Pilgrimage survives to well that never runs dry

Country Living with Francis Farragher

The pilgrim’s progress is never an easy path but year-in, year-out, all across this country and indeed the world, millions of people make their way on journeys of spiritual fulfilment. Pilgrimages transgress all faiths whether it be Mecca for Muslims, the Holy Land for most Christian faiths or a very popular one of recent years, the way of St. James in Santiago de Compostela in Galicia, Spain.

More modestly and humbly, there are locations far closer to home like the Holy Well in Athenry or a hillside that I visited last week to commemorate the feast day of St. Bernard, a man of faith that has always been linked with the parish of Abbeyknockmoy.

Over recent times, the feast day of St. Bernard has been celebrated by the local community and priests with a Mass on the southern slope of Knockroe Hill, subject to weather conditions being suitably co-operative.

The scene was no different last Thursday evening when a couple of hundred of the faithful congregated on a hillside that’s worth a visit at any time of year, but especially so, on a clear day when the summit provides quite breathtaking views of the Corrib along with swathes of Connemara, Mayo, the Slieve Aughties and at times the Slieve Bloom mountains.

Given the Summer we’ve endured so far, it probably was asking a bit much for a clear evening last Thursday and although the weather wasn’t particularly malign, there was too much cloud cover loitering, accompanied by mists drifting in from the Atlantic, to experience the stunning views that can be on offer.

Irish weather though always provides plenty by way of variety and half-way through last Thursday evening’s Mass, the mists could first be seen caressing the mountains of Connemara 80 to 90 miles away, before duly arriving on the pilgrimage hillside about 15 minutes later.

There was nothing particularly vicious about the St. Bernard’s Day weather this year and there are loyal followers of the French saint out Abbeyknockmoy and Ballyglunin way, who believe that after any particularly dank Summer, the Cistercian monk has the good grace to ‘throw an eye’ on our Atlantic systems before guiding them away from our shores in order to give us a good harvest.

If St. Bernard does that this year, then all our faith in him will be restored but the priority of last week’s pilgrims was to take spiritual sustenance from the outdoor Mass and the reputedly curative properties of the water from the hillside well, that never runs dry, even when we do get a particularly dry summer.

There’s a bit of an historical riddle as to how a 12th century Cistercian monk from Dijon in eastern France – who never set foot in Ireland – could become the patron saint of Abbeyknockmoy.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.