`Courageous", "outspoken", "blunt", "rude": no matter how the admirers and critics of the new Dean of St Patrick's Cathedral put it, they all agree the Very Rev Dr Robert MacCarthy speaks his mind. And there is no better pulpit than that once occupied by Jonathan Swift, in the Church of Ireland's national cathedral, for a cleric to make his voice heard.

"People expect the dean to have something to say and I hope to do that," he explains, sitting in the study of the elegant 18th-century deanery, across the road from the cathedral, which he has just moved into. Elected by the cathedral's chapter last May and installed in September, he has lost no time in making the headlines: "Standing of Irish clergy never so low, says new dean" topped a report of his installation service. Less than a month later, his condemnations of the prison system were welcomed by human rights groups. Last week he was in the news again after telling the Remembrance Sunday service that "we are failing miserably today to offer any credible response to the not-very-large flood of refugees".

But he is well aware that he could overdo the critical churchman role. "I don't want to be talking all the time or people will get fed up," he says, pointing out that a number of important preaching engagements came close together. Is it too easy to sound off when you don't have to tackle the problems yourself? "I think it's fair. The church's job is to diagnose what is wrong in moral terms and it is the politicians' job to do something about it."

The backlash against the Catholic Church has made the Church of Ireland the "darling of the media", he says. "I think the Catholic Church is behaving foolishly, not trying to get its nerve back. If you've a problem as an organisation or an individual you get nowhere by keeping your head down under the table. You have to put some good news in place rather than bad news."

He blames the Catholic leadership: "They have some super clergy down the line - how they keep them I don't know - but they're not listened to. By and large the leadership says nothing because it is so overwhelmed with the problems. It's bad psychology; much better to lead strongly out from the front in that situation.

"I was talking to Liz O'Donnell at the launch of the McQuaid book and she thanked me for my support. The sad thing is the Catholic Church isn't saying anything. There's nothing more pressing for moral comment than the situation regarding refugees, and the bishops are saying nothing. Apparently there's a pastoral letter by the archbishop that says something about it. But he specialises in not publicising his views."

So does he think the Dublin diocese is badly served by Archbishop Connell? "No, it wouldn't be right for me to say that. I think he's a product of a bad system which is a non-consultative system."

MacCarthy intends to make consultation a feature of his new role and, unlike some of his predecessors he says, he doesn't interpret the dean's powers as having total freedom to do anything. However, some of the changes he has already made, including the introduction of the revised liturgy to the cathedral's worship, have no doubt ruffled a few cassocks.

On the board of the cathedral since 1994, while rector of St Nicholas' collegiate church in Galway, MacCarthy has come into the job at the age of 59 with his eyes open. He says his priorities are both to safeguard the historic cathedral complex and to exercise its ministry in the context of the 21st century. "There's a great danger in somewhere like St Patrick's that you end up running a museum."

His appointment of a woman priest to an office in the cathedral is a first for what was an all-male preserve. Bernadette Daly, curate of Taney parish in Dundrum and a former Catholic, is to be Chancellor's Vicar Choral. Was there any resistance? "No, no, no," he says rapidly. "Let's put it this way, we didn't look for resistance, this is entirely the chancellor's [nomination] so nobody had to be consulted." Earlier in his career, MacCarthy would himself have been against such a move.

"I was opposed to women priests at the beginning of my ministry," he admits. "I saw it as an unwarranted innovation of the traditional church." His conversion came when he was working in Oxford and the "wonderful" bishop there at that time, Patrick Roger, wrote about how the Anglican Communion would not have been established if it had waited for permission from the universal church.

MacCarthy saw the parallel, centuries later, of the Anglican church proceeding with women's ministry without the approval of the universal church. "It was an obvious point but it came at the right time for me." A more radical innovation which the dean is contemplating for the cathedral is inviting other denominations to conduct worship there. "I'm considering offering the Roman Catholic Church and one of the non-conformist churches the facility to have services of their own denomination on weekdays," he explains. "Some of my Northern colleagues may be a little sensitive about it." But he sees this as a way of broadening the cathedral's ministry for tourists, many of whom wouldn't be Anglican. It has to be remembered that "visitors are not just gawkers", he says.

