Leading Irish TV Channel to Document Church's Anti-Sectarian Project

A service by the Church of Ireland's anti-sectarian Hard Gospel Project is to be shown on leading Irish TV channel RTE on the last Sunday of this month, 26 August 2007. It will be the first time the Hard Gospel Project has featured on RTE One's Sunday morning worship programme.

It will document the role of the Hard Gospel, an anti-sectarian project born out of the long-running Drumcree stand-off between the Orange Order in Portadown and the mainly nationalist residents of the town's Garvaghy Road.

The programme will include interviews with people from both sides of the border whose lives have been directly touched by the Hard Gospel. Among them is an asylum-seeker from Uganda living in the Republic of Ireland, Juliet Amamure.

The others are Nigel Beattie, a Church of Ireland parishioner from Monkstown on the outskirts of North Belfast, and the Venerable Gordon Linney, former Archdeacon of Dublin.

The music and hymns that have been chosen relate to the project's core themes of reconciliation, and loving God and our neighbour.

The Hard Gospel's director, the Rev Earl Storey, will present the 45-minute act of worship. Also taking part will be the organisation's Northern Ireland project officer, Stephen Dallas, and his Republic of Ireland counterpart, Philip McKinley.

Rev Storey said: "This is a wonderful opportunity to get the Hard Gospel Project's message across to people who might not necessarily know much about what we're trying to do.

"At this time of immense changes throughout the island of Ireland, we hope to highlight ways of how we can all live positively with difference."