We need your help now
Support from readers like you keeps The Journal open.
You are visiting us because we have something you value. Independent, unbiased news that tells the truth. Advertising revenue goes some way to support our mission, but this year it has not been enough.
If you've seen value in our reporting, please contribute what you can, so we can continue to produce accurate and meaningful journalism. For everyone who needs it.
Sign in. It’s quick, free and it’s up to you.
An account is an optional way to support the work we do. Find out more.
By continuing, you are indicating that you accept our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy.
THOUSANDS OF IRISH Catholics make a pilgrimage to Lourdes each year to visit the site where the Virgin Mary is said to have appeared to a peasant girl.
Now, thousands are flocking to churches around the country to view the relics of St Bernadette.
Bernadette Soubirous was born into a poor family in Lourdes in 1844 and it is said that the Virgin Mary first appeared to her on 11 February 1858 – 17 further such apparitions are said to have occurred.
The relics of St Bernadette arrived in Ireland for the first time ever on 4 September and will return to Lourdes on 5 November after a tour of every diocese in the country.
Relics are intended to remind the faithful of the holiness of a saint and their cooperation in God’s work.
There are three classes of relics.
A first class relic is a part of the saint’s body, second class relics are objects that were personally used by the saint, while third class relics are items that have touched a first or second class relic or an item touched by the saint.
The relics currently touring Ireland are first class relics of St Bernadette containing pieces of bone and hair.
The relics of St Bernadette were in Belfast yesterday and today made their way to the Cathedral of St Patrick & St Colman in Newry, Co Down.
Further stops are planned in Dundalk, Mullingar, Dublin, Cavan, Leitrim, Cork, and Athlone, before a farewell ceremony in Kiltoom in Co Roscommon.
Massive crowds turned out today in Newry, with some people abandoning their place in line after a 45 minute wait.
Others ignored the main door and used side entrances in an attempt to beat the queues.
Many of those who came to see the relics were religious, but some just wanted to see what the fuss was about.
“Neither of us are religious, but we saw the lines and just popped out of work,” said one person standing at the end of a queue that reached the bottom of the cathedral steps.
“We don’t really know a lot about it, other than it’s St Bernadette of Lourdes and she’s been canonised or something.
“But we thought it won’t do us any harm.”
But Brenda Cunningham from nearby Kilkeel said it was an “honour” to visit the relics and that she felt “very privileged”.
She has been to Lourdes before and noted that some elderly people who want to travel to Lourdes may not be able to do so.
“It’s very beautiful to have the relics here and if you have faith, you will get something out of it,” she said.
Suzanne Monroe, a teacher from the local Sacred Heart Grammar School, brought a class to view the relics.
She told The Journal that it’s “an amazing opportunity” and noted that many people may not be able to afford a pilgrimage to Lourdes.
This was picked up on by Newry priest Canon Francis Brown, who described the relics as “Lourdes at home”.
“It’s a great joy and it’s a way for us to experience Lourdes in a different way,” he said.
He noted that the diocese is following all the venerations and prayers that happen during a pilgrimage to Lourdes to “make it as like the pilgrimage as we possibly can”.
While church attendances have been dwindling, Brown told The Journal that attendances in Newry have increased since emerging from the Covid pandemic.
He added that welcoming the relics of St Bernadette “might be an opportunity for those who haven’t been coming, to come back and practice more regularly.”
On 11 February 1858, Bernadette went to the Massabielle rock in Lourdes to gather wood.
It was there that Bernadette heard a sound “like a gust of wind” and is said to have seen the Virgin Mary.
Seventeen further apparitions followed until 16 July 1858 and Massabielle rock now forms part of the Sanctuary of Our Lady of Lourdes.
St Bernadette said that the Virgin Mary herself proclaimed “I am the Immaculate Conception” during one apparition.
The Immaculate Conception is the Catholic doctrine that Mary was conceived without original sin.
It was during the ninth apparition when Our Lady of Lourdes was said to have directed Bernadette to a place where she discovered a spring.
That spring is the central focus of a pilgrimage to Lourdes and many people have claimed to have been cured by drinking or bathing in it.
There have also been 70 such cases recognised as miracles by the Catholic Church.
The last recognised miracle was in 2018 when a French nun recovered from a decades-old back problem that prevented her from walking normally.
Shortly after returning home, her chronic sciatica or pinched spinal nerve disappeared for the first time since her condition was diagnosed at the age of 27.
The Catholic Church defines a miracle as a “sign or wonder such as a healing, or control of nature, which can only be attributed to divine power”.
For something to be formally recognised by the Church as a miracle, two-thirds of a medical board consisting of at least six doctors are required to sign a statement affirming that the supposed miraculous event cannot be explained by natural causes.
The Apparitions of Lourdes were authenticated in 1866 by the Bishop of Tarbes and in the same year, Bernadette left Lourdes to live out her religious vocation within the community of the Sisters of Charity of Nevers, a convent in the town of Nevers.
Bernadette died on 16 April 1879 and when her body was exhumed on 18 April 1925, it was found to be uncorrupted.
She was made a saint on 8 December 1933.
Thousands of pilgrims make the visit to Lourdes from Ireland every year.
It was Irish priest William Ring who organised the first English-speaking pilgrimage to the French town in 1883, just 25 years after the apparition.
Lourdes shrines and grottos then appeared around the country in an effort to bring Lourdes to Ireland.
And it was Irish Catholics who gifted the Gold Crown to the Basilica of Our Lady of the Rosary at Lourdes in 1924.
