A Testimony of Grace: Sammy Heenan

I'd like to extend uh good uh best wishes, and I want to thank Ian for extending to me the invitation and the opportunity to speak to you good folk on this uh Reformation Weekend.

It's been a long week trying to sort out technology and um a lot of toing and froing, but I think we have eventually uh got to this point, and the Lord has truly blessed what we're trying to do and has made sure that we have had connectivity uh between um our two areas.

Um, folks, thank you so much.

It is, I say, a pleasure and a privilege to speak to you, and I hope you're having a very good uh conference weekend and what is a very important date in the calendar of Protestants, and that is uh the Reformation.

Um, we have to give thanks for men like Martin Luther, who in 1517 nails his 95 feces on the chapel door at Wittenborough.

And not and he we have to think of other people as well, people like the morning star of the Reformation, John Whitecliffe, men like Tyndale and Latimer, Cronmer, Ridley, Zwingli, Huss.

Um, so many men anointed by God who reveal the scriptures uh to the world, and with the legacy of that ever since, where many souls have been saved and won uh for Jesus Christ.

Thank you, folks.

Um my story starts basically.

Um as I say, I live in uh live in Roth Fryland.

I work in a local high school.

I'm also a part-time firefighter, and I'm happily married to Julie.

And I have two daughters, Ellie is 21 and Katie is 17, and they've been a great blessing to uh to Julie and I.

I was brought up in the rural townland of Flaganonny, situated at the foot of Sleeve Croob in the rural Delmora Hills, probably one of the most rural and isolated parts of Northern Ireland.

It was a pleasure to live there, but my abiding memory of childhood was one of loneliness and isolation due to being an only child.

We didn't, money was not in abundance.

We lived in a small one-bedroom cottage, we did not have uh uh an inside toilet.

Um, but you know what?

I was happy, was content.

And to me, life appeared normal.

That was until um the 11th of December 1981.

I can remember that morning waking up, being wakened by my mother, as I thought of being violently sick.

So I got up and asked her, Was she okay?

And she assured me she was fine.

But I was very alarmed because I'd never witnessed this woman sick before.

Several times that day she asked me the question, would I miss her if anything ever happened to her?

So I gave the usual answers, a nine-year-old child would, and I paid no more attention to the question, but I was still very alarmed throughout that day.

As I say, school was closed, heavy snowfall, I had a bad cold, and dad was away to work.

We both sat down about four o'clock that evening waiting for my father to come home.

The B Doric stove was lit and the dinner was on.

And as we were watching TV, I heard a wee groan and her head slummed forward and she died in the chair sitting beside me.

I immediately got up and I started to sob and cry.

I didn't know what else to do.

But had no phone and I was too scared to stay in the house.

I knew my father wouldn't belong when he was home, but I was petrified.

I could not stay there, I didn't know what to do.

And I could remember running out and trying to run down our hill we lived on a steep hill, and I remember running on the compacted snow snow, but my wee legs were just getting bogged down.

I tried to run down the where the compacted tar track snow orbit was, but um, I remember sliding and falling.

I was going nowhere.

I just stood on that hillside on a cold winter's afternoon and I sobbed and I cried, hoping someone would come to my aid.

About what seemed like an eternity, ten months later, I viewed a Land Rover coming over the brow of the hill, and it was the neighbors.

And they found me in a very distressed and shivering state.

And they stayed with me until my father came home.

And my father did come home, and you can appreciate his shock and bewilderment when he came through the door and witnessed um this lady who was very much part of her life sitting dead on the chair.

The neighbors left.

And I can remember my father getting down on one knee, and he says, Sami, I have something to tell you.

He says, This woman that you knew or thought to be your mother is not your mother.

Or is not your uh mother, she's actually your grandmother.

Folks, I was absolutely shocked.

My father proceeded to tell me that I had a real mother and she lived only about five miles from our home.

My father and her were still together as a couple, they were still married, but I had never knew her, I had no, she had no part to play in my life from I was a little baby.

And he told me my mother would now be coming home to live with us.

I also found out I had a grandmother and an uncle on my mother's side that I didn't know about.

