Welcome to the Web-site of the “friends of Portaferry Presbyterian Church”.

Portaferry is a small market town at the tip of the Ards Peninsula in County Down, Northern Ireland. The Hey-Day of the town was in the mid-1800s and it was then that Portaferry Presbyterian Church, widely acknowledged as one of the best Greek Revival buildings in Great Britain and Ireland, was built.

Whilst it is still used for regular Sunday worship the friends felt that with its wonderfully live acoustic, seating for 500, Edwardian Evans and Barr organ and superb architecture it could, and should, be used and shared much more widely.

To that end, we have formed the ‘friends of Portaferry Presbyterian Church’. This is a registered charity (ref XT5469) which, with the permission of the Minister, Session and Committee, aims to bring Arts events of international calibre to Portaferry, for those resident in the area and for those from much further afield. Any profits we make are used to run further events and to contribute to the general restoration and development of the building. Thus far, we completely refurbished the Main Entrance Hall, installed two new stops on the organ and equipped the central heating with a thermostatic control.

We also seek to involve the community directly in the Arts: we support the NewQuay Singers, a community choir that sings in our building and is made up of amateur musicians from up to 60 miles away. In addition we have a very active education programme including, to date, workshops for singing and for string quartets. Our next workshop is for brass players, on 1 May 2010. We also organised a highly successful day in celebration of the architecture of Portaferry Presbyterian Church when an international panel of speakers put the building into its historical and architectural context.

Details of our previous events are available on this website and have included the Choir of the Royal Hospital Chelsea; a stupendous jazz evening featuring Brenda Rattray; the choir of Westminster Cathedral and the Chilingirian Quartet. On Friday 30th April His Majesty's Sagbutts and Cornetts will enthrall us with a concert of early music for brass.They too will hold a workshop.

The establishment of the friends of PPC has been and is a very exciting and challenging development. We hope we can count on your support and we look forward to welcoming you to Portaferry on many more occasions.

Ian McDonnell

Chair