Nearly 200 years after his death, devotion among local people to a priest from Daingean, Co Offaly, has remained undiminished.
Father Andrew Mullen's grave at Killaderry, near the town, is a place of prayer. To this day people seeking cures for illness spend a night on the tomb of the young priest who died at 28.
Recently, moves to have the priest canonised received a boost with the publication of a book on his life by another local priest, Father William Dempsey.
A Light From The Grave puts forward a case for holiness which will be made to the authorities in Rome.
Father Dempsey, who lives in Daingean and is a native of Ballycommon, tells the story of the life of the young priest who was revered by the people of his area.
Father Mullen's impact was such that following his death and burial in Clonmore, Co Carlow, in 1818, local people from Daingean stole the body and returned it to his home parish.
Upon removing Father Mullen's body five weeks after his death, it emerged that his corpse had not decomposed, and this was taken as a sign he had gone straight to heaven.
However, Father Mullen was unable to rest totally at peace because five weeks later the body of a local Protestant man was buried in the grave above him, which caused great offence to local Catholics.
They dug up the remains of the Protestant man and left his coffin some distance from the grave. The local constabulary put the coffin back in the grave, but it was again dug up and left on the roadside despite the fact there was an armed guard on the grave.
The matter was resolved when the remains were buried in another graveyard.
A Light From The Grave contains claims by a number of people of cures they have received at the grave or by using clay from the grave of Father Mullen.