I always knew the sums didn't add up because this woman who I called my mother was 75, my father was 49, and I was nine years old.

But you had to get into the mindset of a very naive country child.

That's what I was told, and that's what I was led to believe.

And that was the pretense that was kept up within the community, from the school, from the church.

I just referred to her as my mother, and other people referred to her that way as well.

I think I kept thinking it was our little secret that my father was telling me, something that no one else knew.

And I remember sitting around the wake house that night and just trying to make sense of all the news that I had digested, and two women sitting beside me, and one said the other, Billy's wife Eva, would be coming up to the wake tonight.

And I remember thinking, How did this woman know about my mother?

And then it's it was a slow realization that probably everyone knew about this circumstance, but only myself.

Folks, my fat my my grandmother was buried on the Sunday and it was snowy, and we had to get home very quickly to her little rural cottage.

And I can remember my mother for the first time getting into the car with her little bag to come home and live with us.

Normally in those days, folks, it was traditional for people to come back to the house of the deceased for tea, but we knew we would have to get home very, very quickly, or we wouldn't get home at all with the snow.

Excuse me.

I remember sitting around the Doric stove that night and the power out and my father and my mother, this new woman and I.

It was actually quite surreal.

But it was a new chapter in our lives, and we were finally united as a family.

To give some degree of explanation how that situation evolved, I'm led to believe that from my father and my mother got together at the start, it was plagued with difficulties.

The two grandmothers on either side didn't approve of the relationship.

My father tried to bring my mother home to a one-bedroom cottage along with uh his mother.

It didn't work out.

And after several disputes, my mother left.

She wasn't coping very well.

And her mother on her side was an extremely difficult individual, albeit life difficult.

She took me back home as a baby.

My father went down one day and found me in a very distressed state, and he brought me home.

And my grandmother reared me as her own.

And I had no contact with my mother from then until now.

Folks, I was now plagued with new difficulties of anxiety, of insecurity, of fear.

Because of the trauma that I encountered with my grandmother, I felt that some of us were going to die.

If my mother had felt sick, or my daddy had felt sick, or I had felt unwell, I thought there's some of us going to die.

But you know, I was happy that my mother was my life.

Her and I were getting on so well, but I was still consumed by these anxieties and these fears and difficulties.

About four months later, um, it was Easter Monday, there was an apprentice boy parade on Roth Island, and my mother complained of feeling unwell.

As that week progressed, her condition deteriorated.

And on the Thursday evening, we went to the doctor.

My mother was sent back home, and we all went to bed that Thursday evening.

As I said, it was a small one bedroom cottage.

My mother and father's bed was on one side of the room, and my bed was on the other.

My father had fallen asleep, and I kept looking over at my mother.

And I noticed she lifted a wee basin to be sick, as if she was going to be sick.

I noticed she lifted a wee torch and the wee torch had fallen out of her hand onto the bed.

And in the darkened room, I could see the torch reflecting up into her face.

And she appeared to be unconscious.

I shouted over to her, was she okay?

She didn't respond.

And I was lying there in the dark room, absolutely so frightened.

I plucked the courage up to waken my daddy to say, I think there's something wrong with my mummy.

And my daddy woke up to find my mother unconscious.

We still had no phone, so my father says, Sammy, will you stay with your mother while I go for help?

I started to cry because I could not stay in my own in that house with my mother, which looked to be as if she was dying.

My father says, You're going to have to go for help.

And I can remember getting my wee grifter bicycle out of the barn and no lights, and I had to set off that night on the half-mile journey to the nearest neighbor's house to raise the alarm.

I did not know how I was going to get there because I was not prepared or equipped for that journey.

But I knew the situation was dire.

My mother needed help and she needed it urgently, and I eventually made it to the nearest neighbor's house to raise the alarm.

The emergency services arrived and took my mother to the Legging Valley Hospital in Lisburn.

And I can remember lying out in the back seat of a relative's car as he sat in the driver's seat.

And I can remember this wee nurse coming over to the car and rapping the window.

She didn't see me in the back seat lying down.

