ARP 101 By Rev. Bill Holiman


he American Revolution was quite the event in those far off days of the 1770’s. It sparked numerous other revolutions. The French Revolution you know about, but what about an Irish Revolution in the 1790’s? Did you know about that one? And what about ARPs in that revolution? While the politics of that era are far removed from us today, the names will be


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of interest even now. In the 1700’s the government of Ireland was solely in the hands of members of the Church of Ireland, the Anglicans in Ireland. Neither  were taxed to support the Church of Ireland. Ireland did have a parliament un- der the King, but it was woefully unrepresentative. Wolfe Tone, born in 1763, led a revolutionary movement called the United Irishmen in an attempt to overturn that state of affairs. He was descended from a man who had come to Ireland in Cromwell’s army and was Church of Ire- land. His mother was a convert to Protestantism. He himself was baptized in the Church of Ireland. But he was committed to ending the minority rule of the English. Wolfe Tone had this to say, “testifying to the readiness of the country to rise, the Presbyterians being” steady republicans, devoted to liberty and the Catholics ready for any change because no change can make them worse.” In 1798, the revolution began and ended in disaster for the United Irishmen.


  Irishmen against the government. The Centennial History says about him: “Becoming unexpectedly involved in this struggle, (he) betook himself to their ranks for safety. He was very much exposed and made his escape by means of a swift horse. A price was set on his head. He concealed himself in a vessel bound for America, though there were cards on board, offering a reward for him.” Miss Willie Adair wrote this version of the story in 1939: “In as much as Galloway, Scotland was the cradle of the Adair Family, in the time of King Charles I, a branch of the family transferred to Ballymena, County Antrim, Ireland. “Rev. William Adair was being chased by the King’s soldiers in the County of


Down, Ireland, and his horse became bogged in the mire, and he abandoned his horse and on foot went to a house near his home. He found an old woman work- ing in her garden and asked to be hidden. She told him to go to the attic, and im- mediately thereafter, the soldiers asked for Parson Adair. Her reply: “Faith and am I Parson Adair’s keeper?” and being questioned further made similar replies  not hide a man. After dark, Parson Adair left his hiding place and went into a  remained until a passage could be obtained for him to come to America.  weeks, the compass on the boat went out of commission, and the boat was off


July/August 2026


its course. A member of the crew knew that Parson Adair was aboard and that he was a mariner and could       prevailed upon to grant him immu-  did, and the boat was put back on its’ course and the voyage completed.” He was licensed to preach by the Big Spring Presbytery of the ARP Church, which covered Pennsylvania and Virginia, in 1804 and was duly ordained by that Presbytery in 1807 at which time he became pastor at Old Providence Church of Virginia, as well as at The Sinks in what is now West Virginia, some 100 miles away. This congregation we know today as New Lebanon ARP. He quickly real- ized that this was a problem as there were ‘six large rivers and three high mountains, over one of which there was no regular road, intervening be- tween his churches.’ Which led him to give up Old Providence. The Sinks church was a large church with a membership of over a hundred when he arrived. The congregation asked that he be removed in 1813 and in 1814 he gave up the ministry. Our history says that the reason why is that he ceased “to be edifying largely through intemperate hate of the British and intruding it into pul- pit and church yard.” He remained in the community along with his wife, until their deaths in 1848. Interestingly enough, the next pastor at New Lebanon was also an immigrant from Ireland, but not a revolutionary. 


Rev. William Holiman is a retired Chap- lain in Mississippi Valley Presbytery.


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For the next few issues of the ARP Magazine we will look at some of how our ancestors in the faith had been active in what is now the United States, even before the Declaration of Independence.


Remember those ARPs from Ireland?


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