To be confronted just inside the door of the 13th-century cathedral building with a manned desk and notice of a £2 admission fee is hardly an ideal welcome to a house of God. Yet as a tourist attraction, it's excellent value. The dean hopes to develop the baptistery just inside the door as a place of private prayer for visitors who won't have to pay. But it is the tourists who keep the place going, generating £392,000 last year - "half our income". The State only contributes "peanuts" to the cathedral's upkeep, he points out. For instance the Heritage Council is giving £20,000 towards the current re-slating of the roof of the south aisle which is costing £240,000. "In England or Northern Ireland we'd get 50 per cent of the cost. This is a contrast between North and South. We have the money now but the mentality is not to spend money on heritage."

He sees a series of "onlys" as shaping his early life in Newcastle, south Tipperary: "I was an only child; we were the only Church of Ireland family in the village and I was the only non-Roman Catholic pupil at the local national school." His father was a farmer and "local entrepreneur", running the village post office and shop. The dean retains 80 acres of the family farm which he lets.

Sent to boarding school at St Columba's in Rathfarnham, he doesn't underestimate the importance of his "first experience of decent worship" and remembers the daily services as a "clear space" in the bustle of school life. He recalls the late Oisin Kelly, who taught not only art but also French, English and Irish there, saying: "The whole point of chapel is that it gives you space to think about anything you want." MacCarthy "just drifted" into Trinity on his O-Levels. "Everything was so easy in those days, if you had a few bob." Graduating with his history degree, he knew he didn't want to return to Tipperary, much to the disappointment of his father whom he describes as an "old-fashioned person. We got close in the last few years when I grew up and got a bit of sense." Indeed, it was his father's death which he sees as partly precipitating his decision to join the church. He discloses that his parents were "deeply unhappily married; they had very little in common and ignored one another". "I didn't want to be pig in the middle."

So he escaped. First to Cambridge, where he did teacher training for a year and learned that he didn't want to be a teacher. Then to London where he took a job with the Church Commissioners, the start of his first career as an administrator during which he also worked in Reading University, Queen's in Belfast and then back to Trinity.

He remembers the late Archbishop George Simms saying death is a growth point and his father's death "certainly was for me". The other factor in his decision to go for ordination was "if you're already involved in the church, it's not that much of a move. People make too much of ordination." "

He studied at Cuddesdon theological college in England for two years and was ordained in 1980 at the age of 40 as curate in Carlow town. He then returned across the water for a high church chaplaincy to undergraduates at Pusey House in Oxford, before taking on the challenge of ministry in Bracknell, Berkshire.

Two years as vicar at St Canice's Cathedral in Kilkenny followed, before his "happiest" position so far, as rector for seven years of four parishes in Castlecomer, Co Kilkenny. "Eighty of the parishioners came to my installation," he muses, compared with half that number from his latest parish in Galway, where he was also Provost of Tuam.

He could hardly have endeared himself to the people of the diocese when he was the only person at the Tuam, Killala and Achonry synod in 1997 to oppose the appointment of a new bishop, believing amalgamation with Limerick would have bee more sensible. "I remember a big fat farmer from Sligo leaning over the back of his chair and saying to me: `God, you've got courage, anyhow'."

While he obviously relishes the idea of his being a thorn both inside and outside the church, he says: "It is easy to be critical about things in society. What I look for and don't see among the leaders of my church is people who are prepared to be critical of the way the church operates." At general synod he has denounced the theological college's "disgraceful" lack of practical training and also criticised how little time is given to the teaching of religious education in the C of I-run secondary schools - "one period a week, whereas almost all Roman Catholic and community schools give it three periods a week".

As a bachelor, he sees discrimination within the church against single clergy. Almost all C of I ministry jobs are based in parishes which like "clergy family to be non-threatening", he says. "There's prejudices in parishes against single people until they get them." He is critical of some of his married colleagues for whom family automatically comes first and the parish second. He believes they should continually be balancing one against the other.

It's not one of the dilemmas he faces. But, ministering in the heart of inner-city Dublin, he is very conscious of the homeless issue - "and here I am living in this enormous house", he throws in before it might be pointed out. "You have to be realistic," he says to cynics who suggest that, certainly, his current abode could accommodate a few more people. "This is an historic house." But he is arranging for an evangelist of the Church Army (the Anglican equivalent of the Salvation Army) to join the cathedral staff next June, to concentrate on ministry to tourists in the summer and on working with homeless organisations in the winter.

A danger he sees facing the Church of Ireland is the desire of parishes for little more than "a successful social club". He adds: "A lot of clergy are under pressure not to ask awkward questions, not to rock the boat. There is a very strong streak of social Protestantism. Our job is to challenge that." He evidently believes in leading by example.

Eileen Battersby is on holidays