William Dool Killen (1806–1902): A Presbyterian Perspective on Irish Ecclesiastical History

Abstract

William D. Killen became Irish Presbyterianism’s main church historian in the later nineteenth century. Laurence Kirkpatrick locates Killen within a nineteenth-century historiographical context, in both Ireland and Scotland. Following the early death of James Seaton Reid in 1851, this professor of church history at the Belfast Academical Institution took over the task of completing that historian’s multi-volume work, The history of the Presbyterian church in Ireland. Killen displayed an interest in the earliest centuries of Christianity in Ireland, which he considered to have had a distinctly non-episcopal character – here he would clash with leading Church of Ireland and Catholic scholars. ‘Bishops versus elders’ was thus a particular theme of his writings. He also challenged the Church of Ireland’s claims to apostolic succession. In this way, Killen built on the work of his seventeenth-century predecessor, Patrick Adair, and a distinct Presbyterian flavour to Irish church history was re-emphasised.