Technical problems over a Belfast chapel's gothic architectural features failed to halt Easter celebrations being broadcast on the Irish channel, RTE.

The specialist lighting business based in Belfast, Production Services Ireland (PSI) supplied rigging services and lighting equipment for the Easter Sunday Mass live broadcast from St Peter's Cathedral in west Belfast.

Although a major landmark, the church, dedicated in 1866, was the first Catholic Church in Belfast to be built in the Gothic 'revival' style, with provision not made then for the installation of a 21st century lighting rig to facilitate a live telecast in 2010.

However, inside, on the nave where the majority of the congregation sit, there is a row of six pillars, and the other side of these, an aisle with a narrower set of pews running the full length of the building, runs right down to the altar.

It was these aisles that had to be used to accommodate the lighting trusses with lighting positions needed to fire through each of the seven arches between the pillars.

PSI had the great advantage of having worked in the space once before, in 2008 for another live RTE broadcast, but this time the lighting production was a lot bigger and more comprehensive, and required more precision rigging utilizing the cathedral's original wooden beams.

The trusses had to stretch a total of 25 metres in length each side and PSI's Sean Pagel led the rigging operation and installed two trusses per side, each butted up to make the continuous 25 metre span.

Sean Pagel commented: "It's always good to get the chance to work in special spaces, and this certainly is an amazing building. Everyone's hard work and imagination produced exceptional and very atmospheric results for the telecast."

See: Full story on: Lighting Crew Overcome Chapel Problems

(BmcC/GK)