Rev John Livingstone, chaplain of the Countess of Wigtown in Scotland, was invited to Killinchy by Sir James Hamilton in 1630.
Livingstone’scongregation worshipped in an earlierchurch on the site of the present-day Parish Church. In September 1636 he wasoneof four ministers on board Eagle Wing on her ill-fated voyage to America. When Livingstone returned, he soon relocated to Stranraer. His Killinchy congregation is known to have rowed across to Scotland from Donaghadee to visit him.
One of his successors at Killinchy was Michael Bruce, who was arrested in Scotland for illegally preaching in the open air. When the judge sentenced Bruce he gave him a choice of where he would liketo be banished to. Bruce chose ‘the wild woods of Killinchy’ - the judge had no idea that he had just given Bruce permission to return home!
The church cemetery includes the graves of Bruce’s children, and of 1798 fighters James McCann and Dr James Cord.
Killinchy Presbyterian Church is based on an unusual cruciform plan. Sketrick Castle, now ruined, is one of the many castles built by the Anglo-Normans, probably in the 1400s. Scottish author James Meikle published a novel entitled Killinchy in the Days of Livingstone in 1839, telling the story of the Scots settlers of the 1600s. Ulster-Scots author W.G.Lyttle’s famous book Daft Eddie and the Smugglers of Strangford Lough, first published in 1890, is a County Down classic. A local restaurant takes its name from the hero of the story.