And I can remember her words to my relative were that I'm sorry to inform you that Mrs.

Heenan has just died.

My mother had died of her brain hemorrhage, is only 43 years old.

And I had only known her for four months of my life.

I can remember jumping up from the back seat and sobbing and crying, and I remember my words were I had lost another mummy.

Because that's how I reacted to the news that I had just heard.

My father came out and he consoled me and comforted me.

And eventually I was taken home that evening in the early hours of the morning.

I was absolutely distraught and devastated.

This new woman was in my life, and I she was gone after only knowing her for four months.

And the new start that we thought we were going to have slowly just disappeared so quickly.

My mother was buried, and it was my father and I on our own.

He adapted to the roles that were required to cook, to clean, and to provide for me as his only son.

Things were not easy.

And that my father still had to go to work.

I was nine years old in the summertime, and you know what?

You grew up very quickly and you stayed home alone.

And you learned to adapt and cook and do the things yourself to keep yourself entertained as an only child in such a rural environment in the middle of the summer.

I was now plagued with fears and anxieties once again because I thought if something happened to my daddy now, what would I do?

I remember nights, folks, just uh I couldn't stay in my own bed.

I was so scared, I slept with him.

And I remember nights waking up just to check, was he still breathing, to get that contentment and reassurance?

And then I went back over asleep.

There's nights where you're snowed in in the dark of the winter and looking out over the two-foot snowdrifts and thinking, if something happened to my daddy, what would I do?

Because we still did not have a phone.

I was plagued with these fears.

Around this time, I was becoming increasingly aware of the Northern Ireland troubles that were uh erupting around us.

I was aware of the tensions in the community at the time of the May's escape when 38 Provisional IRA terrorists absconded from the local prison.

And there was a fear that some of these individuals would make their way to the mountain for safe houses and safe passage to the Republic of Ireland.

Incidentally, four of those convicts were apprehended very, very close to our home.

I can remember the tensions in the community at the time of the hunger strike campaign, uh, where there was low levels of intimidation, and there was a great uncertainty for many people around Northern Ireland at that particular time.

But I was becoming interested, I was becoming aware.

My father was very much a staunch Protestant, very much a unionist, and a man who treasured his cultural beliefs, but he was a good neighbor and a good friend to everyone who knew him, very much respected in the local community.

I started Castlewell in High School in 1984.

I was now um becoming more confident.

I was shifting those anxieties to the back of my mind, was making new friends, and time was becoming a healer.

My father and I had a great relationship, and as a wee boy, all I ever wanted to do with him was join the local Accordian band of which he was a member.

And I can remember on the 12th of July 1982, being deemed ready after all the practice to be a drummer in this band.

And I ventured my wee drum.

And on the 12th of July 1982, my father and I standing together, and it was the happiest and the proudest moment of my life.

And I'm still a member of that accordion band to this day, only I have progressed to the bass drummer with his uh much more prestigious role and better paid, of course.

Um, but as I say, 1984 came and first year nearly over at high school, and life was getting good again.

That was until the 3rd of May 1985.

And I can remember lying in my bed that morning, the sun beating through the window, and my father coming down into the bedroom to say, Sammy, you lie on.

He says, because I'm going out to feed the small number of hens that we have just to supply a few eggs.

I immediately had fallen back asleep.

After I was awakened, I was wakened then by what I can only describe as a painful piercing yell on a gunshot.

I remember waking up and thinking my father was maybe out shooting crows.

I quickly discounted that theory when I looked a corner across in the corner of the room, and the Ziggly held firearms were still sitting vertically against the wall.

I got out of bed, crawled across the bed rather, and sat in the bedroom window of the small cottage looking out with my chin on my hands.

I rubbed away inside of the morning dew from the window.

I then heard what sounded like my father's car starting up, and I watched the car reverse round the front of the house.

And as I was looking out, folks, I was only about two metres from an individual driving my father's car, reversing my father's car away that I did not know.

And he had a wee tea cozy cap on him.

He had a duffel coat, and he was looking over his right shoulder, and it looked as if he was looking at me, but he was trying to make his escape.

