The summer people preparing to leave their holiday homes for another year in Rossnowlagh, Co Donegal, are packing up with a heavier heart than usual. For many who own or rent holiday homes in the area a magnet which drew them was the tranquillity of the Franciscan friary.
Each year they swell attendances up to ten-fold from July to September at Mass and other services in the church.
This year they have learned that its future is uncertain. The friary is one of six which faces closure by the Franciscan Order within five years.
At Rossnowlagh they're praying fervently for something to save the friary.
Locals and tourists alike say they dread the idea of an end to the Franciscan link to the area. It stretches back to 1946 when the order first celebrated Mass there in a tiny church built from two wartime Nissan huts.
Six years later came the opening of the big, airy church which now stands sentinel above Rossnowlagh's golden beach facing the Atlantic. Even before that day the man who was to become the public face of the Franciscans in Rossnowlagh for more than half a century was already making his mark as the order's local Mr Fixit.
Brother Paschal, now aged 83, and almost as sprightly as when he was a full-time professional Irish dance teacher in his youth, was still a layman and contemplating a change in direction after a battle with pleurisy when fate - or the servants of St Francis - took a hand.
The monk, who was born Sean Williamson, had befriended the first Franciscan priests in Rossnowlagh. They used to visit him at his cottage a mile from their tiny church. One day, when preparing for a special service, they spotted an organ in Mr Williamson's living room. He was recruited to play at the service. That meant bringing his organ as well since they didn't have their own.
"They got a donkey and cart to carry the organ down," says Brother Paschal.
Soon afterwards Sean agreed to be received into the Third Order of St Francis - a lay movement dedicated to voluntary work for the Franciscans.
So started a lifetime in the service of the order. He had found the new future he was looking for during his two years in hospital in Castlerea, Co Roscommon, recovering from pleurisy.
Mr Williamson's talents were music and organisation. He set about raising funds for the planned new church. That involved organising dramas, ceilidh, dances, and concerts - as well as, in later years, an annual week-long bazaar. He's reckoned to have raised millions of euro over the years.
In 1958, six years after the opening of the modern friary, Mr Williamson became Brother Paschal. "I felt I could make a greater contribution as a brother than as a priest," he says. "Besides, I didn't have the third level education required to be a priest although I could perhaps have done all that later had I wished to be a friar."
The fund-raising continued. As the numbers of visitors to Rossnowlagh rapidly increased - especially from the North where every year the July 12th heralded an exodus of nationalists to the Republic for summer holidays - the monk opened a religious goods shop which is now sited close to the church entrance.
He also found time to pursue a hobby breeding pedigree cattle. That started when he bought from a Protestant friend an Aberdeen Angus heifer for £68.
"She was the luckiest animal I ever had," says Brother Paschal. "I had her for 19 years and bred 10 or 12 champion bulls from her."
He laughs when he recounts selling one at a show in Carrick-on-Shannon in 1982. "It was a year-old bull called Roose Paschal. Suddenly the bull knelt down in the middle of the ring and everything went quiet. I was in mufti, standing with the rope in my hands and wondering what was I going to do with the bull down on his knees."
The auctioneer, who knew him, came to the rescue. Brother Paschal recalls: "He shouted out: 'Look at that, gentlemen, Mr Williamson even taught the bull how to pray'. With that, the poor bull jumped up and off we went around the ring again."
The animal was bought for an amazing £2,700 by a Scots farmer. Eight months later it was entered for the prestige Perth Show in Scotland with a big chance of winning and the new owner came to Ireland looking for the breeder whom he knew only as Sean Williamson.
Only when he arrived at Rossnowlagh did he discover he had bought the bull from a Franciscan monk. Brother Paschal was invited to Perth as the new owner's guest at the show. There, Roose Paschal was acclaimed Supreme Champion.
Among those who joined the applause was the British Queen Mother - eight of her animals were among those beaten.
Brother Paschal is now retired, although he still helps out in the sacristy, and occasionally as church organist. He also still organises the ceilidh.
He also prays often that Rossnowlagh will remain a church.He's convinced the friary will always be a place of worship. "Something is going to save it," he says. "There will be a presence here, even if it's only one man."