Thousands of people are expected to attend an outdoor pageant of light and sound in the form of a tribunal in Ardagh, Co Longford, on Saturday week, May 20th. It is being billed as the biggest tribunal held anywhere in the country.
This tribunal will be part of a major pageant being staged to celebrate the Jubilee Year of the diocese of Ardagh and Clonmacnoise.
The historic village of Ardagh will witness an elaborate outdoor event featuring a hydraulic stage with over 80 actors from the diocese.
A Faith Unbroken is the title of the pageant, which will tell the story of the diocese from early days.
This show will be different from others because of its elaborate set, already under construction at St Brigid's Training Centre in the picturesque village.
From 10 p.m. the field in which the event takes place will be turned into a large amphitheatre featuring a light screen similar to those used at pop concerts.
Because the diocese covers seven counties, thousands of people are expected to attend and the local authority and gardai have drawn up a traffic management system to cope with the crowds.
The producer of the pageant, Gus Hanley, a schoolteacher from Longford town, has been working with various groups throughout the area. He said the production would be staged on what is regarded as the original site of St Mel's cathedral.
The Bishop of Ardagh and Clonmacnoise, Dr Colm O'Reilly, said: "A piece of music, a line spoken with passionate feeling, do more to draw us into the past than the written word could ever do."
A Faith Unbroken will be a commemoration, a reliving of the history of the area. "We want to send people away from Ardagh with a little more in the hand but a lot more in the heart about our past. We hope to put more heart for the future into all of us," he said.
"In the past faith was kept alive by telling and retelling our stories, our sacred stories. In these times, we have new ways by which we can make these same stories live."
The tribunal will be held at the end of the pageant when actors will pose a number of questions about the role of the church over the last 2,000 years.
It will be the highlight of a weekend of celebrations of the history of the church in the diocese, which will continue with a jubilee Mass celebrated in St Mel's Cathedral in Longford on Sunday.