Villierstown on the River Blackwater in west Waterford is not just uniquely pretty. It's unique in origin as well . It was designed and purpose-built by John Villiers who populated it about 250 years ago with a group of linen weavers from Lurgan, Co Armagh, who wanted to establish a linen-weaving industry on his adjacent estate, Dromana.
The weavers were Anglicans and he built them a church in the Queen Anne style. But the linen-weaving industry did not survive the Famine, and eventually the original families of Protestant workers either returned to the North, emigrated or lost their identity through intermarriage with local families.
From then on the people of Villierstown earned their livelihood mainly from working on the Dromana Estate and from the thriving salmon fisheries on the Blackwater.
Now the tiny village community is trying to raise funds to complete the job of restoring the former Anglican church as a community centre and place of ecumenical worship. Some work has already been carried out, thanks to grant aid from the Department of the Environment and Waterford County Council. It's a project perfectly in tune with the climate surrounding the Northern Ireland referendum of May 22nd.
The descendants of the Dromana estate family turned the church over to a community Trust in this century. In 1974 it was visited by the late President Erskine Childers and dedicated for ecumenical use to kindle the spirit of reconciliation.
For a while it was used in turn for Catholic and Protestant religious services, and the entire community, of both denominations, attended.
But the roof of the cruciform church became unstable and the community - numbering less than 300 - has been engaged in recent years in a prolonged struggle to finance its restoration.
"It's an uphill struggle in a small village," says James Villiers Stuart, the present incumbent of Dromana House. The economic base of the locality and its community has declined, with the fragmentation of the estate and the deterioration of the once lucrative salmon fishing.
Sixteen men from the village were employed six months of the year on the estate's salmon fishery on a share basis. The Department of Forestry acquired and planted the estate, but the tree planting finished around the same time as the salmon became scarce, and employment fell away.
Dromana is built above the remnants of an old Norman castle, a major stronghold of the Desmonds which was fought over time and again in the 17th century. And it was near Villierstown that Katherine, Countess of Desmond, is said to have met her death at the age of 140 by falling from a cherry tree. Sir Walter Raleigh was partly responsible because he had brought the tree from the Canary Islands and domesticated it here.
In recent years the village church has provided a venue for many local activities, from dancing classes to concerts and lectures.
It has a mobile stage, excellent facilities - and can seat 250.
Limited grants are available from different sources for the conservation work, and for village renewal, but they require matching funds to be raised within the community - a difficult task while the church itself cannot be used for public events.
Elizabeth Hall, chairperson of the trustees, points out that it could be an important regional venue for cultural events, drawing audiences from the many surrounding west Waterford towns and villages.
But her husband, Des, points to the Catch 22 situation besetting the small community: "We can't organise fund-raising functions in it until its roof is done, and we can't do the roof until we have the functions."
Meanwhile, Villierstown remains a quiet, old-world haven, a regular Tidy Towns prize-winner that impresses visitors with its unique 18th century architectural style and charm but offers little or nothing in the way of cafes, crafts outlets or cultural facilities to hold them there.