Pastor who told protestors to ‘go home in a boat’ defends video
A PASTOR from Co Armagh has been criticised over a video he posted slamming the Black Lives Matter protests and calling for those involved to be “sent home in a boat”.
Pastor Barrie Halliday, from Bessbrook, made the comments in a video that he then shared on his Facebook page on Tuesday evening.
The clip, which was recorded in a church hall, has been viewed over 30,000 times and has been both condemned and praised by those who have watched it. Pastor Halliday said in the video that he is “not a racist”.
Protests have taken place all over the world following the killing of George Floyd in police custody in the US last month.
Hundreds of people gathered in Belfast and Londonderry last week as part of the demonstrations, while in England protesters have been targeting statues of historic figures connected to the slave trade by toppling or paint-bombing them.
In the video, Pastor Halliday stated that those attacking statues of political leaders are “on the road to nothing”.
“It may have been boats that brought you here three or four hundred years ago and you were brought under duress and against your will, but there’s boats sitting there empty at the minute doing nothing,” he added.
“You are welcome to get back on them and go back home if you think we’re so bad.”
Responding to the comments, the former director of Anti-slavery International, Aidan Mcquade, said it would be a positive step if Pastor Halliday sat down and spoke to people who have suffered racial abuse and intolerance in their lives.
“It would be nice for him to open his heart and open his ears to what some people have had to put up with over the years,” he said.
“It’s worrying as well because if there’s more people with that sort of attitude it really does make lives harder, more unpleasant and more difficult for people from different backgrounds.
“The one thing that has tended to unite all communities in the north of Ireland and Ireland is an appreciation of the importance of hospitality.
“There’s a fella who doesn’t seem to show an awful lot of hospitality in his heart for other people. It’s an awful pity.”
Defending what he said in the video, Pastor Halliday told the Belfast Telegraph that what happened to George Floyd was disgraceful but he does not believe the same problems exist in the UK.
He said the reason he felt the need to upload it was because he had a “fair idea of what’s going on in people’s minds” after speaking to those who attend his church and victims of the Troubles.
“We’re just totally sick of yet another round of agitation,” he said.
“We had Brexit, we had the border poll, and now when the country is on its knees once again we have this, what we believe to be, an imaginary injured people.
“What happened in America is a disgrace and there clearly is a problem in America, but I do not believe for one minute that we have it in Britain and certainly not in Northern Ireland.
“Why liberal whites would think they should be — in a time of a pandemic — causing such a danger, pressuring the police and in danger of spreading disease?”
Pastor Halliday stressed that he was not racist and sees everyone as his equal.
Admitting that the video may have been “strong enough in ways”, he felt something had to be said.
Referring to his comments on protesters being “sent home”, Pastor Halliday said that he merely meant go “wherever they feel comfortable”.
“Why on earth in a wee country on its knees, why you would ever make this situation in the first place?” he asked.
“Why on earth would you congregate in your hundreds in Belfast? Why would you do it other than for agitation?”
Pastor Halliday added: “I’m very proud of being white and being born in a Christian culture.
“I’m very proud of it and very proud of how the English speaking Christian people have shaped the world.
“We have nothing to apologise for.”