Sacred Travels in Ireland

In spite of doing numerous pilgrimages and lots of long-distance walks I still struggle to explain what the difference is between the two. My recent trip to the West of Ireland gave me the chance to ponder the question further, involving, as it did, journeys to two famous pilgrimage destinations, as well as one to a place which was not a pilgrimage site as such but which had distinct elements of the sacred about it. 

The reason for this latest adventure was the sale of the land in Co. Galway where my dad had been born and raised, before leaving for England at the age of twenty-five. It’s in a remote spot near the small town of Glenamaddy, and it was there in Divillys Bar on a Friday afternoon that the auction of land and property was to take place. 

Yim Soon and I were there with my sister, Eileen and brother-in-law Chris and a first important task was to find plastic flowers to put on the grave of our Aunt Nellie, whose death two years ago had prompted the sale. Plastic flowers were not to be had in Glenamaddy but our search for them led us into some friendly and funny encounters with the locals. One man suggested that we take a few plastic flowers from another grave and place them on Nellie’s. ‘Sure, nobody will notice,’ he remarked with a smile.

Whenever we’d been to visit Nellie over the years, the first thing she always wanted to do was go to the cemetery to visit the graves of her husband Paul, her brother Patrick, and my paternal grandparents, both of whom died before I was born. With it’s tall Celtic crosses perched on a hillock in the midst of vast wide-open fields it’s a sacred spot indeed. 

From the cemetery, Yim Soon and I drove the short distance to the bungalow that Nellie had lived in alone for many years, and walked from there across the fields to the old croft cottage where she and my dad and the rest of the family of seven had lived.

When we’d been clearing out the bungalow two years before we’d been surprised to find two concertinas and to learn from people at Nellie’s funeral that she had played it well, so too her mother, and that the villagers used to come round to the cottage to dance. I was equally touched to be informed by someone during the auction that the cottage had been ‘like a community centre.’ 

Divillys Bar in Glenamaddy was similarly transformed into a community centre due to the auction organised by Gerry Coffey, whom we knew from previous ‘dealings!’ Some people were there to bid for land or property, some were there just for the Guinness and the craic. They weren’t disappointed because it was pure theatre. Gerry is very good at what he does and there was a satisfactory outcome. There were two buyers and both of the families involved had known Nellie and the Gilmores. With all that had taken place over the decades (families being, as they are, complex and mysterious entities), there was a real sense of completion.

Job done in Galway, we all headed for Westport in Mayo for a couple of nights. Yim Soon and I were bound for Croagh Patrick, Ireland’s holy mountain. Judging in part from the way people were dressed, there are different reasons for climbing ‘The Reek.’ Many appear to be walking it, even running it, for sport; some, in bare feet, were doing it more in a spirit of penance. I’d say that I do it more in a spirit of thanksgiving: for the stunningly beautiful views of Clew Bay, leading out into the Atlantic, for the touching encounters on the way, for my ancestors.

It was the fourth time for me there, the first for Yim Soon, and on my previous ascent I’d got in with a parish group from Donegal and been invited to join them for Mass in the little white chapel on the summit. The priest had welcomed us with the words, ‘We arrive here at this the highest and the holiest point in Ireland and we come with our struggles and our joys.’ And I find that a pretty decent definition of pilgrimage: a journey to a recognised holy place, to which we bring our struggles and our joys.

In the evening we joined many others in a quasi-pilgrimage to Matt Molloys, the trad. music venue in Westport. I have fond memories of being there a couple of times with the team from the Irish Chaplaincy when we had done fundraising walks in Mayo. It was a good night.

Yim Soon and I drove back down the coast road the following day to do a shorter walk. I could relate to the words an Irish friend in London once wrote to me, ‘Every trip I make to Ireland is like a pilgrimage.’ Claire had also recommended visiting the National Famine Memorial at Murrisk which is near the foot of Croagh Patrick and with those wonderful views over Clew Bay. We paid a visit on this occasion. We also walked around the Bertra Beach peninsula. Standing at the water’s edge in the strong winds, gazing out at the ocean, it was a little taste of paradise.

On the drive back to the airport we stopped off at the Marian shrine of Knock, a popular pilgrimage destination. There was a prayerful Mass at mid-day in the huge basilica and I took some time to look at a lovely stained-glass depiction of pilgrims, together with words entitled ‘Pilgrimage’ writtten by the glass artist, Róisín de Buitléar: 

‘In seeking to separate oneself from the everyday concerns of this world, one chooses to spend time in the presence of God by travelling to a place of special meaning. 

Travelling to a special place where the divine pierces through the mundane, a pilgrimage holds out the promise of help and comfort in this world and of a living encounter with God.’

Even if I’m still struggling to give a neat answer to the question of what the difference is between a pilgrimage and a long-distance walk, I was filled with gratitude for my latest trip to Ireland, the whole of which seemed like a kind of sacred journey to a place of special meaning. I was happy to have returned to Croagh Patrick and Knock and perhaps we need to journey sometimes to such places in order to remind us that, in the end, all of the ground we walk on is holy ground; and that each moment holds out the promise of help and comfort in this world and of a living encounter with the sacred.