De Omnibus Dubitandum Est.

Ireland's Marian Shrine at Knock, Co. Mayo, in the West of Ireland. Knock Shrine is visited by over one million people each year. The Shrine has had a huge new mosaic commissioned and that mosaic was unveiled at Mass yesterday, 28th Feb 2016. One of the largest mosaics of its kind in Europe, the huge and impressive artwork was officially unveiled by the Most Rev Michael Neary D.D., Archbishop of Tuam during the 12 noon Mass. It is composed of more than 1.5 million individual pieces of mosaic and forms part of a major, two-year refurbishment of Knock Basilica and an overall renewal project at Ireland’s National Marian Shrine, called ‘Witness to Hope’ . At the ceremony on Sunday, 15 local people, some of them descendants of those who witnessed the Apparition in 1879, performed a short candlelit procession to commemorate the extraordinary events in Knock 137 years ago. Those events still draw over one million pilgrims from Ireland and abroad to Ireland’s Marian sh...

Last weekend I was fortunate enough to travel to the West of Ireland for my first cousin Alan's stag weekend celebrations. Next weekend I will be privileged to attend his wedding to the beautiful and erudite Michelle. They're a wonderful couple and I am really proud to be able to attend both legs of the wedding. Despite a 5am start on Saturday, a car (well van) journey, the joys of Stanstead Airport, the joys of Ryanair, a plane journey during which I was constantly called upon to purchase various items of paraphernalia I neither wanted or need, the joys of Knock Airport and another car journey, and an afternoon and evening spent sampling the Guinness in every bar and pub in Galway City, I managed to haul myself out of bed, eat a hearty breakfast, and wander from the hotel through the quaint Galway streets, now horribly decorated with the necessary and somewhat unavoidable product of the over-exuberant libationary extravagance of literally thousands of Galway students, to Gal...