Celtic Saints of Ireland

Tracing the sacred geography of Ireland from Dublin's medieval cathedrals and the Rock of Cashel, through Killarney and Galway, to the apparition shrine at Knock and the wild ascent of Croagh Patrick.

The journey begins in Dublin, where the medieval spires of Christ Church Cathedral and St. Patrick's Cathedral rise above the Liffey, and where the Book of Kells at Trinity College reminds visitors that Ireland once kept the light of Christian scholarship alive for a fractured Europe. Heading south into Tipperary, the road climbs to the Rock of Cashel, the ancient seat where tradition holds St. Patrick himself baptized King Aengus in the 5th century, its ruined cathedral and round tower still standing sentinel over the Golden Vale. Further west in Killarney, pilgrims find both the soaring neo-Gothic beauty of St. Mary's Cathedral and the quiet, ivy-wrapped ruins of Muckross Abbey, a Franciscan friary founded in the 1400s where monks and chieftains alike are laid to rest beneath a centuries-old yew tree. Galway offers the striking Galway Cathedral on the banks of the Corrib, one of the last great stone cathedrals built in Europe, before the road turns north to Knock — the heart of the pilgrimage. There, in 1879, witnesses reported an apparition of Our Lady, St. Joseph, and St. John the Evangelist on the gable wall of the parish church, and today the Basilica of Our Lady, Queen of Ireland draws pilgrims from around the world seeking healing and grace at what is now one of the Catholic Church's officially recognized apparition sites.

• Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin
• St. Patrick's Cathedral, Dublin
• Book of Kells, Trinity College Dublin
• Rock of Cashel, Tipperary
• St. Mary's Cathedral, Killarney
• Muckross Abbey, Killarney
• Galway Cathedral
• Knock Shrine — Apparition Gable & Basilica
• Croagh Patrick — barefoot ascent
• Glendalough — St. Kevin's Monastery

Journey at a Glance