IT is the moment every clergyman dreads . . . he is about to baptise a baby and he just cannot get the name right.

Fr Vincent Byrne was not helped by the fact that the name he was about to confer was double-barrelled. But the real reason for his difficulty was more serious - he was falling victim to epilepsy.

It is not the obvious kind - he does not fall down writhing with a major seizure - but it has taken over his life in a way that has left him some explaining to do to his anxious parishioners at St John's Church in Barrhead.

Like the fact that he tails off in the middle of a conversation, as if lost for words, or that he has to walk or catch the bus where once he drove round the parish.

Eventually Fr Byrne, 32, made his condition known in a sermon. But, as he discovered, others keep their condition in the shadows if they can - a fact which Scottish Health Minister Sam Galbraith and other speakers will confront at a national conference on epilepsy in Glasgow this week.

Fr Byrne said yesterday: ''Since my announcement, people have come up to me and told me they have epilepsy but had never disclosed it in the wider sense. People hate using the word.''

With hindsight he thinks he has had it all his life without knowing. The first real indication was when he suffered major seizures at the age of 24, when he was studying in seminary.

''I had an injury because of one and that is what led to it being diagnosed. That seemed to be the end of it, but a year ago I was in conversation with someone and they told me I was still having seizures, and I was re-diagnosed.

''I would be blinking in a particular way. I realised I was stopping for a moment. My own perception would change. I would try to retain a certain sense of reality but was finding it difficult to cope - I did not have a great span of concentration.''

For someone accustomed to public speaking, the strain of maintaining control is nerve-wracking. ''There are difficult occasions - I know that I have started Mass feeling really terrible, but the adrenalin kicks in and you are back in control.

''During the baptism when I kept getting the child's name wrong, I'm sure I also got the service wrong and missed bits of it out. Fortunately I was not holding the baby. But I sent the father away to light the candle. It caused a bit of confusion

''I lost the car when it was diagnosed. I would be on a bus sitting opposite people I knew, or walking about the parish, and I would explain to people - I wouldn't want them to think I had been disqualified.''

There are a number of drugs to keep epilepsy at bay. He is on two different drugs, which leave him drained of energy in the morning, and is still trying to find the minimum effective dose.

''You have the dose increased, and they seem to work for a while, then it comes back and you know the dose will have to be stepped up again. it can be a bit disheartening.''