Time to remember and reflect on my visit to sun-lit Lourdes

I suppose the slogan ‘Come to Lourdes for The Sunshine’ is not one used very often by the French Tourist Board, but on Tuesday afternoon this week, I thought I’d be sunburnt here!

In truth, only for I having my woolen Bride Rovers beanie cap stuffed in my pocket, my shining crown could well be blistered! By the Grotto in the shade it was cool, but across the river it was a glorious 18C.

This is, I think, my 15th or 16th ‘winter’ trip to Lourdes, and in truth, I’ve been very lucky over the years, weather-wise, but Tuesday bate Banagher altogether.

Just after 4am on Monday, Mary drove me to Cork Airport for the first leg of the journey - a 6am flight to Stansted. Four hours of a wait and then up, up and away for Lourdes.

On the plane, I overheard two Englishmen giving out yards about Brexit. One had ordered a pair of special mountain-climbing boots online from Poland, costing £175, and then he got a quare fright getting a Revenue letter demanding an extra £99 in fees!

I was so lucky this year and last that the early morning flight from Cork to London was grand to connect to the flight to France. For nearly a decade I used to bunk down overnight in Stansted to catch a very early plane to Tarbes airport.

It was a grand flight this week - we arrived ten minutes early.

In past winter pilgrimages, I stayed in the Spanish Convent near the train station but that Convent closed early last year. Last November, I was alone, all alone, in a Lebanese Convent.

I booked my flights about a month ago and last week, when looking for somewhere to stay, the forecast was woeful for Lourdes, so I booked into the San Saveur Hotel close by the Grotto. I reckoned if I got several drenchings, I wouldn’t have far to go ‘home’.

My taxi driver plays rugby with David Brua! I know David’s parents as they own the Agena Hotel where I stay in June each year. I might know his friends’ parents but I still gave him a taxi fare of more than what poor Michael O’Leary got for my two flights!

I’ve developed a phobia in the last year - I can’t go in a lift on my own, with others, no problem, but not on my own. Due to renovations I’m on the fourth floor, up 146 steps - yerra, I’ll offer it up!

It was just getting to dusk as I greeted the Crowned Virgin Statue, I’m not embarrassed a bit to cry here, it’s great to be back.

Jimmy McCarthy’s lovely song Neidin has a line about ‘a silver tear’ and on my way to the Grotto I follow a silver trail like a tear - little silver markers that weave and curve. They mark the direction that the little muddy, mucky stream flowed in 1858 when young Bernadette came to this swamp - then used as a dump and frequented by foraging pigs.

Round the corner and there is Massabiele, the Grotto - the essence of Lourdes. There are a good few people here for November.

A simple tile on the ground marks the spot where Bernadette knelt when the ‘wind blew and I saw the lady’. I knelt there too.

Before I left, I lit one big candle for all who asked me to do so. I then slept for ten hours.

On Tuesday - as Joe Cuddy used to sing “Pulled back the curtain to see for certain what I thought I knew” - yes, no rain, and at 8am the sun breaking through.

I took a bus through parts of Lourdes I never saw before, up beyond the beautiful and tranquil Cité de St Pierre - the City of the Poor - down hills and eventually up to the commercial centre.

I’d bought postcards but the shops no longer sell stamps so I went to the Post Office. I called to a chemist to get a cough bottle and paracetamol - I’ve a chesty, wheezy cough.

I am going to an English Mass at 11am, so there is plenty time to walk back along the familiar Rue de Grotte - not a single Christmas decoration in any street or shop - not ’til December 1.

Normally, at home I’d be addled with cows and meetings and concerts and writing and book launches - here in Lourdes, my mind is uncluttered and songs come drifting by.

As I pass where Sister Sinead O’Connor lived for a-while, I think of her singing on The Late Late “O master grant that I may never seek, to be understood as to understand...”

Down past the Poor Clares, there is a Mass each evening at 5pm. There are nearly a hundred at the Mass in St John Vianney chapel - and I met the Dublin lady who lives here and is in charge of the singing.

As I walk in the noon sunshine back again to the Grotto, Jimmy McCarthy’s chorus seems so apt “Won’t you remember, won’t you remember, won’t you remember me?” - that’s exactly what so many people ask for when one comes to Lourdes, to remember them at the Grotto, to remember people who loved this place and are gone before us, and to remember them in prayer.

I went on beyond the Grotto to the Baths, but the opening hours are just 10am till 11.30am - I can come back later.

I cross the river and go from shade into brilliant sunshine. I sit across from the Grotto and think of so many we have remembered and prayed for here on many June evenings.

Thousands of leaves are crisp on the ground, curling up in the warm sunshine. Occasionally, a breeze stirs up, a bit like sí gaoithe at home long ago, and the leaves move in formation heading for the river and then back as the wind changes.

Never did I imagine I’d need a cap to keep off the sun in November - then miracles do happen here!

Back at the Baths, a queue of several hundred await the water gesture. Since covid, the ‘total immersion ‘ baths are not allowed. Grotto spring water is used to wash the hands and face, then drink some and pray silently for one’s intentions - an emotional experience.

I missed the 3pm Rosary at the Grotto, but I am here until Saturday so plenty time.

I had lunch at the Little Flower, where the long-serving Michel is due to retire in December. I met Sister Fatima, the ‘doorkeeper’ at the Poor Clares, as I went in for the 5pm evening Mass in French - always quiet and special. I go into the chapel in the dusk and come out in the dark.

I often had a good laugh here over the years when chatting with Mallow-born Sr Marie Therese O’Connell - I hope to visit her grave in the little Community cemetery later this week.

I’ve travelled far by land and by sea, beautiful places I’ve happened to see

But there’s one little town I’ll never forget, Lourdes the village of St Bernadette.