You could easily miss St Iberius Church altogether. You have to crane up to see the church's old black and gilt clock. Once you've stopped however, you can't help but be impressed by the blue and terracotta bricks over the windows and the neat Victorian porchway.

That's nothing to what you'll find if you give yourself the time to go inside. "It's a unique building: a jewel," says Canon Norman Ruddock, ushering me through doors that shimmer with lovely old stained glass. Instead of the usual gloomy church interior, we are greeted by a charming, compact interior which lets in plenty of light through three large windows on the back wall above the altar, one of which is a blaze of stained glass. The shape of the interior is a spreading rectangle, long at the sides, with a gallery above. "It looks like a Roman courthouse," notes Ruddock, explaining that Emperor Constantine gave the Christians in Rome a present of a courthouse which would serve as a church. Other churches were later modelled on this design. But there are Georgian features too. The altar with its Doric columns is topped by delicate plasterwork, figuring urns and lyres. Ruddock points out the latter, a very appropriate symbol for the church given its role as a key venue for the Wexford Opera Festival's recitals for the last four years. This year it will host 10 lunchtime concerts and two daytime concerts with the Prague Chamber Choir on the two Saturdays of the festival.

Thanks to Norman Ruddock's pioneering work since he came to the parish five years ago, the church is now open to the public every day with guide John Bayley ready to show visitors around. Ruddock has promoted the church as a venue for many musical events throughout the year: "I saw it as a way of opening the building to the community," he explains. "When I first came here, the church was locked all the time. Now it's very much at the heart of town life. I wanted to make the church a place for the whole of life, not just for worship." To one side of the altar stands a Kawai grand piano, ready for service. "This was won by a Russian pianist who was taking part in a competition in Ireland. He couldn't afford to bring it back to Russia so he sold it to us," explains Ruddock. He recalls with satisfaction how the piano became a permanent resident: "Wexford Festival Opera and Music for Wexford had a concert in the Theatre Royal to raise the money to buy it. We had John O'Conor for its inauguration in 1996. Luckily for us, it has stayed here ever since." We return to the history of the church. John Bayley notes that Oscar Wilde's grandparents were married here in 1809. Wilde's great-grandfather, Archdeacon John Elgee, was the rector at the time, and ministered to those who were being hanged on Wexford Bridge in 1798, including the United Irishman, Bagenal Harvey.

For the ancient origins of the church, Ruddock pulls out his book, a history of St Iberius. It reads: "The Church of St Iberius was built on the ancient Christian site of St Ibar to serve the Church of Ireland community in Wexford. St Iberius is the Latin form of the name which is derived from the Irish word for yew tree. St Ibar was the first missionary to bring Christianity to this part of Ireland. He built an oratory on the site of the present church." Construction of the present church started in 1660, but it was "Georgianised" in the 1760s by architect John Roberts (who designed Waterford Cathedral). Charles Huson, rector of St Iberius's at the time, is buried in the graveyard at the back of the church. His is one of only three graves there: "We want to make it into a Garden of Remembrance," says Canon Ruddock, "in memory of those who have died through violence in Ireland".

We go up the wooden stairs to the gallery, where John has been stripping paint from the organ, which was installed in 1890. Up here, the interlocking wooden pews have names affixed to them: Jacob, Colclough, Meadows, Doran. All old Wexford names: "In the early days the moneyed families paid pew rent for these seats," says Norman.

ALL around the gallery walls hang marble memorials to members of these old Protestant families. "Some of them came with the Cromwellian plantations, others are old Irish families," Norman explains. Loyalties were not all alike. There are three memorials to the Hatton family, one of whom, William, a member of the United Irishmen, was on the Committee of Public Safety during the United Irishmen's brief Wexford Republic. There is also a memorial to Charles Vallotton, who was a major in the army and was killed in a skirmish in 1793 when a protest against paying enforced tithes to the Anglican church turned violent.

Restoration work began in the church in 1992, thanks to grants from the Heritage Council and other bodies, as well as local businesses. The cost has been about £500,000, but the debt has been whittled down to £30,000.

Even before its restoration, however, the church was playing a part in fostering an ecumenical atmosphere in the town: "You see those candlesticks on the Wexford oak altar table?" says Norman. "They were donated by the Franciscans and the people of the Friary, because between 1989 and 1990 they used this church for Mass when the Friary was being restored. There is a tremendous ecumenical spirit in Wexford."