And I watched my daddy's old Austin Allegro car driving down that road at speed until it was out of sight.

And at this stage I could feel a real sickness, a real fear and unease coming over me.

Something was not right.

I made my out of the home shouting for my daddy over and over again, hoping that he would come round the corner and give me some degree of explanation to what I had just heard of why his car was driven off by a stranger.

Instead, I noticed a pool of blood lying in the yard, and I noticed a small jug broken.

I followed the trail of blood round the side of the barn, and there I found my father lying murdered.

The image I encountered that morning as a 12-year-old child is something that I will never ever forget, and something that still haunts me very much to this day.

I stood and I sobbed in isolation in the middle of the country, not knowing what to do.

I fumbled with the bar the lock of the door to try to get my grip their bicycle out.

I could not find the keys.

I was crying that hard.

I actually had forgot that we only had the phone installed a few days.

I sat off on foot running down that hill again, hoping someone would come to my aid, but of course the roads were extremely quiet that time of the morning.

I eventually made it to a neighbour's house where the alarm was raised.

We ran back up to the house again in a panic, but by this stage, sadly, my father was already dead.

His death was instantaneous.

The South Down Command of the Provisional IRA claimed my father's murder, stating that he was an RUC, a local police reservist.

My father had no connection with the security forces, albeit his membership of the Uster Special Constabulary, uh some 15 years previous.

I later found out that the gunman was dropped off at our home.

His accomplice drove on and waited at the local uh Drumkira Forest Park about four miles away.

The gunman hid in an outside toilet and he waited for my father to come up to the top yard where he walked up behind him and he forced him to his knees and he shot him twice in the top of the head at point blank range before dragging his body away to conceal it at the side of the barn.

There were many anomalies in my father's murder that made it very unique within the context of the Northern Ireland troubles.

Terrorists in Northern Ireland never leave or get away to chance.

So how was that gunman so confident that morning of securing my father's card keys to make good his escape in my father's car?

Because if something had happened, his accomplice was already about four miles away and with no communication in those days, there was no mobile phones.

The gun that was used to murder my father was an old Webley revolver, likely come in at the First World War.

And there was no ammunition to suit the gun.

But the ammunition was actually homemade, improvised from an old shotgun cartridge to suit that particular weapon, which only increased the risk of malfunction.

No intelligence came in before the murder, which could have prevented the murder, but intelligence did come in after to say that two prominent local Republican suspects were identified at the house in the locality.

But the HCT report, which was commissioned by another investigation team, would not clarify uh the radius of that which would define locality.

But two of those suspects were um observed on the murder route later on that Thursday evening, the day before my father's murder.

Folks, there's a lot happening that morning in that I was absolutely distraught.

My minister arrived, my next of kin, which was cousins of my father, neighbors and friends, took me in and comforted me.

And I knew the situation was very serious, and that I had to identify or try to identify this individual who made his escape from my father's home.

I was provided with books of local Republicans, IRA activists, which I did not couldn't identify anyone of similar character in those books.

And I had to set about trying to compile a photo fit, which was extremely difficult, bearing in mind the trauma that I just had encountered.

And I did provide that photophit, but sadly it did not bring a successful uh prosecution.

In fact, no one has ever been made amenable or faced due process in relation to my father's murder.

It was a very difficult period in my life as a 12-year-old boy.

And sadly, the grandmother and the uncle on my mother's side that I had only known for four months stopped speaking to my father shortly after my mother's death.

And never made any communication with me that weekend.

Folks, I had to make a decision at that point in my life where I was going to live.

And I opted for the local town of Castlewellham where my cousins were.

And that was where I had attended school.

My father's funeral was one of the largest ever witnessed in the locality, such as the revulsion that was generated by his murder.

There were people from both sides of the came in and absolutely horrified of the actions of the Provisional IRA.

A situation replicated right across Northern Ireland.

At that point, I had to make a decision, even at a young age.

I was aware of the community focus around me.

And I was never going to do anything.

It was going to bring discredit or disrespect to my parents or give the provisional IRA justification for taking my father's life.

I was always brought up faithfully to go to church.

