Irishman joins church for spiritual experience (6)
I believe the answer is:
seance
'spiritual experience' is the definition.
Although both the answer and definition are singular nouns, I cannot see how one could define the other.
'irishman joins church' is the wordplay.
'irishman' becomes 'sean' (common Irish name).
'joins' says to put letters next to each other.
'church' becomes 'CE' (abbreviation for Church of England).
'sean'+'ce'='SEANCE'
'for' acts as a link.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for seance that I've seen before include "Meeting with spiritualist present" , "Encase (anag)" , "Dead-contacting meeting" , "Sitting, session" , "Spiritualist meeting, all hold hands" .)