Canonisations to be marked across Ireland

A number of events in Ireland this weekend will mark tomorrow’s canonisations, many of them associated with places John Paul II visited during his September 1979 visit.

At 5pm this evening the Coadjutor Archbishop of Armagh Eamon Martin will take part in a special gathering at the Pope’s Cross in Killineer, Co Louth, from where Pope John Paul made his powerful plea for peace in Northern Ireland.

There will be prayers and music at the gathering as well as a reading of an excerpt from Pope John Paul’s address.

Tomorrow at 11am in the Pro-Cathedral the Archbishop of Dublin Dr Diarmuid Martin will celebrate a special Mass to mark the canonisations, while in Knock Basilica at 3pm a Mass of thanksgiving for Pope John XXIII and Pope John Paul II will be celebrated by the papal nuncio Archbishop Charles Brown.

At noon tomorrow at Ballybrit racecourse near Galway city, the Bishop of Galway Martin Drennan will celebrate a special Mass, followed by a short film reliving Pope John Paul’s famous Youth Mass in Galway in 1979.

At 3pm in Clonmacnoise, the Bishop of Ardagh and Clonmacnoise Francis Duffy will celebrate Mass, while at 1.30pm in Shannon town there will be Mass in the Church of St John and St Paul whose foundation was blessed by Pope John Paul in 1979.

The Bishop of Derry Donal McKeown will celebrate a special Mass in St Eugene’s Cathedral at 3pm.

RTÉ One will broadcast the canonisation ceremony live from the Vatican at 8.55am tomorrow with commentary from Fr Dermod McCarthy and Mary Kennedy, while at 10.30 tomorrow night, on the same channel, Mick Peelo will present a Would You Believe special on both popes. The panel will include the Bishop of Killala John Fleming, former rector of the Irish College in Rome.