History

Superintendents of ICM

Rev. Dr. Charles Ffennell McCarthy (Superintendent 1850-1877) In February 1850, Alexander Dallas, the founder of ICM, appointed Charles Ffennell McCarthy, the 33 year-old curate of St. Michan’s, Dublin, to be the first Superintendent of the Irish Church Missions. Under him, Irish Church Missions expanded their work in Dublin, the Mission Church at Townsend Street was opened, and many people were converted to Christ through the weekly ‘Controversial Classes’. His labours and method of engaging in evangelism were to lay the foundation of the Mission’s work for years to come.

T. C. Hammond

For most Irish Church people in the first half of the twentieth century T C Hammond (1877 - 1961) was the ICM and the ICM was T C Hammond. Such was the height of his profile and such was the amount of activity being carried on by the Mission during his time, that this was a natural assumption. But, of course, both T C Hammond and the Mission had a life before and after the years when he was Superintendent (1919 - 1936).

History of ICM (1869-1919)

The period under review in this second part of ICM’s history covers the era between the death of Alexander Dallas, the founder of Irish Church Missions (ICM) and the appointment in 1919 of perhaps the most well-known Superintendent of ICM, T. C. Hammond. It was an era that saw the disestablishment of the Church of Ireland, dramatic events in the history of Ireland with the land war, land purchase, the Gaelic revival, the home rule struggle, World War I, the 1916 rebellion, and the beginnings of the efforts to assert Irish independence with the founding of the Free State in 1922.

Founding and history of Irish Church Missions (1849-69)

Alexander Dallas (1791-1869)

The Society for the Irish Church Missions (ICM) was founded in March 1849, largely through the work of an English clergyman, the Reverend Alexander Dallas, Vicar of the parish of Wonston, Hampshire. A man of immense energy and organising ability, Dallas had been a supplies officer in Wellington’s army during the Napoleonic wars in Spain and was present at the battle of Waterloo in 1815. Following his ordination in 1821, Dallas served in a number of curacies during which time he was converted to a living faith in Christ, largely through the influence of Charles Sumner, who became Bishop of Winchester and a life-long supporter of ICM. It was thus his conversion that was the source of the evangelistic zeal that motivated his whole life and led to the foundation of ICM.