Poetry from Pastor

Rev. Martin McNeely

Our longer-standing members will perhaps remember Marty McNeely, who did the administrative and outreach work for the Society’s first Schools Competition, which took place in early 2003. Since then, Marty has been ordained as a Presbyterian minister and taken up a charge at Ballykeel Presbyterian Church. His introduction gives the story of how the poem came about.

The poem was written about a year after I had moved from Belfast to Ballymena, following a call to a local church. The phrases and story lines are a summary of personalities and incidents experienced in that first 12 month period. Although a big town, Ballymena is profoundly influenced by the surrounding countryside. I live on the south eastern edge of the town, so am exposed to the ways and customs of the outlying Braid district.

There are stereotypical views of Ballymena and Braid folk. The poem contains a reference to ‘volk’, a shorthand term of derision cynically deployed by a politician who tried to draw comparison between Unionism and white Afrikaans people. As a pastor, I prefer not to be drawn into discussion relating to temporal identities, be they here or in South Africa, ignorant though that comparison was. Suffice to say my response has been to pen the poem in tribute to the warm hearted and vibrant community that I have been privileged to live amongst.

People in Ballymena, I deduce, prefer to let their actions do the talking. They are demonstrative and workmanlike. Canny, judicious and careful may be other adjectives applied. They use language sparingly so consequently tend to ‘mean what they say and say what they mean’. But initial wariness gives way to ready humour and long conversation.

And in that act of longer dialogue many hidden words of Ulster Scots origin surface — words that I have never heard of, still less words recorded in the lexicon.

So I cannot say that I am capable of writing better poetry. But I will keep my ear to the ground and listen for the centuries-old patter as it surfaces in the firesides and fields of this most beautiful area.