Michael Kelly
People gather for Mass at Gougane Barra in the Shehy Mountains of County Cork, Ireland last October to celebrate the feast of St Finbarr. Photo: OSV News/Cillian Kelly In just five years, we will mark the bicentenary of Catholic emancipation. Four years after that, in 2032, it will be 1,600 years since St Patrick’s mission to convert the Irish to Christianity. Catholic emancipation, of course, marked a turning point in the fortunes of Irish Catholicism after centuries of brutal persecution and repression by…
