A Catholic community of more than 1,100 people on the Mayo/Galway border will make history next year by attending religious ceremonies in a local Church of Ireland chapel.
For about seven months of 2001, all Catholic Masses in the parish of Cong will be celebrated in St Mary's Church of Ireland, which was built by Sir Benjamin Guinness in 1855.
Catholic marriages will be performed, children will be baptised and funeral ceremonies conducted in the historic, stone-cut Protestant chapel, which is on the perimeter of the Ashford Castle estate.
Use of St Mary's has been offered by the Church of Ireland community to their Catholic neighbours, who are about to embark on a £600,000 restoration programme of the Church of St Mary of the Rosary.
The arrangement is unusual but nobody is making a fuss. A sign, perhaps, of the cordial ecumenical relations that have long existed between the two communities.
Mr Paul Johnston, secretary of the local Church of Ireland vestry said: "We are happy to share our facilities and accommodate our neighbours and friends in the Catholic Church. They need a place to worship while their own church is being reconstructed and rebuilt." The parish priest of Cong, Father Colm Kilcoyne, said the refurbishment was needed because the church's asbestos exterior was deteriorating. There was also a need to reroof the building and reface part of it in stone.
"While all this is being done we will need a place to go and the Church of Ireland has very generously offered us the use of their facilities," he added.
"While what is being done is unusual, I am sure it is not unique in Ireland. It shows the good relationship between the two churches locally." St Mary's Church of Ireland in Cong covers a wide area, across the mountains to Leenane and south to Headford on the eastern shore of Lough Corrib. There are about 75 Church of Ireland families in the district.
By comparison, the Catholic population of the area is large, with about 300 families in Cong parish alone.
The church, whose exterior featured in The Quiet Man film during a scene with John Wayne and Maureen O'Hara, is about half the size of the local Catholic church, so the Catholic clergy will need to provide extra Masses at weekends. Masses and the Sunday Church of Ireland service will not clash. Catholics in the Cong area are looking forward to the transfer. "It will be nice to be in the Church of Ireland chapel and it will be nice to get back," Father Kilcoyne said.
"With the help of God, we will be back in our own church in September or October."