Service of Thanksgiving to mark 80th anniversary of VE Day

Monday April 21st 2025

A special Service of Thanksgiving in St Anne’s Cathedral, Belfast, on Sunday May 4 will launch the VE (Victory in Europe) Day 80th anniversary commemorations in the city and across Northern Ireland.

The service, which gets underway at 3.30pm, is open to all, with the Dean of Belfast, the Very Rev Stephen Forde, encouraging those who have memories of VE Day, May 8 1945, to attend, and anyone with relatives who served during World War Two to wear the medals of their loved one.

The service is organised by the Cathedral in partnership with HM Lord Lieutenant of the County Borough of Belfast, Dame Fionnuala Jay-O’Boyle, DBE DStJ DDL, and Northern Ireland War Memorial.

Many organisations that were involved both on the Home Front and at the Front in the war in Europe will be represented and participate in the service. The preacher will be the Rev Dr John Alderdice, President of the Methodist Church in Ireland.

Before the service gets underway, the Band of the Royal Irish Regiment will play music from the 1940s. At the commencement of the service, the Standards or the Navy, Army and Royal Air Force will be paraded and presented to the Dean. Candles of peace and items from the war period will be presented by representatives of youth organisations and the Forces Cadets.

A particularly poignant part of the service will be the sharing of ‘Voices from the Second World War,’ a re-enactment performed as part of the Northern Ireland War Memorial Museum’s oral history project.

“For the Cathedral that survived the Blitz, the 80th anniversary of VE Day is tremendously important as we launch the VE Day Week of Celebrations across the City of Belfast and the province,” Dean Forde said.

“We invite those who lived through the war years or have their own memories to join us to mark eight decades of peace that was won by the sacrifice of those who fought and died in faraway places.

“We will also be remembering those whose work across the province was so important to the war effort. We invite those who have the medals of family members to join us on the day and to wear those medals with pride and thanksgiving for what a previous generation gave for us.”

The service will be recorded to be aired on BBC Radio Ulster on Sunday May 11 at 9.03am.