It happened on Frederick Street: Margaret Fraser revisits the history of a Belfast Meeting house

‘We were all eager for the stories to be shared.’

In 1969,‘the troubles’ began in Northern Ireland. The conflict had been simmering all year, but made worldwide news in August with the battle of the Bogside. Violence spread, and tensions ran high. Many of those who were minorities in their streets fled their homes.

While both protestant and catholic communities were affected, the impact on Frederick Street Quaker Meeting came from catholic families fleeing their homes in north and west Belfast. On 15 August the whole of Bombay Street in west Belfast was burned, and women and children sought refuge in several places, including the Frederick Street Meeting House.

Why this Meeting house? Quakers have had a positive reputation in Ireland since the famine in the 1860s. Then, Friends documented the starvation, lobbied politicians at Westminster, and used their international connections to get food and funding to affected areas, and to feed hungry people without requiring them to convert. A century later, Frederick Street Quakers responded to the displaced families by feeding them and setting up sleeping arrangements in the historic Meeting house, until more appropriate housing could be found. Other initiatives followed, such as local playschemes, work camps and holiday trips for children.

Even before the troubles, Frederick Street was a bleak location. Once a busy commercial area, the neighbourhood was damaged by the Luftwaffe bombing of the Belfast docks and shipyards in 1941. In the early 1970s, Friends there were worshipping each Sunday in an area experiencing regular rioting, the explosion of bombs, and shooting.

In its commitment to the area, the Meeting decided to demolish the old Meeting house and replace it with a smaller, more practical building, which included conference rooms and a caretaker’s flat. The new building opened in 1973. The nineteenth-century institute building, designed for adult education, remained, facing the street, and was used for a variety of ministries.

The Meeting did not simply hunker down for survival, however. In an imaginative initiative, a committee representing Quakers in Britain and Ireland invited visiting Friends to live in the caretaker’s flat as Friends-in-residence. An upstairs room was converted into a guest bedroom, and the work of ‘quiet diplomacy’ – well-known now in connection with the Quaker United Nations Office – began.

Mike and Margaret Yarrow, from the USA, shaped the work. The couple quickly brought gifts of hospitality, listening and non-judgment. The Yarrows’ work was at a strategic level, but also local through the development of relationships with members of both catholic and protestant communities. Their work was continued by other resident Friends. After his time in Belfast, Mike went on to write Quaker Experiences in International Conciliation.

The quiet diplomacy work later moved to the inner suburbs of south Belfast, close to Queen’s University. Friends from Britain, Ireland and the USA served at Quaker House Belfast. In a lecture in 2002, Mo Mowlem, previously secretary of state for Northern Ireland, said of local Quakers: ‘They did an incredible amount in a house where everyone knew they could be trusted… Without them, my life would have been much tougher than it was.’ More information about the quiet diplomacy will come to light when the records of the ‘Watching Committee’ of British and Irish Friends are made accessible. Currently they are subject to government restrictions.

Other work moved away from Frederick Street to more appropriate settings. When paramilitaries began to be interned without trial, a ‘tea shop’ ministry, staffed by volunteers, began in the waiting room at Long Kesh prison, later known as ‘the Maze’. In addition to cups of tea, volunteers listened to family members, and set up a toddler play group. When a property on a hillside overlooking Belfast was donated, it was possible to set up Quaker Cottage, and run support programmes for families from distressed communities on both sides of the sectarian divide. These various initiatives were brought under the care of a new organisation, now called Quaker Service.

Fast forward to 2024. The annual North Belfast Festival showcases the cultural heritage of the area. In addition to walking tours, events take place at local public buildings, including the Indian Cultural Centre and Hindu Temple, the Orange Hall, and the new Ulster University building over the road from the Meeting house. This year, the organisers invited Frederick Street Meeting to host an event. We were delighted to be asked, but at a loss to know what to offer. Then one morning it came to me. Someone should interview Felicity McCartney. As a young adult, Felicity had led some play schemes in Belfast, and had been partly responsible for the founding of the Centre for Neighbourhood Development, which was based in the institute building for fifteen years. She had later co-edited a book on Quaker work, Coming from the Silence: Quaker peacemaking initiatives in Northern Ireland 1969-2007.

Fortunately, Felicity agreed, and she asked Ian Kirk-Smith, a former head of Music and Arts for BBC Northern Ireland – and a former editor of the Friend – to do the interview. He, too, agreed. The title was ‘It Happened at Frederick Street’. We were all eager for the stories to be shared before they are lost. We also looked forward to welcoming people over the threshold of the newly-refurbished Meeting house. But we had no idea how many would come. Optimistically, we set out forty chairs, but we soon had to get out more seats. The organisers told us afterwards that, with over sixty participants, ours was the festival event with the largest attendance.

Quaker Service, whose founding work was spun off from Frederick Street Meeting, has plans to return to the Frederick Street site, developing the caretaker’s flat where so much quiet diplomacy took place, and sharing other rooms in the building, including the upstairs former guest room. With the development of this new Quaker Hub, once more, things are happening at Frederick Street.

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