It is said that some people donated their only items of value, their wedding rings, to enable the construction of the Gold Crown.
To embed this post, copy the code below on your site
Use precise geolocation data. Actively scan device characteristics for identification. Store and/or access information on a device. Personalised advertising and content, advertising and content measurement, audience research and services development.
These cookies are necessary for the website to function and cannot be switched off in our systems. They are usually only set in response to actions made by you which amount to a request for services, such as setting your privacy preferences, logging in or filling in forms. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not then work.
These cookies may be set through our site by our advertising partners. They may be used by those companies to build a profile of your interests and show you relevant adverts on other sites. They do not store directly personal information, but are based on uniquely identifying your browser and internet device. If you do not allow these cookies, you will experience less targeted advertising.
These cookies enable the website to provide enhanced functionality and personalisation. They may be set by us or by third party providers whose services we have added to our pages. If you do not allow these cookies then these services may not function properly.
These cookies allow us to count visits and traffic sources so we can measure and improve the performance of our site. They help us to know which pages are the most and least popular and see how visitors move around the site. All information these cookies collect is aggregated and therefore anonymous. If you do not allow these cookies we will not be able to monitor our performance.
Cookies, device or similar online identifiers (e.g. login-based identifiers, randomly assigned identifiers, network based identifiers) together with other information (e.g. browser type and information, language, screen size, supported technologies etc.) can be stored or read on your device to recognise it each time it connects to an app or to a website, for one or several of the purposes presented here.
Advertising presented to you on this service can be based on limited data, such as the website or app you are using, your non-precise location, your device type or which content you are (or have been) interacting with (for example, to limit the number of times an ad is presented to you).
Information about your activity on this service (such as forms you submit, content you look at) can be stored and combined with other information about you (for example, information from your previous activity on this service and other websites or apps) or similar users. This is then used to build or improve a profile about you (that might include possible interests and personal aspects). Your profile can be used (also later) to present advertising that appears more relevant based on your possible interests by this and other entities.
Advertising presented to you on this service can be based on your advertising profiles, which can reflect your activity on this service or other websites or apps (like the forms you submit, content you look at), possible interests and personal aspects.
Information about your activity on this service (for instance, forms you submit, non-advertising content you look at) can be stored and combined with other information about you (such as your previous activity on this service or other websites or apps) or similar users. This is then used to build or improve a profile about you (which might for example include possible interests and personal aspects). Your profile can be used (also later) to present content that appears more relevant based on your possible interests, such as by adapting the order in which content is shown to you, so that it is even easier for you to find content that matches your interests.
Content presented to you on this service can be based on your content personalisation profiles, which can reflect your activity on this or other services (for instance, the forms you submit, content you look at), possible interests and personal aspects. This can for example be used to adapt the order in which content is shown to you, so that it is even easier for you to find (non-advertising) content that matches your interests.
Information regarding which advertising is presented to you and how you interact with it can be used to determine how well an advert has worked for you or other users and whether the goals of the advertising were reached. For instance, whether you saw an ad, whether you clicked on it, whether it led you to buy a product or visit a website, etc. This is very helpful to understand the relevance of advertising campaigns.
Information regarding which content is presented to you and how you interact with it can be used to determine whether the (non-advertising) content e.g. reached its intended audience and matched your interests. For instance, whether you read an article, watch a video, listen to a podcast or look at a product description, how long you spent on this service and the web pages you visit etc. This is very helpful to understand the relevance of (non-advertising) content that is shown to you.
Reports can be generated based on the combination of data sets (like user profiles, statistics, market research, analytics data) regarding your interactions and those of other users with advertising or (non-advertising) content to identify common characteristics (for instance, to determine which target audiences are more receptive to an ad campaign or to certain contents).
Information about your activity on this service, such as your interaction with ads or content, can be very helpful to improve products and services and to build new products and services based on user interactions, the type of audience, etc. This specific purpose does not include the development or improvement of user profiles and identifiers.
Content presented to you on this service can be based on limited data, such as the website or app you are using, your non-precise location, your device type, or which content you are (or have been) interacting with (for example, to limit the number of times a video or an article is presented to you).
With your acceptance, your precise location (within a radius of less than 500 metres) may be used in support of the purposes explained in this notice.
With your acceptance, certain characteristics specific to your device might be requested and used to distinguish it from other devices (such as the installed fonts or plugins, the resolution of your screen) in support of the purposes explained in this notice.
Your data can be used to monitor for and prevent unusual and possibly fraudulent activity (for example, regarding advertising, ad clicks by bots), and ensure systems and processes work properly and securely. It can also be used to correct any problems you, the publisher or the advertiser may encounter in the delivery of content and ads and in your interaction with them.
Certain information (like an IP address or device capabilities) is used to ensure the technical compatibility of the content or advertising, and to facilitate the transmission of the content or ad to your device.
Information about your activity on this service may be matched and combined with other information relating to you and originating from various sources (for instance your activity on a separate online service, your use of a loyalty card in-store, or your answers to a survey), in support of the purposes explained in this notice.
In support of the purposes explained in this notice, your device might be considered as likely linked to other devices that belong to you or your household (for instance because you are logged in to the same service on both your phone and your computer, or because you may use the same Internet connection on both devices).
Your device might be distinguished from other devices based on information it automatically sends when accessing the Internet (for instance, the IP address of your Internet connection or the type of browser you are using) in support of the purposes exposed in this notice.
The choices you make regarding the purposes and entities listed in this notice are saved and made available to those entities in the form of digital signals (such as a string of characters). This is necessary in order to enable both this service and those entities to respect such choices.
have your say