A NUMBER of GAA intercounty stars will be among the last Irish pilgrims to travel to Madrid today for the start of World Youth Day 2011.
Most of the 900 or so Irish attending the week-long Catholic festival are already in Spain, with many opting to take part in additional diocesan days in parishes on the continent before the festival starts.
Departing today with the diocese of Limerick is county hurler Séamus Hickey, who will be joined abroad by Meath county footballer Joe Sheridan who also leaves for Madrid today. “I was brought up in a Catholic family and I’m not the most religious or anything but we would have gone to Mass as often as we could,” said Joe.
As Meath were knocked out of the championship, Joe saw a rare opportunity to take part in the pilgrimage. “Football definitely restricts you a bit – my dad said to me this might be the only time you’ll get a chance to do it.”
Joe is particularly looking forward to the highlight of the festival, a Mass on Sunday morning said by Pope Benedict to a predicted one million people. Many Irish pilgrims are already in Spain, including those from the diocese of Down and Connor, who are being led by their auxiliary bishop, Donal McKeown.
“We’ve met groups from the US, from Brazil, from Spain obviously. They are all carrying flags and there is this fantastic sense of this enormous festival of faith,” he said.
Bishop McKeown and his group of 42 young pilgrims arrived into Madrid last night after spending three days in Porto in Portugal as part of the “days in the diocese” programme, in which a group can travel to a foreign parish, where they will be hosted.
Many of the group from Down and Connor were looking forward to the pope’s Mass on Sunday. “A million people singing together is something else. Some of them might have been involved in their parish in some way and this is a way to get their toe in the door with something larger,” he said.
World Youth Day gets under way today with an opening Mass this evening in Madrid’s Cibeles Square.