Three priests from Northern Ireland who have been singing together for many years released their debut album on 24 November – and rocketed into the UK album charts at no. 5. They are currently no. 2 in the Irish charts, just behind The Killers and ahead of Leona Lewis, Guns n’ Roses, Beyoncé, and Celine Dion.

Two of the priests, Eugene and Martin O’Hagan, are brothers, and both of them are tenors. The third member of The Priests, David Delargy, is a light baritone. All three of them still work in parishes in Co. Down. Released for Christmas, their album is a collection of church songs sung to perfection by these highly gifted singers. In the words of The London Times, they are not just “the latest gimmick for a recession-hit music industry”, but “the genuine article who deliver the classic church music they have always sung, from Ave Maria to O Holy Night, in perfect harmony”.

All three of them come from strongly musical backgrounds, and they have all spent a great deal of time together both in their seminary and at the Gregorian University. While in Rome, they were invited to sing for Pope John Paul II, and at the time that was as far as their aspirations took them. Earlier this year, though, executives of Sony offered them a much larger - if not a grander – audience when they signed them up to a recording deal worth £1.4 million.

They sudden fame won’t change them, they insist, and they even ensured that their contract guarantees that their music career will never be allowed to interrupt their work as priests. Yet they know that they can do much good through music too. In the words of Father Martin:

“It might even enable people to put the brakes on, to stop and think: what is Christmas all about? They might even say: let’s forget the commerce and get back to what Christmas should be about. The collateral gain for us, as priests, is that the music might touch people’s hearts and make a difference to the way they look at the world. These are pieces that speak to the heart and the soul.”