AMERICAN Independence Day marks a double celebration today for Methodist Minister Rev Bill Olmsted (70) from Iowa.
The reverend was one of 3,800 people granted Irish citizenship at four ceremonies held today at the National Convention Centre in Dublin.
He will begin his new life as an Irish citizen serving Adare and Ballingrane, an area which played an instrumental role in the establishment of the Methodist Church in North America during the 1700s.
Rev Olmsted spent the last six years as a Minister of the United Methodist Church serving in Mountmellick, County Laois and will take up the position of Superintendent Minister of the Adare and Ballingrane Methodist Circuit from
Wednesday July 9.
The reverend arrived in Ireland in July 2008 shortly after his wife passed away.
He said: “For me, the journey began when I started to think about what I might do with my life after my wife passed away. I had happy memories of an exchange visit to Bangor and it was a friend from there who inspired me to come back. Like so many people who come here for what they think will be a short period of time, I found myself feeling right at home and wanting to make it my home.”
Speaking about the area, Rev Olmsted said: “It is somewhere that holds a special place in the hearts of American Methodists as, more than 200 years ago, two Palatine Methodists from Ballingrane emigrated to New York, one of whom – Philip Embury, urged by his cousin Barbara Heck – preached the first ever Methodist sermon in the city, which led to the establishment of the church there.”
