Father Liam McKinney and fellow curate Father Garrett Campbell were woken by two men ransacking the downstairs rooms of their Convent Road parochial house in Cookstown early yesterday.

The thieves had managed to gain entry through a kitchen window and were looking for items to steal when they disturbed one of the priests as they made their way upstairs.

One of the men burst into Father McKinney's bedroom, threatened him and forced him to hand over his cash. They then forced him to go to the other bedroom so they could do the same to Fr Campbell.

After obtaining around £400 of the priests' own money, the thieves then made off in Fr Campbell's blue Mazda 6. But before they fled, Fr Campbell managed to escape into the main parochial house where he woke Fr Gerard Tremer who raised the alarm.

"I am still slightly in shock," Fr McKinney told the BBC.

"My bedroom door was burst open and there were these two men, they were in their early 20s. They just demanded money and a knife was produced. Apart from demanding money they did not do anything else. They did say to us to stay away from the lights and don't phone the police. It was frightening.

"I was trying to watch the knife; you don't know what is going through your mind. It was an experience I hope to have to never repeat. When I think of how frightened we were I can only imagine what it must be like for other victims. It doesn't bear thinking about."

The terrifying event has prompted Fr McKinney to install tighter security systems to prevent a similar attack from happening again.

He said the ordeal left both himself and Fr Campbell in shock but he had nothing but praise for the police who he said arrived almost immediately.

"The police were amazing," he said. "They were absolutely amazing and brilliant."

Meanwhile, another priest in west Belfast also found himself the victim of a violent robbery at the weekend. St John's presbytery on the Falls Road was robbed on Sunday. The priest had finished the charity collection when the robbers struck.

A PSNI spokeswoman said police were investigating.