I could have taken church or I could have left church.

But my church was very, very good to me and provided me with immense pastoral support, in particular the minister, the Church of Ireland minister, the Reverend Robert Jones.

I found myself then at 13 as a recipient of a Child of Courage Award, which was presented to me by Princess, the late Princess Diana at Westminster Abbey.

I found myself as we boy on a six-week trip to Mariga to take us out of the troubles, which I found was great comfort.

And I have met up with a family that took me there only recently a number of years back.

Folks, we soon developed, or I intended, didn't intend to, but I soon developed into the ways of the world.

In Bond Bridge.

But folks, one night sitting in that nightclub, I did not appreciate folks.

I was going there for a social occasion, and that night God spoke to me.

And when I say God spoke to me, I mean I was troubled the whole night, the entire night, thinking about things, the things of God.

I couldn't get the things of God out of my mind that night.

And at 16, all I wanted to do was follow in my father's footsteps and join the Orange Institution.

And little did I realize my membership of that organization, the spiritual impact it was going to have upon my life.

And I say to you, as I say to everyone else, one of the proudest things that I am today is an orange man.

And I know in certain quarters of the Christian community, those little words are not, can sometimes cannot appreciate.

And when I hear of even churches in our own land refusing to facilitate acts of worship, it saddens me.

Because here is a lost opportunity to witness the men of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

It says a lot about the prejudice and it says a lot about the ignorance of many of those people who refused to facilitate those services.

A battle then commenced in my life at that particular time, whereby the God was speaking to me.

I was under conviction of sin.

At times, and other times, folks, I was back into the ways of the world, playing in the local pub pool team, drinking, and just being a young teenager.

But folks, as the years progressed till it was 19, these thoughts intensified.

It was nights I tossed and I turned in my bed.

Couldn't get the things of God out of my mind.

I met Julie.

Julie was only a young girl of 15, and I was now 20.

And Julie and I started to go out.

And after four months going out with Julie, I couldn't resist it any longer, folks.

And I surrendered my life all night in the stillness and the solemnity of my bedroom.

And I trusted Jesus Christ and accepted him as the Lord and Savior of my life in 1993.

Julie and I um became engaged.

We got married when I was 25, and Julie was 20.

And it was the happiest moment of my life to get a family of my own back again.

It was mistakes made in my life growing up by my parents and by those that love me.

But I harbor no grudges because what happened happened.

And all I could do was make sure that I was going to be the best husband to my young wife.

Our two children came along, Ellie first and Katie.

And I had a family, two children who I adored.

And all I wanted to be was the best father to them and be an example to their young lives.

I continued on, folks, just going to church, not doing an awful lot for the Lord.

To one night, I was asked at a victim service, would I share my story?

And it was one of those questions when the person asked you, just wish, why did you ask that?

Because I thought, how am I going to do that?

How am I going to put this story into words?

Am I capable?

Am I fit to do it?

What context am I going to word it?

But folks, I looked at the way the Lord brought me through those dark valleys, brought me through the trials and tribulations as a young boy, guided me and protected me and kept me free from the malignant forces which were so susceptible to my life at that particular time.

I had to give him the glory as he gave me the protection.

And folks, I shared my story that night in First or Friday and Presbyterian Church, and I've shared it many times, and the Lord has blessed me ever since.

Folks, I have to say that I do not share my story in the detail that I do for any form of sympathy or any form of sensationalism.

I sit in front of you this evening as simply a sinner saved by the grace of Almighty God.

I make mistakes every day, I fall every day, but the Lord is there to pick me up as we lay our troubles before Him.

And the one question that I am frequently asked as a Christian who come through great trauma is the troubles, and that is, can I forgive?

And I am a very forgiving person by nature, but I cannot forgive the people who murdered my father.

Because these people have shown me no remorse, no repentance, or no restitution for their evil deeds.

My forgiveness means nothing to them.

In order for my sins to have been forgiven, I had to repent and lay them at the foot of the old rugged cross.

And folks, I the Lord did forgive me.

