Davey, Ray (Robert Raymond ) (1915–2012), presbyterian minister and founder of the Corrymeela Community, was born on 10 January 1915 in Dunmurry, outside Belfast, the son of Robert Davey (d. 1946), presbyterian minister of Dunmurry, and Charlotte Davey (née Higginson). His parents had many relatives in the presbyterian ministry and among Ulster merchants and gentry; his father's first cousin was J. Ernest Davey (qv), and Charlotte Davey's brother-in-law was Robert Boyd (qv). Ray had two older brothers, one of whom also became a minister; a sister who was a missionary in India and married a minister; and another sister.
Ray was sent to elementary school in Dunmurry, then to the Royal Belfast Academical Institution, and was on the rugby schools' cup winning team of 1933. He graduated BA from Queen's University of Belfast (QUB) in 1936, and then studied for the ministry in Belfast and Edinburgh. He played rugby for both universities while a student, and was full-back on the Ulster team that drew 3–3 with an All-Blacks touring side at Ravenhill on 30 November 1935 (the first time an Irish team had avoided defeat against the New Zealanders). On 3 September 1939, half an hour before he delivered his first sermon as a licentiate minister, he heard that war was declared against Germany.
After a year assisting in First Bangor, Davey volunteered to go to north Africa as a chaplain with the YMCA, and left the United Kingdom in October 1940. His ship was hit by a bomb on the first night at sea, and crew members were killed. In north Africa, Davey served in almost equally hazardous circumstances, doing what he could to support soldiers and provide respite in YMCA premises and mobile canteens just behind front lines. He established an ecumenical centre in Tobruk where worship included all religions present in the area, including Jews. One lighter moment occurred when he encountered a rather ragged procession of Ulster soldiers in Sidi Barrani, behind improvised Lambeg drums: the Rising Sons of the Desert marking 12 July 1941.
After the Germans attacked Tobruk in May 1942, the town fell and Davey and many others were taken prisoner. He spent the rest of the war in prisoner-of-war camps, first in Italy and then in Germany. As a non-combatant, he had occasional permission to visit other camps and meet civilians. His experiences of privation, danger, hunger and the solidarity among prisoners, as well as the devastation suffered by Italian and German civilians, had lifelong effects on his thinking about conflict, community and Christianity. Davey was released in May 1945, and made his way back to Belfast, where he was ordained in his father's church in September 1945. He was made MBE in January 1946.
In 1946 Davey was appointed presbyterian chaplain to students in QUB, and until his retirement in 1970 provided spiritual support to students and staff. Davey was a theological liberal, and held still more liberal, even radical, social views; he acknowledged publicly that had he grown up in one of the notoriously deprived areas in west Belfast, he could not have escaped becoming a juvenile delinquent. He and others felt that Christians should work together to secure social justice, and that Northern Ireland's divided society was not well served by a divided Christianity.
A group of committed Christians of various denominations grew up round the university chaplaincies and soon attracted members from beyond the university. At a meeting in September 1964, called by Davey and two other presbyterian ministers, John Morrow (qv) and Alex Watson (1927–2000), they discussed how to bring active Christianity to bear on modern life. They envisaged a shared living space inspired by such examples as the Scottish Iona Community, the Italian youth village of Agape, and the ecumenical Christian monastic community of Taizé in Burgundy, all of which Davey and some QUB students had visited on several occasions.
When in 1965 a disused holiday hostel on the north Antrim coast, near Ballycastle, came up for sale, the group seized this as an opportunity to establish their vision of an ecumenical Christian community which could help resolve Ulster's problems (not always acknowledged by the province's establishment), by working for better conditions and equal treatment for all. The members of the embryo community had only a few days to get finance together. They contributed £6,500 from their own resources, and the Corrymeela Community was opened on 30 October 1965. Years of building and maintenance work, originally carried out by resident volunteers in memorably enjoyable work camps, eventually resulted in an impressive campus of buildings and grounds looking out over the sea.
Corrymeela was founded before the outbreak of the NI troubles, but when it was really needed, in the 1970s, was ready to facilitate helpful and, at the time, unique interventions in society. Groups of young people (many from war-torn areas of Northern Ireland and later from other conflict areas), activists, overseas delegates, intellectuals and students, met in uncontested space to discuss and encounter each other's perspectives on society and religion. On many occasions, antagonists became friends, when they met in an environment of understanding and acceptance. Local young people for the first time encountered liturgical elements from many denominations and non-traditional forms of worship.
Davey was part-time leader of Corrymeela from 1970, and a full-time leader from 1974 to 1980, as the organisation grew to include well over a thousand 'friends of Corrymeela', with regular meetings in Belfast as well as in north Antrim. The community also had to provide practical and emergency care for people displaced by the civil unrest. In the riots following internment in 1971, over 200 children were evacuated from Belfast, and Corrymeela and the nearby town of Ballycastle accepted them at very short notice.
As the elected leader of the Corrymeela community, Davey travelled and spoke to many gatherings worldwide. Corrymeela, and Davey, became well known in Ireland and abroad, as he forged links with equivalent organisations and helped nurture Corrymeela groups worldwide. Particularly meaningful for the former prisoner of war were connections with Dresden in Germany, which he had first seen in ruins after bombing, and with Coventry in England, likewise bombed. Visitors included Prince Charles and the Dalai Lama. Glencree Centre for Peace and Reconciliation in Co. Wicklow was inspired by and affiliated to the Co. Antrim centre.
Ray Davey became still better known through the publication of a number of successful books and pamphlets. Don't fence me in, about his wartime experiences, was a bestseller published in several versions in 1946 and 1954; he edited his wartime diaries in 2005. Other books written by Davey described the experience of 'peacemaking' in Northern Ireland, through the work of Corrymeela; in Take away this hate (1985), Forty years on (1986) An unfinished journey (1986), The pollen of peace (1991), and A channel of peace (1993), he always stressed the need for the church and individuals to become involved in the active making of peace. For Davey, peace was not just the absence of conflict.
His work was widely recognised. In 1978 Davey won a People of the Year award; he was also awarded an OBE (1997), and honorary doctorates by QUB (1999) and St Patrick's College, Maynooth (2002). In 1989 the Corrymeela Community was awarded the Kohl International Peace Prize and in 1997 the Niwano Peace Prize.
Davey retired from his role as leader in 1980, but his inspiration and influence continued. In 2011 a new section of visitor housing at Corrymeela, called Davey Village in honour of the founder, was inaugurated. A year later, on 16 April 2012, Ray Davey died in Dunmurry. His contribution to dialogue and reconciliation in Northern Ireland was widely praised by religious and political leaders in the province, such as David Ford, leader of the Alliance Party, Dr Ivan Patterson, the presbyterian moderator, and Alan Harper, anglican archbishop of Armagh.
Davey had outlived his wife by four years; he and Kathleen Burrows met at Queen's in the 1930s. She was the daughter of the minister of Knock congregation; her sister also married a minister. Kathleen's letters to Ray Davey throughout the war years, and her contribution to the life and witness of Corrymeela, formed the support for a marriage which lasted from 2 January 1946 until her death in 2008. Her influence on the community was almost as prevalent as her husband's, though much less publicly articulated. The Daveys had two sons and one daughter.