An ambitious restoration project for Waterford's Christ Church Cathedral is to receive £1 million in funding from the Office of Public Works.
The money, allocated in last week's Budget, will be used to help to reorder the interior of the 18th-century building and carry out external repairs and restoration.
Some of the funding will go towards the restoration and rebuilding of the cathedral's historic Elliot pipe organ, which was built in 1815 and is the only Elliot organ in the country.
The €1.27 million funding was formally announced by the Minister of State in charge of the OPW, Mr Martin Cullen, who is also a local TD. The building, he said, was the only neoclassical Georgian cathedral in Ireland and had "huge historical and architectural significance for the city of Waterford".
"The Office of Public Works will project manage the restoration and I am confident, based on our experience in other similar buildings such as the Irish Colleges in Paris and Louvain and St Isodore's College in Rome, that the project will be a great success."
Restoration work on the organ will begin early in the new year and is due to be completed by March 2003. Other work on the interior of the building is due to start shortly and is expected to take between 15 and 18 months. The organ will then be resited in its original position in a gallery over the centre aisle.
When work is complete, it is anticipated that the cathedral will become a major events facility as well as a place of worship.
"Our vision for this historic place is as a centre for prayer and worship, yes," said the dean of the cathedral, the Very Rev Peter Barrett. "But in the same breath of the Spirit, as it were, we seek to reach out to embrace the artistic, business, cultural, ecumenical and musical life of this ancient and developing city."