Pope Francis has appointed Bishop Alan McGuckian as the new Bishop of Down and Connor.
The announcement means Bishop McGuckian will leave his position as Bishop of Raphoe in Co Donegal, which he has held since 2017.
Born in 1953, Bishop McGuckian grew up in Co Antrim and joined the Jesuit novitiate in Clontarf, Dublin in 1972.
Following his ordination to the priesthood in 1984, he worked as a teacher in secondary education in Clongowes Wood College in Co Kildare.
This was followed by a six-month period of spiritual renewal in southern India and an experience of serving in a shanty town in Quezon City in the Philippines, before taking his Final Profession as a Jesuit in February 1997.
From 2012 to 2017, he worked closely with the Diocese of Down and Connor in the 'Living Church' project which sought to hear the hopes and fears of the priests, religious and the lay faithful across the diocese culminating in the publication of the Living Church Report in 2012.
He was the first director of the Permanent Diaconate within the diocese which now has 16 serving permanent deacons, several of them married, ministering in parishes and chaplaincies across the diocese.
He was ordained Bishop of Raphoe in 2017.
