in June 1778, ‘We rode through a small village wherein was a little Society. One desiring me to step into a house there, it was filled presently, and the poor people were all ears while I gave short exhortation and spent a few minutes in prayer.’ Though Wesley does not state that this incident occurred in Doagh, this would have been the village he most likely passed through on his way to Carrickfergus.

Doagh Methodist Church
Doagh Methodist Church

In 1799 the Methodist Conference gave its sanction to the building of a meeting house where the present building now stands. In the same year a young man arrived in Ireland from America. His name was Lorenzo Dow and he was a candidate for the Methodist ministry in America. On coming to Doagh he was initially opposed by the officer of the guard, but on the Sunday the military parade was cancelled so that the soldiers would have the opportunity to hear him. He preached to the soldiers in the out-houses of Fisherwick House.

In the late 1830s the Methodist meeting house in Doagh was described as a single-storey building with a slated roof, but ‘in bad repair’. Externally it measured 21 feet by 18 feet with 2 small oblong windows and a door. Meetings were held in it every Sunday morning and every Tuesday evening. There was regular preaching in it once a fortnight conducted by a Methodist ministers, but the other meetings were taken by laymen.37 At this time there were about 70 members. In 1844 a new Methodist meeting house was built in Doagh on the same site as its predecessor.