Pilgrim Ways

waters that there might be an abundance of fish and from here he went into Donegal. From here the mission proce ed On he travelled to County Antrim, where he sat on a crag known as Patrick‟s Rock, and went on to found many churches in what is today the diocese of Connor.

Nostalgically, Patrick returns to Slemish, where during his seven years as a slave, he looked after Gosacht, son of Miliucc, and two of Miliucc‟s daughters. He gave them secret instruction in the faith and they are often identified as the children who appeared to Patrick in a vision and called him back to Ireland to bring the faith to its people. For the remainder of his long life Patrick did just this. His extraordinary missionary zeal not only claimed Ireland for Christ but led to the Christian faith being brought back to Britain, and in later centuries to missionary territories the world over. In recent times it has become fashionable to attack the Catholic Church in Ireland but notwithstanding its failures no-one should underestimate the seismic impact which has sprung from those early journeys of St.Patrick and the gift of the Christian faith which its Catholic missionaries have taken all over the world.. In chapter twelve I have written about Lough Derg - St.Patrick‟s Purgatory - but before going there I would recommend the pilgrim keen to walk Patrick‟s ways to make one other journey in Ireland - to Armagh.

Armagh Armagh can claim to be one of the oldest ecclesiastical capitals in Europe. It was here that St.Patrick founded his first bishopric in 444/445. On two of its hills stand the Cathedrals of the two main Christian communities. The Church of Ireland Cathedral is the older of the two and it stands on the site of St.Patrick‟s foundation. Elsewhere in Ulster, at Downpatrick, the relics of Patrick, Brigid and Columba were discovered in the twelfth century. St.Patrick is said to have died a few miles away at Saul, perhaps in the year 461. In September 1979 Pope John Paul II made his historic visit to Ireland, and visited Armagh.. He gave twenty four talks, which centred on the message of peace and reconciliation, justice and respect among all peoples. These were later published by the Daughters of St. Paul as Ireland: In the Footsteps of St.Patrick. (1979). On his arrival in Ireland the Pope said “It is with immense joy and with profound gratitude to the Most Holy Trinity that I set foot today on Irish soil. I am very happy to walk among you - in the footsteps of St.Patrick and in the path of the Gospel that he left you as a great heritage - being convinced that Christ is here.” He urged the Irish to “Remember St.Patrick. Remember what the fidelity of just one man has meant for Ireland and for the world. Yes fidelity to Jesus Christ and to His Word makes all the difference in the world. Let us therefore look up to Jesus, who is for all time the faithful witness of the Father.” John Paul saw his journey to Ireland as an act of pilgrimage: “I go to Ireland as a pilgrim, just as I did first in Mexico and then in Poland, my native land. Today I express my joy at being able, by means of this pilgrimage, to find myself in those ways along which the whole People of God of the Emerald Isle has walked towards the Lord for centuries”. On his return to Rome he told a crowd of 40,000 people gathered in St.Peter‟s Square that “the bishop who visits the communities of his Church is the true pilgrim who arrives every time at that particular shrine of the Good Pastor, which is the People of God, participating in Christ‟s royal priesthood. This shrine, in fact, is every man, whose mystery can be explained and solved only in the mystery of the Word incarnate” Clonmacnois Reflecting on his pilgrimage to Ireland, the Pope said he would never forget the time he had spent at Clonmacnois: “The ruins of the abbey and of the church speak of the life that once pulsated there; of the Irish monks who not only implanted Christianity in the Emerald Isle but