But folks, it is troubling for us as victims of Northern Ireland when we see the revisionism that is taking place within the context of the Northern Ireland troubles, it's like a scab that never gets a chance to heal because the perpetrators of evil are constantly revising, rewriting, and re-traumatizing the innocent victims of Northern Ireland.

And all I ask people to do is to please appreciate and understand from our position, even as a Christian, it is very difficult to watch that on the news and the radio bulletins.

We are not getting the chance to move on for healing and remembering.

We asked the question this evening, within the context of Northern Ireland again, why did so many bad things happen?

Why were Protestant people evicted from their land right from Muri, right around the border to Londonderry?

Why were they driven off their land and murdered and bombed?

Why did that happen?

And we asked ourselves equally, why were innocent Roman Catholic people in Belfast bundled into taxis at times from a uh a wicked and vile gang and tortured because they were Roman Catholics?

Why did that happen?

Why did neighbor rise up against neighbor?

We look at mainland UK, look at the troubles that you people are now facing in terms of gang culture, in terms of immorality, in terms of uh a degeneration in our society.

And what happens in Britain is happening right across our world, where life is devalued, where there is sin and where there is crime.

And we do ask that question why does these things happen?

And I touched on it with one word, and that word is sin.

And the Bible says, Behold, I was shapen in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me.

Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin, so death passed upon all men, for all have sinned.

And if we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.

The Bible is abundantly clear about the sin and iniquity of our world, and it is happening now, it's becoming much more prevalent because we're in the last days when perilous times will come.

I believe we are in the last of the last days as a Christian, because you only have to look across our world what is happening with the warped and sinful laws and the wokeness that is now engulfing our world where wrong has become right, and Christians are now facing trials and tribulations, even in our great United Kingdom.

We have a way out because the Bible also talks about peace.

We hear much talk about peace because people desire peace in our world and they desire peace in their own lives, and the Bible says, Therefore, being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.

And I asked the question today to you, as I asked in any meeting that I take, what are you going to do with the Savior if you already haven't accepted him as Lord of your life?

Because on that middle tree at Calvary, the Lord Jesus Christ bled and died, for the whosoever will call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.

We're still in the day of grace and the day of opportunity.

The Lord conquered death, hell, and sin on that middle tree at Calvary.

The Bible says it is appointed on to man once to die, and after that the judgment, and that is folks, our eternal destiny will either be heaven or there'll be hell.

There's no in-between, there's no halfway house, and that is why the Bible says, Behold, now is the accepted time.

Behold, now is the day of salvation.

Because as individuals, we do not know what a day brings forth, we don't know what an hour brings forth.

Such is the fragility of life because we are only passing through, and we have to make our calling an election sure.

The Bible says, prepare to meet thy God.

My father went out that morning as a 51-year-old man.

He did not know that there was a terrorist lurking in the midst to take his life.

He did not know that he would never see his only child again.

When my mother went to bed that night, she did not realize her feet were never going to touch the floor of our home again.

We do not take a chance as individuals with our physical health.

So why do we pay such disregard to our spiritual health?

Folks, people make all forms of excuses.

It's not for me.

I couldn't keep it, I'll do it tomorrow.

But tomorrow may never come.

Folks, scripture affords us, it shows us the way.

Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life.

And no man comes to the Father except through him.

The wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Martin Luther revealed the scriptures as we come through the dark ages of time.

He was enlightened.

God anointed him.

God blessed him.

And we today cannot appreciate the stand and the pressure that he must have been under to conform to the idolatry of the Roman church at that time.

But he took a stand and he led a fire across Europe.

And he led a fire across the world.

It inspired men to take their stand for the gospel of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

And it's right that we take our stand today in the United Kingdom to stand up for the values of Lutherans, Zwingli, and Huss and Calvin and Knox and all those godly reformers.

And that is why you good people are taking your stand in Liverpool today.

Folks, thank you for listening.

Thank you for taking the time.

Thank you for all you do.

Thank you for Ian.

And I pray the Lord continues to bless him and the work that he does to extol the values of Reform Protestantism and the merits of accepting Jesus Christ as the Lord and Savior of all our lives.

I thank you for listening.

Thank you.