Hundreds of people from the north-west have visited the seventh son of a seventh son hoping to have illnesses cured. Roisín Ingle went to Donegal to speak to Michael Curran and the patients who call to him
Ever since he went public with his gift, there has been a constant stream of sick people knocking on the door of Michael Curran's rented cottage in Coolboy, just a few miles outside Letterkenny in Co Donegal.
Visitors veer left off the narrow road when they see the home-made sign outside which reads "Faith Healer". Most evenings the small car-park beside the cottage is full.
Mr Curran is the seventh son of a seventh son. He has "the cure", he tells you. He got "the cure" from God, and this means he has healing hands which, when laid on the sick, can work miracles.
While she waits for her turn, first time visitor Rose talks about hope. The 69-year-old from Letterkenny was recently diagnosed with lung cancer and has come to see what Mr Curran can do for her.
"He can buy you a bit of hope, I suppose," says Rose. "And that can't be a bad thing."
Ms Geraldine Crickard from Belfast says that before she met Mr Curran she suffered from the debilitating bacterial infection cellulitis. "I had sores on my legs that you could put your fingers in and they have healed over. I used to have to cover them in three layers of bandages. I feel so much better. I can't say enough for Michael," she says.
There is nothing remarkable about Mr Curran to suggest either a miracle worker or a quack. He wears a jumper and slacks. He makes no proud boasts and seems to marvel himself at the power in his healing hands.
"I just lay my hands on them and I feel heat where there is an injury or a pain. I don't know how it happens, it just does. It's a gift from God," he says.
It's only in the last five years that he has begun to use his gift. The first cure he delivered was on a horse. "My mother always told me I had the gift. But I didn't start to use it until she died," he says.
He lists the ailments he has cured: skin rashes, arthritis, acne. He also claims to have helped young people with drug problems.
If some are sceptical, others are convinced that Mr Curran can do things doctors can't.
Ms Mary Livingstone has travelled from Castlederg, Co Tyrone, with her daughter Rebecca (42), who is physically handicapped. Rebecca also suffers with epilepsy, or she did before Mr Curran laid his hands on her.
"She doesn't have it any more," says her mother. "She was really sick, but Michael put his hands on her and it stopped."
Mary's own problems stem from bad circulation. "I've cold feet and cold hands. I went out to the healer, and the next day I felt lovely and warm," she says.
Before they leave the room, Mary takes a note from her purse, folds it into an envelope and places it in a small wooden box in the corner of the room.
Donations are voluntary. Mr Curran says he pays tax on the donations, but doesn't make much money. "I have to pay rent and the upkeep on this place. It's not about the money."
He holds clinics every day from 4 p.m. to 9 p.m. in a room with deep pink walls. They are nice and colourful, says Mr Curran, and "good for the healing".
There are pictures of Jesus and Mary everywhere, and a table laden with religious paraphernalia. A string of rosary beads and a vial of holy water sit alongside a sturdy wooden crucifix.
There are also letters and photographs. The letters request his prayers for sick children, adults and even animals, or thank him for the long-distance healing he has apparently done simply by talking to people on the phone.
When a patient comes in he asks them how they are, and then moves his hands around them until he finds the pain.
"Your knees are hurting," he tells one woman.
"No," she says.
"They are," he says.
"No, it's my foot," she replies.
He puts his hand on her head and rests his own head on hers saying indecipherable prayers while the woman looks slightly embarrassed and clutches a crucifix offered by Mr Curran tighter in her fist.
"Now, you do know that you will get worse before you get better?" he tells her.
This is what he tells everyone who comes to see him. "That's the cure getting into the pain and fighting it. You will get worse, and then you will get better."
Ms Lena Neely from Letterkenny is on her third visit and is already experiencing an improvement with her arthritis.
"I am a religious person, and I always will be. I believe in him," she says, before telling Mr Curran that she was in agony last week.
"That's the cure working," he tells her. "Now you are a different woman."
"Are you sure about that?" she asks.
"I am, aye," says Mr Curran.
"Good man," she says, popping a donation in the wooden box.
Mr Curran used to work in a bakery and led an ordinary life until he began administering "the cure".
"I never get any bad luck or bad health," he says.
He is engaged now after years of looking after his mother who died six years ago. His wife-to-be is a 22-year-old who works in a factory and has, says Mr Curran, "a strong interest and belief in the cure".
There are still people waiting to see him when I leave. Sometimes he stays with people who come to him until 11 p.m.
I phone Rose a few weeks later to see how she is getting on. Since visiting Mr Curran she has been for radiation for her lung cancer at St Luke's Hospital in Dublin, and received medical treatment to strengthen her bones.
She explains why, after a second appointment with Mr Curran, she didn't go back for a third. "I sort of thought, well, this is a lot of nonsense, to be honest.
"Who made the rules that he lays down? Who says you have to go back three times?
"Was it God who told him? I went to see a priest, and he said nothing about having to visit him three times. I don't feel it's right for me. Others would condemn me for saying that, but it's my feeling."
She heard about the healer from a neighbour who had a brother-in-law with psoriasis that he claims cleared up after a visit to Mr Curran. "So maybe it worked for them but just doesn't work for me," she says.
The other day someone called to her door with a bottle of Willow Spring Water from a well in England which is reputed to have healing powers.
"You are supposed to take three glasses a day. Three. There must be something about that number or maybe they just want to sell more water."
She says she is drinking the water, and at least all this stuff about healers and magic water proves that her friends and family are determined to get her cured "by hook or by crook".
But really she knows that hope can't be bottled. She is sticking to more traditional methods from now on.
"I think I will leave it to God now, Him and the medical profession," Rose says.