Among the pilgrims on Croagh Patrick last month was a Belgian who’d walked three months to get there, writes Greg Daly   Santiago de Compostela is a fashionable destination for Irish pilgrims year-in-year-out nowadays, with a record 7,548 Irish pilgrims collecting their ‘Compostela’ from the cathedral offices last year. In the Camino’s medieval heyday, however,…

Irish clergy in the Philippines served God’s people despite all manner of brutal threats, writes Jean Harrington   It was April 1973 and the island of Mindanao in the south of the Philippines was descending into a war between the Muslim population and their Christian neighbours. No one was safe, not even the priests who…

Little Nellie – Special Feature Chai Brady hears about a community’s intense 
desire 
for Little Nellie’s sainthood Even though she died over 100 years ago Ellen Organ, best known as Little Nellie of Holy God, continues to inspire devotion among a significant number of people in both Ireland and abroad, with a growing number calling…

Little Nellie – Special Feature Serious questions are being asked by Little Nellie’s devotees about access to her grave. The path is overgrown and difficult to reach with several obstacles in the way – making it almost impossible for an elderly or disabled person to access the cemetery. When the site, formerly owned by the…

Little Nellie – Special Feature Despite an extensive investigation carried out by canon lawyers, clergy and lay people, Bishop-Emeritus of Cork and Ross John Buckley was not convinced that the evidence collated on Little Nellie warranted sending to Rome. He acknowledged that there was a huge interest in Little Nellie among the faithful in his…

Starting in Tipperary and ending in Waterford, hundreds of pilgrims have been enjoying the 100km-long St Declan’s Way over the summer. Broken-up into five stages and starting in Cashel, 300 people have taken on the challenge each month since April. At the end of this month, pilgrims will tackle the final leg of the trek…

A trip to Limerick has proved inspirational, writes Bagdora’s Bishop Vincent Aind   Ireland and India may have only two things in common in the past: British Rule and the Education System. For the rest Ireland is quite different, or so it appeared to us a group of visitors from one little corner of India…

Irelands early saints are an inextricable part of our national identity, Greg Daly is told   Something said briefly, as Nietzsche once pointed out, can be the fruit of much long thought, and Fr John J. Ó Ríordáin’s Early Irish Saints is eloquent testimony to this. A slim book, drawing together 15 pen pictures of…

Vocation is about becoming who God wants us to be, writes Sr Mary David Totah   You must ask: what does God want from me? It’s not just about ourselves. Vocation can’t leave him out. Many of us have been surprised by our call. And yet we knew that our calling was much bigger than…

While it can be a source of worry for many to think about the future of religion in Ireland, a Dublin conference which gathers young believers from all corners of the island is proving that the Faith is in strong and able hands. The Evangelium project seeks to be a platform to inspire and encourage…