Thirteen of us from the Parish embarked on our second pilgrimage during the last week of September. This time we stayed in Mount St Anne’s Conference Centre near Portarlington in Count Laos and visited sites connected with St Brigid (in Kildare) and St Ciaran (Clonmacnoise).

As well as learning about these saints we enjoyed morning and evening worship together and had a lot of fun along the way including time in the lounge each evening after our evening devotions. As well as the spiritual sites we visited, there was also time to spend money in Kildare Outlet Village and go horse racing at the National Stud.

Plans are already afoot for our 2025 pilgrimage!  Rev. Andy

A Personal Reflection by Helen Eccles

On hearing about our proposed Pilgrimage, Geoffrey Chaucer’s wonderful Canterbury Tales came to mind, and the diverse, colourful characters making their way to the shrine of St. Thomas Becket in the Cathedral at Canterbury.  Now knowing and admiring my upstanding fellow travellers and pilgrims for many years I was confident that they would indeed bear no such relation to those dubious bodies, and so we wended our way to follow in the footsteps of St.Ciaran and St. Brigid to Kildare.

We stopped for a short while on our journey at St. Brigid’s shrine in Faughart and felt that the deep peace of the holy place quietened our hearts and minds preparing us to be receptive of the blessings of our retreat and pilgrimage ahead.  Arriving at Mount St.Anne’s Conference Centre near Portarlington, the beauty of a very old house set in carefully tended gardens in the midst of the rolling countryside was a joy and a blessing in itself.  The Centre is run by the Order of The Presentation Sisters in the nearby convent and the warmth of our welcome, care and concern for our comfort ensured a week to be long remembered. We shared the house with Brothers from the order of St Francis, and seeing these brown robed and sandalled figures passing along the corridors for morning and evening worship strengthened the feeling that we were indeed taking part in something so different from our daily lives.  Brother Michael from the order, and Sister Catherine from the Presentation Sisters each talked to us about their vocations, the history of their Orders, and the work that they do. Sister Catherine had always been involved in education, in many parts of the world.

Our own morning  and evening services were prayerfully chosen and guided by our Vicar Andy and obviously such a lot of work had gone into the preparation.  This was made even more special by each one of us in turn being encouraged to lead the service with bible readings, prayers and the choosing of favourite hymns and pieces of music which Andy put up on the large screen.

After our evening devotions we met up in a large and beautiful room given over to us as our sitting room. There the fun began, like times of old we came together as the family we now felt we were.  Jokes told by our resident joke tellers, you know who you are, and how you remembered them was an amazement to all of us.  We had stories, charades, box and board games and not a mention of television, newspapers or any other so called must have modern entertainment. The laughs we had were felt to have bonded us forever.

The rest of our week were devoted to some memorable outings again arranged by Andy, a visit to Clonmacnoise, a ruined monastery and graveyard founded in 544 by St Ciaran; and again in a beautiful space of peacefulness  we had a short service. We walked the Pilgrim Way and visited St. Brigid’s awe-inspiring Cathedral and used that time for our own reflections and to marvel at the vibrant colours of the stained glass windows, dedicated to the glory of God.  Across the road was the Heritage Centre and for me what a revelation that was, a state of the art reality experience meant we were actually there discovering the heritage and mythology of ancient Kildare through stories of St.Brigid and Fionn Mac Cumhall..  We visited Solas Bhride, a Christian Spirituality Centre welcoming people of all faiths and none, and again heard more of the works and ministry of St. Brigid.  In our final visit of the day the pouring rain did not deter our pilgrim’s visit to the Holy Wells which are said to have healing properties, dedicated to Brigid on her Feast day, the 1stFebruary the first day of Spring, the lambing season.

Our last full day was a choice, shopping at the Outlet Centre or a visit to the National Stud and we all knew who would go to where! The shoppers set off with high hearts and hopes and credit cards at the ready, undeterred again by the ever-present driving rain. Some of us then went to the horses {not the dogs! ] and this was a great experience. We were given a guided tour and saw the young horses nearly ready for sale to buyers all over the world.  There was a much loved and treasured by the staff older stallion shortly to be  retired.  Prices quoted for some of these animals were mind boggling involving Arab Sheikhs and millions of pounds. We enjoyed the virtual racing experience, choose a horse at auction, mine a beautiful chestnut, oh I wish, pick your jockey, trainer and then design the silks finish with a race on a  mechanical horse, which spilling beans here, our dashing curate Carol won. I was a sad loser but no money changed hands!

Later we collected the weary, rain sodden shoppers who, still in high spirits, joined us laden with bags, boots, parcels and boxes.  Surely there wouldn’t be much left at the outlet centre? A particular Vicar’s wife, naming no names, actually ‘borrowed’ her husband’s credit card having ‘mislaid’ her own, and he, dear innocent Christian soul actually gave it to her! Heads were shaken sadly by we in the Horse Fraternity at such folly but no more was said.

Our Pilgrimage ended on our last night in the St. Anne’s beautiful little chapel where we took communion. Perhaps all of us felt that our lives would somehow never be quite the same again, and each of us took away something very precious from our pilgrimage.  Helen Eccles