House of Prayer, Achill

The House of Prayer is a limited company trading as Our Lady Queen of Peace House of Prayer (Achill) Ltd, created by an Irish woman, Christina Gallagher, in 1993. The business is based on Achill Island, County Mayo in Ireland, with other centres in the United States. The venture has been described as "controversial" and as a "cult", and it has no official status with the Roman Catholic Church.

Gallagher has claimed to have had visions of the Virgin Mary since 1988, to be a prophet and to suffer from stigmata on her feet. Gallagher has claimed that her mission to establish a "house of prayer" as a place where priests and laity would come to prayer and worship together was made clear to her over the course of several visions of the Virgin Mary. She purchased a former convent building on Achill in 1992, and it was opened as the House of Prayer in 1993 by the then Archbishop of Tuam Joseph Cassidy. The venture secured tax exemption from the Revenue Commissioners, and built up a considerable income from voluntary donations.

In 1996, Cassidy's successor, Archbishop Michael Neary, established a commission of enquiry to investigate claims of supernatural phenomena arising from the centre. This investigation concluded that no evidence of supernatural events existed but that the persons involved gave every evidence of good faith. After efforts by the archdiocese to "integrate" the centre into its structures, Gallagher temporarily closed the centre for a time in July 1998, since when it has had no approval or involvement from the Catholic Church.

Among claims made in 2002 of "miracle cures" were the cases of Fionnula McManus, who claimed that a baby pronounced dead in her womb had come back to life after she visited the House of Prayer, and another, Kathleen O'Sullivan, who claimed that she was cured of pancreatic cancer.

In 2005, in the course of a crackdown on organisations purporting to pursue charitable aims, the Revenue revoked the House of Prayer's tax exemption.

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