The parish in Anderston was once one of Glasgow's busiest. People who have had their confirmation ceremony at St Patrick's include Michael Martin, the Speaker of the House of Commons and Alex Mosson, the former Glasgow Lord Provost.
Eddi Reader, the former Fairground Attraction singer, regularly attended the church. She warmed considerably to Father Gerry Nugent and has said that if she ever chose to get married, she wanted him deliver the blessing.
Now, she is in mourning - for her church, for the priest, for Angelika Kluk. In fact, she is even writing a song in memory of the dead woman.
On her website, the singer-songwriter reveals St Patrick's was the parish of her grandmother, mother and herself until the age of six. On moving back to Scotland five years ago, she again became acquainted with the church and was even featured searching the church records in a TV documentary following the story of her family.
Writing online, Ms Reader speaks of her visits to the church - occasionally with her sons - under Fr Nugent, whom she regarded as a "remarkable and inspiring priest".
She says: "I wouldn't call myself devout but I started to rely on going there for a service or two. I introduced my mother to Father Gerry.
"He had turned the back of the chapel into a kind of sitting room where, on a Sunday after mass, hot food would be provided and the community could gather. There seemed to be deep concern for addicts of all kinds and meetings held to help the waifs and strays.
"As a stranger in town, it was comforting to find friendship and links to my own past still living there," she recalls. "I even thought that if I were ever to marry I might choose to do it there and with Father Nugent doing the blessing."
Upon hearing of the discovery of Ms Kluk's body in the church, Ms Reader attempted to go there to mourn but found it closed and the gates locked. Instead, she chose a private place to "pray for that wee girl who lost her life in my chapel". The song in memory of Ms Kluk "will heal me".
Ms Reader believes "the only thing Gerry did was be an alcoholic and a libidinous bloke and try to guide a community in practical spirituality".
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article