The Catholic Archbishop of Dublin, Dr Diarmuid Martin, will celebrate Mass for Irish soldiers serving with the United Nations at Camp Clara in Liberia tomorrow as his five-day visit to that country comes to an end.
He was invited by the Defence Forces to visit the 94th Infantry Battalion, which is on a UN peacekeeping mission. A total of 460 soldiers from the 2nd Eastern Brigade are in Liberia on a six-month tour of duty which began last November.
Dr Martin was accompanied by Col Tom Behan, executive officer of the Eastern Brigade, and by Father Eoin Thynne, head chaplain to the Defence Forces.
On Thursday, he met the newly-elected Liberian president, Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf. He also met Alan Doss, the special representative of the UN secretary-general.
As well as visiting the Irish soldiers at Camp Clara and their chaplain, Father Pat Mernagh, he met workers from Trócaire and Concern, both of which are involved in extensive relief and development work in Liberia.
Dr Martin first visited Liberia in the early 1980s as a Vatican diplomat. The country was then at the beginning of a conflict which lasted almost 20 years. Out of a population of 3.5 million, 250,000 Liberians are estimated to have been killed, while more than 500,000 have been displaced in the region.
Liberia's physical infrastructure has been largely destroyed and more than 70 per cent of its people have to survive on a dollar a day - nearly half of them on less than 50 cents.
The average life expectancy in Liberia is 48.