This year's St. Michael's Parish carol service will somewhat take the form of a Christmas concert, with some extra sparkle thanks to a special guest appearance from a local country music star.

Hosted by the Parish choirs, the charity carol service in aid of Friends of the Cancer Centre will take place in St. Michael's Church, Enniskillen on Sunday, December 18 at 7pm.

As part of the musical line up, which will feature performances by the Parish choirs, country musician Lisa McHugh will entertain with a number of Christmas songs.

"We haven't had a carol service in three years with Covid so we thought we'd do something extra special this year," said Sharon Keenan Kelly, one of organisers, adding: "So we are doing this for the charity Friends of the Cancer Centre in the Fermanagh region."

Talking about the line up on the night, Sharon explained that both the Parish choirs will perform two Christmas pieces from the altar, and then during the evening there will be an opportunity for the congregation to join in singing the most traditional, well-known carols, which will be played on the organ.

A newly established youth choir will also perform during the event.

"We have around 27/28 children from the of age eight up, involved as a youth choir and they are going to perform four pieces on the night," said Sharon, adding: "They will be joined by a little children's liturgy group that we have in our parish that has just started back up again.

"Those children are even younger so you have maybe voices of children about four and five years of age, just participating as well in one or two of the carols."

A highlight of the night will be Lisa's performance, said Sharon: "She's going to perform about four or five Christmas songs on the night with some of her band."

The event will be ticketed with tickets on sale from today (Thursday, December 1). Tickets can be purchased from St. Michael's Parish shop and the Parish office. They are also going to be on sale at two different retail outlets; Dunnes Stores on Saturday, December 3 and Rooney's Eurospar on Friday, December 9.

"We're all looking really forward to it and we're hoping that we can put on a good show because it's the first time that we've ever done a concert-like service, it's not really just a carol service this year. We're trying to make it extra special so that we can make as much money for the charity as possible," Sharon told this newspaper.