While the debate on women priests in the Roman Catholic church rages on, married Church of Ireland rectors Katharine and Ian Poulton balance running two parishes and raising their two children with remarkable ease.

The Poultons' home is a bungalow with a large garden, across the road from Ian's church, St Matthias in Ballybrack/Killiney. Like many modern parents, they share the job of supervising homework, ferrying children to music lessons and endlessly swooping up toys from the kitchen floor.

Katharine divides her time between her city centre parish of St George and St Thomas and chaplaincy of Mountjoy Prison and the Mater and Temple Street hospital.

As the first woman priest in this country, Katherine's ordination 14 years ago in Bangor, Co Down created a stir.

"Being the first, I had to deal with all the new issues like maternity leave. Generally, people were very positive. I had a very good network of supporters at the time - a group called 'Concerned Clergy', which later fizzled out."

The family decided to move south of the Border two years ago because, according to Ian, his parishioners were "fighting all the time" and he despaired at their inability to get on with their Roman Catholic neighbours.

An immediate dilemma when Katharine was ordained was the obligation on Church of Ireland rectors to live in the rectory attached to the parish. They decided from the beginning that they would always live in Ian's parish and that Katharine would commute.

Katharine worked in Bangor for four years, then moved to Seagoe parish in Portadown for the next five. Because home was in Downpatrick, she had a long drive to work each day.

With another Drumcree confrontation in the offing and Portadown bracing itself for trouble, Katharine and Ian are delighted to be away from the conflict. "Portadown is a divided place - even more so now. A lot of people tried to build bridges which collapsed."

At St George and St Thomas's church on Cathal Brugha Street, Katharine is a "bishop's curate", so the rectory on Drumcondra Road can be let to another parish and she can live in Killiney with the family.

Her visits to the hospitals and Mountjoy prison are a refreshing change from the humdrum of day-to-day parish work, she says.

"The prison work is very different. There aren't the same hang-ups because people in prison - especially the women - come from so many backgrounds. A couple of the African girls sing at the services. They're not all talking about prayer or hymn books and you can actually go in there and feel useful. I chat to them and all the boundaries are broken down - it's not like outside.

"Some of the prisoners don't know what to call me - they don't know whether I'm father, sister or mother. I just say 'call me Katharine'," she laughs.

The bungalow - comfortable and filled with family paraphenalia like any other suburban home - is the operating centre of Ian's Killiney parish. Meetings are held in the sittingroom and adjoining office at the front, while children Miriam and Michael play and do homework in the kitchen and conservatory to the rear.

"We have a great childminder who does the ironing and, as Ian has his meetings in the house, he can babysit if I'm called out in an emergency."

Being a married priest is no disadvantage, insists Katharine, adding that some of her colleagues were discriminated against because they weren't married.

The duties which traditionally fall to a rector's wife, such as running the Women's Union, are not her responsibility, she says. "I have never done it. After all, there has never been an expectation that Ian would do my work," she points out. "I don't get bunches of flowers either," retorts Ian.

It's not "all work and no play" for the busy rector and mother of two.

"Some people who don't know me are cautious because I'm a priest, but I just let things wash over me - I don't take offence. I had a great 'girly' night out last week. I'll be 40 in a couple of weeks and some of the girls took me out for a very nice meal.

"There was a conference last year to celebrate 10 years of women priests. Because I was the first, I've always shied away from pressure groups. I think the way women have approached the job is to be very practical and, because of that, people have come to respect us."

"In biblical times women had a very lowly position - life wasn't easy for them. Women weren't seen as among the disciples, but they were always there in the background.

"Being a minister is a very lonely thing. We're there at the hatching, matching and dispatching - the rites of passage that people go through. We're outsiders, yet we're trying to hold the entire thing together and make it meaningful. I'm very happy being a parish priest and working with people. I like the connection.

"People are more laid-back here, though that's changing. At first I was the only woman priest in the diocese, but there are quite a number in Dublin now. We're just a hundred miles down the road and we've never regretted moving here for a minute."