Pilgrimage Sites in Ireland

The apparition at Knock in 1879 was silent. The Blessed Virgin Mary appeared at the gable of the parish church with St. Joseph and St. John, and no word was spoken; the shrine that grew on the spot is Ireland's International Eucharistic and Marian Shrine. Irish pilgrimage is older than any apparition, and much of it is measured in effort. Pilgrims climb Croagh Patrick, the mountain where St. Patrick kept a forty-day fast, many of them barefoot. At Lough Derg, where St. Patrick established a place of prayer in the fifth century, the island retreat is kept with fasting, vigil and walking.

Two shrines hold Ireland's own saints. Kildare grew around the fifth-century monastery of St. Brigid, patroness of Ireland; St. Brigid's Cathedral stands on its site. Drogheda keeps the shrine of St. Oliver Plunkett, the last archbishop martyred in Ireland, at St. Peter's Church.