The Flying Angel ~ Bronze and Stainless Steel
Artist ~ Maurice Harron

The Flying Angel, outside modern Seafarers’ Centre at Prince’s Dock Street in Belfast.

The Flying Angel is a worldwide symbol of the Seafarers Mission set up in the 19th century by Anglican clergy to provide shelter for sailors coming off long sea journeys. The Angel, as a protective force, is in the act of calming the waves.

“Then I saw another angel flying high in the air,
With an eternal message of good news to announce
To the peoples of the earth, to every race, tribe,
Language and nation”
~ Revelation 14 v16

The Mission to Seafarers in Belfast, is one of many centres based in over 250 seaports across the world. They are there to provide help, support and advice for the world’s 1.2 million seafarers of all ranks, nationalities and beliefs.

Flying Angel centres offer food and drink, television, books and a place to relax away from your ship. They also provide free wifi internet for Skype calls, as well as phone connections. If one of the seafarers just needs someone to talk to about worries or problems, then chaplains or staff will be happy to sit and listen.

In many ports transport can be arranged to take seafarers to the nearest town for shopping and sightseeing, so that you can make the most of your time ashore.

The original The Mission to Seafarers church, now derelict.

A close up of that plaque.

Maurice Harron was born in 1946 in Derry and studied sculpture at the Ulster College of Art and Design in Belfast.

Much of his work is in the public realm; two of his most acclaimed commissions are Reconciliation/Hands Across the Divide in Carlisle Square, Derry, overlooking the Craigavon Bridge crossing the River Foyle, and the Gaelic Chieftain sited in the Curlew Mountains, County Roscommon.