Regardless of your stance on religion, nobody can deny that Pope John Paul II’s visit to Ireland in 1979 was a huge event in Irish history. Aproximately 80% of the population attended some part of the jam-packed visit, which lasted for three days, from 29 August to 1 September.
Day one
Regardless of your stance on religion, nobody can deny that Pope John Paul II’s visit to Ireland in 1979 was a huge event in Irish history. Aproximately 80% of the population attended some part of the jam-packed visit, which lasted for three days, from 29 August to 1 September.
Day one
When he arrived on Irish soil, the Pope kissed the ground of Dublin airport after leaving his Aer Lingus flight from Rome.
His first act of duty was the famous Phoenix Park mass. It was estimated before the mass that between 500,000 and 800,000 people would attend. Roughly 1.25 million people showed up on the day.
According to the Ulster Herald in 1979, the Pope said advisers had urged him not to visit Northern Ireland (despite his requests) because of the Troubles, so they settled on a trip to Drogheda.
When the Pope met with members of the international media in Dublin, they burst out into a spontaneous rendition of For He’s a Jolly Good Fellow, something that seems incomprehensible of being repeated this year.
Day two
John Paul II attended a youth mass on the second day of his visit along with 300,000 young people at the Ballybrit racecourse in Galway.
This is where he gave the iconic quote: “Young people of Ireland, I love you”, followed by an endless stream of raucous cheering and clapping.
His visit to Knock was a huge tourism boost for the small village and the Pope said it was “the goal of [his] journey to Ireland”. Over £500,000 (approximately €2.7m nowadays) was spent by Mayo County Council on the development of car parks, a new shopping area and reconstruction of roads around the shrine, according to the Connacht Tribune newspaper at the time.
Cost
The cost estimation of the visit was £1.5m, which is worth just over €8m today with inflation. The Irish Farmers Journal reasoned at the time that it worked out at around 50p per head of population.
It also reported in 1979 that the Pope had some words for farmers in Limerick: “I feel at home with you, as I did with the rural and mountain people of my native Poland and I repeat here to you what I told them: love the work of the fields, for it keeps you close to God, the Creator, in a special way.”
With a 93% Catholic population in 1981, Pope John Paul II was a welcomed figure by most in Ireland.
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