Now at the last count we found 22 saintly contenders who share this day but today we focus on how St Veronica wipes out King Billy on the Glorious 12th.
St Veronica, we know from one simple act of humanity from the Passion of Jesus Christ.
When she wiped Our Lord’s sweat and blood-splattered face on his way to Calvary.
For which she was sanctified and given this day for Christians to mark every 12th of July.
Though some in the North of Ireland prefer to bedeck themselves in orange and march in memory of Protestant saviour King William of Orange.
And burn effigies of the Pope upon towering pyres of tyres.
The Donegal exodus
All of which leads to an exodus of Catholics to bordering Donegal in the Republic of Ireland.
Our own Veronica here in our family, our beloved auntie who used to take me on childhood holidays there and in Co. Galway, now lies for eternity there in her home county.
And I was able to return the favour to drive her and my Dear Old Mum, her big sister, up to Ireland’s northernmost county, in her sports car, with both women chattering and pressing buttons on the dashboard.
Veronica’s, or Ronnie’s as we all knew her, was well-named and such was her devotion to her faith I remember her especially this day, her patron saint’s day.
The virtuous Veronica
Of the other Veronica, well, little is known of her after her act of kindness.
But more is known of the cloth she handed to Jesus with it believed to reside now in the Vatican.
There is reference to it coming into the hands of Pope John VII in the early eighth century.
While its legend became popular in the 13th through 15th centuries when the veil was on public display.
Indulgences were granted for people who performed devotions before it.
The trail went somewhat cold around the Sack of Rome in 1527.
There are believed to be six known copies in the world with the original kept in St. Peter’s basilica.
Portrait of a saint
So, if you want an alternative to Northern Irish unionist triumphalist on this day.
Then try the patron saint of laundry workers and photographers… and thank you for my own award-winning snapper, Mrs M.
Because now you know, St Veronica wipes out King Billy on the Glorious 12th.