Pilgrimage to Mayo's Caher Island this Thursday

By Tom Gillespie

ON this Thursday, August 15, the Feast of the Assumption, the annual pilgrimage to Caher Island in Clew Bay takes place - weather permitting.

The ceremonies are attended by many people from the neighbouring islands of Inishturk and Clare Island, as well as many visitors from home and abroad.

Caher Island, or Oilean Na Naomh, is situated about five miles out to sea from Roonagh Pier and it was once a hermitage site.

On the island there are remains of buildings and monuments ranging in date from the 7th or 8th centuries up to medieval times; it is a veritable open-air museum.

On the pilgrimage day Mass is celebrated in the ruins of Teampull Padraigh, the circa 12th church, and a holy well, high up in the hills on the island is also visited for prayer.

In olden days the fishermen doffed their caps and dipped their sails in reverence as they passed the island and said a prayer in Irish.

A cursing stone, Leac na Naomh, which was much feared by the local people, now sits on the altar in the ruined church.

Close by, a slab known a Leabaidh Phadraig is credited with curative powers. It is said that anyone afflicted with epilepsy will be cured of it if the supplicant sleeps on the slab for a short time.

No rodent can survive on the island, and clay brought from the island and spread around a property on the mainland is claimed to be fatal to rats and mice.

The area surrounding the church has many fascinating monuments, including a 7th century hammer-head cross.

Back in the 1960s the pilgrims were taken to Caher by sail boat (pictured) but today they travel by ferry, but have to disembark into curraghs to get ashore on the island.