CHART topping vocal group, The Priests, have spoken for the first time about how their music comes from the trauma of working as Catholic clerics during the Troubles.

In Dublin to promote their debut album, Father Martin O'Hagan from Cushenden, Co Antrim explained: "In a sense our music has been a wonderful means of healing and compensating for what happened. I think this experience, growing up through the Troubles has influenced our formation as individuals and as priests."

Experiences like those suffered by Fr David Delargy, who had his parish church St James in Aldergrove burnt down by loyalists in 1998 during the Garvaghy Road protests.

The arsonists smashed a window at the church, poured petrol into the sacristy and started a blaze which gutted the 200-year-old building.

Fr David told me: "There were a lot of things that happened in ordinary life as well, like driving at night, seeing a light ahead and wondering who it was. One time I stopped and someone put a gun to my head. I managed to escape."

The last of the trio, Fr Eugene O'Hagan recalls his church being attacked. "They tried to burn down the parochial house too, by putting bins behind it and setting them alight."

The Priests' debut album is available in all good record shops.