The ordination into the priesthood yesterday of a 67-year-old English woman represented "history in the making", dissident Bishop Pat Buckley has said.
In his first such ceremony since becoming a bishop last May, he ordained Mother Francis Meigh, a mother of three, at St Andrew's Church in the Co Louth village of Omeath.
Watched by her daughter, Melanie, and a congregation of around 150, Mother Meigh entered the church at 3 p.m. dressed in white robes and a black habit.
She left the recently renovated church just under two hours later as a newly ordained priest. According to a spokesman for the Catholic Press and Information Office, her status is not recognised as valid by the Catholic Church.
The ceremony differed little from the traditional ordination ceremonies of male religious. Mother Meigh, who has lived as a hermit in north Yorkshire for the past 10 years, was prostrate for some of the service. Later Bishop Buckley laid hands on her and consecrated her as a priest.
In his homily, Bishop Buckley said Mother Meigh was "a practical modern saint . . . an outstanding candidate for the priesthood.
"In a few moments we will ordain Sister Frances Meigh the first known Roman Catholic woman priest in this part of the world. What we are doing and witnessing today will be written and talked of by church historians for decades and centuries to come," he said.
"Frances Meigh is a thousand times more spiritual than I am and a million times more worthy to be a priest," he added, saying that gender was an irrelevant issue when it came to ordination.
After her ordination, Mother Meigh described the event as "the most momentous day of my entire life".
Bishop Buckley had made a tremendous leap of prophetic faith, she said. "I will never be able to describe the joy I feel . . . it is forever written in my heart," she added to a sustained round of applause.
Her daughter, Ms Melanie Meigh, who had travelled from England for the ceremony, said she was "delighted" for her mother. As she gave them Communion after her ordination members of the congregation said: "Congratulations Mother Frances."
Blessing some people after the service, Mother Meigh smiled constantly and said her ordination had been "wonderful".
Also attending the service was Bishop Michael Cox, who had made Pat Buckley a bishop just five months earlier.
Assisting at the service were Father Michael Noone from Galway and four deacons who did not want to be identified. All four are to be ordained as priests in Bishop Buckley's newly established Society of St Andrew in the near future.
According to Bishop Buckley, the ordination of a woman into the Catholic Church is not without historical precedent. One example he cited was a woman priest named Ludmilla who was ordained, he said, in 1940s Czechoslovakia when "the church ran out of priests".
Omeath's new priest, Mother Frances Meigh, will live in a cottage near St Andrew's Church and celebrate Mass there every day, despite the fact that the Catholic Church will not accept her ordination.