placenamesMoss-side
Mas Saíde
Moss-side’s Presbyterian history records how a rural congregation established its meeting house, school and community facilities.
The name
A reliable full-name meaning has not been established here. The recorded Irish and English forms are given without an unsupported translation.
Recorded forms
- Mas Saíde · Irish · main form · validated name
- Moss-side · English · main form
Place & story
The petition of 1789
Mosside's congregation traces its beginning to a petition signed by sixty-five people in 1789, requesting Presbyterian preaching. Thomas Bell became its first minister in May 1794. Daniel McKay supplied land for the meeting house and graveyard. The congregation's history describes the first building as a narrow, slate-roofed room with an earth floor and a central pulpit. [2]
Robert McConaghie’s building campaign
Robert McConaghie succeeded Bell in 1842 and led the construction of a replacement church, dedicated on 5 August 1851. The building left substantial debts. McConaghie's preaching and lecture tours in Scotland and America raised enough to clear them and build a school. A manse followed in 1855. His work linked local building projects with financial support gathered well beyond north Antrim. [2]
Schoolrooms and meeting places
The old school returned to church ownership during the 1960s and became a hall, with a kitchen and toilets added in 1968. A youth club later met in a manse outbuilding. A new church hall opened in 1981. These changes show educational and domestic buildings acquiring new uses as the congregation developed spaces for meetings and youth activities. [2]
Geographic information
- Place type
- Population centre
- County
- Antrim
- Barony
- Cary
- Civil parish
- Grange of Drumtullagh
- Coordinates
- 55.15186, -6.41552 (approximate)
- Logainm ID
- 61924 ↗
Sources & further reading
- Logainm.ie — Moss-side. Place names and geographic record, licensed under CC BY 4.0.
- Mosside Presbyterian Church: congregation history · William John Hemphill; revised by Cecil Grant, Mosside Presbyterian Church
- Moss-side Presbyterian Church, County Antrim illustration: based on a Moss-side Presbyterian Church by Willie Duffin. AI-assisted watercolour and ink adaptation; cream paper margins added, incidental clutter omitted and fine details simplified. Licence: CC BY-SA 2.0.
Name record retrieved 2026-10-25 · Source record modified 2021-05-26. How this page was prepared.