On St. Patrick’s Day 2021, there was none of the usual pomp of the commercialised parade up O’Connell Street in Dublin, but there was the comforting sight of Catholics staging a procession.
Organised to ‘Reclaim St Patrick's day for the Glory of The Most Holy Trinity’, the event faced many problems, specifically the Gardai putting up a ‘Ring of Steel’ to prevent people from gathering in the city on the day. Despite the necessity of taking names for the purposes of issuing fines, the Gardai were otherwise quite fair in how they dealt with the procession according to those involved.
Beginning at the Garden of Remembrance, they then made their way up O’Connell Street towards Grafton Street, praying and singing along the way.
Modest as it was, it was a welcome change from the usual meaningless events in Ireland each St. Patrick’s Day. Plans are already afoot for a proper Catholic celebration for St. Patrick’s Day next year.
The organisers of the event have said the following:
We Catholics from around Ireland went ahead with a procession in honour of St. Patrick today to reclaim the day for the Glory of The Most Holy Trinity. For many years now people, most especially politicians, have been using the day to promote and encourage the very things that St Patrick came to preach against. The usual government/state parade and various events usually make a mockery of St Patrick so with this year's state parade cancelled, we wanted to use this opportunity to hold a procession to remind people of the true message of St Patrick which was the preaching of the gospel of Jesus Christ and to call on the Irish people to turn back to God.
We want to show and remind people that Christianity is a religion of courage and of hope and to proclaim the message that if people turn back to God, then he will heal our land. - 2 Chronicles 7:14
We also want to show Catholics that it is important to push back against government attempts to restrict public worship. Openly professing our Faith in public is an essential part of our faith. The government can never suspend our God-given rights which includes the right to practice our Faith especially in public where we can do the most good to souls. The Irish government is not simply suspending constitutional rights, they are trying to destroy our God-given rights and that is why it is so important to maintain some public presence.
We wish all people in Ireland a happy feast of Saint Patrick and urge all to return to the faith which St Patrick preached.
Please continue to pray for renewal of the Catholic faith in Ireland.
