Looking back to 1941 - 1500th anniversary of pilgrimage

BY kind permission of the Catholic Truth Society of Ireland, a 20-page booklet, written by Fr. Angelus, O.F.M, Cap, was published to mark 1,500 years (441 to 1941) since St. Patrick set foot on Croagh Patrick. Over the coming weeks, in the run up to the annual pilgrimage to the Reek on Sunday, July 30, we publish extracts from the publication, The Croagh Patrick Pilgrimage, writes Tom Gillespie in his weekly column in The Connaught Telegraph.

 

Fr. Angelus wrote: Visitors to the west of Ireland cannot fail to notice and to be impressed with one mountain that stands out sentinel-like on solitary grandeur, commanding attention. In recent times this mountain was known as Cruchan Agli - the eagle’s mount. Today it is called Croagh Patrick, and is also referred to as the Reek.

The association of St. Patrick with this mountain has given to it the name it now bears, has made it the holy mountain of the west, and explains the attraction it has for the Irish people, an attraction that is evidenced by the annual pilgrimage that is made to its lofty summit.

In the year - the fifteen hundredth anniversary of the sojourn of St. Patrick on the Reek - I venture to tell the story of the Croagh Patrick pilgrimage in a simple statement showing why this pilgrimage is made, and how it is performed.

It would be easy to dwell on the scenic beauty of the mountain, and to describe the impressive view that may be seen from the summit on a clear day, but I am writing not for mountain climbers, nor for seekers after beautiful scenery, but for those to whom Croagh Patrick is before and above all things else a place of pilgrimage, of penance, and of prayer.

Many of the holy places of our land, shrines that were sacred to our forefathers, have been taken from us by the enemies of our faith, but one at least, possibly because it offered no material gain to the despoilers, was left untouched.

Croagh Patrick, the Sinai of Ireland, was never profaned, and has come down to us as a grand inheritance, a national shrine.

Each year on the last Sunday of July many thousands of Irish people flock to the holy mountain, climb its rugged sides, and perform exercises of penance and prayer.

It is Reek Sunday, the day of the Croagh Patrick pilgrimage, and those thousands of pilgrims are carrying on an unbroken tradition, following in the footsteps of their race, to whom down all the centuries Croagh Patrick has been a holy mountain.

My acquaintance with Croagh Patrick goes back to the year 1906 - when I climbed it for the first time - and every year since, with only two exceptions, I have taken part in the pilgrimage.

I know the mountain in all its varying moods. I have enjoyed its pleasure, and endured its hardships. I have climbed it under all conditions, in fair and foul weather, in sunshine and in shower, in the darkness of the night, in the glow of the early dawn, and in the full brilliancy of noonday splendour.

I could almost climb it blindfolded from base to summit, so well do I know the pilgrim’s winding path. I have experienced all the difficulties of the climb and, whilst I readily admit that it is a trying ordeal, I would remind my readers that its difficulties can easily be exaggerated.

The mountain has been described as ‘fearful’, the ascent as ‘savage’. At its worst, and I have experience of what that means, I would never bring myself to associate such terms with Croagh Patrick, possibly because, with the late Dr. Healy, Archbishop of Tuam, ‘I have come to love the Reek with a kind of personal love’.

Difficult undoubtedly it is for even the young and strong, yet I have seen old men and women over 80 years of age bravely and cheerfully climbing to the top, and for years in succession I have greeted a girl pilgrim making the ascent on crutches.

Many pilgrims take from Croagh Patrick an unpleasant remembrance of the weather conditions encountered on the mountain. But these happened to be unlucky or unfortunate in the day of their climb. I would say that usually the pilgrims meet with intermittent showers and the mountain mists, the effects of which is soon removed by the mountain breeze, or by a period of brilliant sunshine.

Some years the pilgrimage is performed under the glare of a warm sun lasting the whole day, occasionally, and I use this word deliberately, occasionally, a constant downpour of rain adds very much to the difficulty of the climb.

The remark often heard that ‘it is always raining on Croagh Patrick’ is far from correct. With my long experience of now close on forty years as a pilgrim, I can assure my readers that in that long period there were at most only four days that could be described as being bad.

Croagh Patrick is a place of pilgrimage where we must expect to suffer inconvenience and to endure hardship, from the climb, and from the performance of the penitential stations.

Our going to the mountain is not in the nature of a day's outing; it is an heroic undertaking prompted by religious motives. To appreciate aright what Croagh Patrick means we must not judge it by the crowds we see resting in the level space on the top, or in the streets of Westport on Sunday evening on their return from the Reek.

We should rather watch them laboriously climbing the steep ascent, and marvel at the heroism and piety of those pilgrims who walk around the rough stony summit in their bare feet, or perform the penitential exercises on their bare knees.

 

Read part 2 - St. Patrick and the Reek - in Tom Gillespie's 'Mayo Outlook column in next Tuesday's print edition