At the top of a hill in south-west Victoria, surrounded by rolling green hills that fall
away to the Southern Ocean, sits a grand old red-brick church. For more than 150
years, these fertile volcanic fields have sustained the largest rural population of Irish
descent in Australia. Built and paid for by the children of potato-famine survivors,
St Brigid's is a symbol of faith and hope in an ancient land, by a cold, wild sea.

In 2009, the Catholic Church put the church and hall up for sale, against the wishes
of the local community. What began as a...