A CATHOLIC parish in Alva celebrated its centenary on Sunday.

A special Mass was held in St John Vianney's Church followed by a civic reception at the Cochrane Hall.

The day celebrated the 100th anniversary of the formation of St John Vianney's parish.

The Mass was celebrated by Canon Basil O'Sullivan, Parish Priest of Holy Family Church, Dunblane, who represented the Diocese of Dunkeld and was assisted by five other priests. Provost Tina Murphy joined special guests and parishioners for the event.

A specially designed cake was officially cut by 83-year-old Betty Whitton, who has a life-long and still active association with the parish. A special memorial plaque had already been erected in the church grounds.

The civic reception, hosted by Clackmannanshire Council, featured an exhibition of parishioners' photos and documents, reflecting the development of the parish since 1913. The exhibition has since been moved to the church hall in East Stirling Street.

A special commemorative booklet, "Our Journey so Far", has also been published and available through the church. The 32-page illustrated booklet features a history of the parish and the church, what it means to parishioners (with brief stories of their own links to the parish), and words from organisations involved in the parish over the last 100 years.

A brief history of the parish: Prior to the restoration of the Scottish Catholic Hierarchy in 1878, the first initiative to establish and formalise a church presence in the Hillfoots took place in March 1862, when Charles Sharkey wrote to Bishop Murdoch of Glasgow on behalf of his fellow Catholics in the county hoping to establish a small, stable congregation "begging that they would be sent a priest".

They persisted and in August 1863 Father James Duffy was appointed to Alloa, saying Mass at a house in Meadow Place in the town. The first catholic church since the Reformation was established at the former Episcopalian church in Clackmannan Road, Alloa. However, the first mass since the reformation did not take place in Alva until 1913.

The booklet reads, "Father John O'Neill from Alloa was the celebrant with a congregation of about 70. The venue was described as "a small wooden hut". Since Mass has been celebrated in the town for Hillfoots parishioners ever since, it is in this sense that our parish is 100 years old although it had to wait 13 years before a church was built and consecrated for worship." It was not until April 1926 that the current church was opened and named after St John Vianney, who had been canonised the previous year by the Pope, and who was made principal patron of all parish priests in 1929.