May the great bells of St Peter’s always ring out

ONE of the most distinctive sounds you’ll hear on Sunday mornings walking down Magdalene Street are the bells of St Peter’s Church of Ireland.

It’s a bell ringers fantasy, and they recently got a visit from Mayor Frank Godfrey who said it was a wonderful tradition that should never die.

The bells, it’s believed, date from 1791 no less.

Rev Iain Jamieson explained that the St Peter’s bells were mentioned in the Cromwell attack of 1649 when the tower was set ablaze and the bells, apparently, destroyed.

By 1762 when the new church was built, reference was made to one bell.

Some years later the Corporation of Drogheda gave a subscription towards the cost of a peal of bells for St. Peter’s, as recorded in the Corporation Minute Book:

“General Assembly of the Mayor, Sherrifs, Aldermen and Common Council of Drogheda on 24th April 1789. It was ordered:- That a sum not exceeding £100 be given by this Corporation towards getting a ring of bells for the Parish of St. Peter’s provided the subscriptions at present on foot will not pay for them.”

The bells were cast in 1791 by the then famous bell-founder John Rudhall of Gloucester. Apart from a recast of the tenor bell in 1869 by Messrs. J. Taylor and Co, it having been damaged, the same bells ring out to this day from the tower of St. Peter’s.

The St Peter’s bell ringers, Mayor Frank Godfrey, Bobby Rusk, Liz Manville, Doris Rusk, Paddy Dunne, Rev Iain Jaimeson, Martha Waller. Back L-R Martin Smith, Derek Waller, Willie Newman, David Taylor, Maurice O’Reilly, Tom Murphy

Below: Local artist Eugene Wade pictured with a special seasonal image which he wanted to share with our readers.