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Countries, Europe, Ireland, Pilgrimage, South America

Mary’s month of May

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And I have good reason to honour Our Lady and honour Mary’s month of May.

Like much with the Catholic church the early leaders gleaned from existing culture.

And that meant transferring the worship of Artemis, the goddess of fertility, to Mary, the mother of Jesus.

Mary, of course, is venerated for her matriarchy and May is the month when Spring is in its fullest bloom.

Now we all have much to be grateful for or reflect on after these past two years.

And what better way than visiting any one of her Marian sites?

Marian sites

Now growing up an Irish-Scot in Glasgow the focus was always on the most famous of them all Lourdes, and Knock in Ireland.

And little did I know that Mary has shrines from A-Z around the world.

We probably shouldn’t be surprised because as the old saying goes… when you want something done ask a busy woman.

And so I made the pilgrimage to Knock in the West of Ireland as a child, where Our Lady appeared with St Joseph and St John.

Lourdes above

I don’t know what the sell-by date is on prayers but 40 years later I was back for more favours this time, the mothership.

Lourdes is the Holywood of Marian sites.

And yes it has more candles than on a Meatloaf video (ask your parents).

But there is something ethereal about grasping a candle with a cardboard square holder so as the wind doesn’t blow it out.

At the vigil mass at the grotto.

While the huge candles with inscriptions carved out by small Italian and Irish villages reminds us that Lourdes was once just that.

Each Marian site clearly has Mary at its heart but each has its own USP.

Fatima faith

My own Dear Old Mum was moved by her own experiences in Guadeloupe in Mexico.

Where she recalled a worshipper climbing the steps of a church on her knees.

And I saw it too at Fatima, though the pilgrim was saved the incline as the altar is situated in a square.

Magic Medge

Medjugorje in Bosnia & Herzegovina in the Balkans holds ambitions to be endorsed by the Vatican as a Marian site.

Without getting too liturgical the Papacy accepts organised pilgrimages to Medge are OK by them.

Although it does fall short of their authentication of Marian sites. Very Jesuitical.

This year promises to be a special one with suggestions of a Big Reveal.

And pilgrims who crowd around the Blue Cross to hear Our Lady talk through one of the original visionaries are agog with expectancy.

Prayers from Brazil

Whether the Brazilian I broke bread with at breakfast who had made his way to Ilsa will be there to hear it who knows.

But as with all pilgrims he planted a seed for the next Marian traveller (me) to visit the next shrine, Aparecida.

Countries, Culture, Europe, Ireland, Sport, UK

My Sporting Weekend – Kitmastime

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And for many a parent the go-to Christmas present for kids (and maybe vice-versa) was a football top.

My most memorable was, and this is pertinent in a week when we lost Diego Maradona, La Albiceleste.

Or the sky blue and white stripes.

Truth was that my attempts at long hair never came close to the chic cool of the hero of that year’s World Cup, Mario Kempes.

And physical evidence still exists in a picture album of a rather angst-ridden teen standing by the tree.

In truth I hadn’t asked for Argentina and would have preferred the Dutch shirt.

And I did rue the day I left the World Cup winners’ top behind in a changing room.

So in recognition of Diego and also to flag up a very good cause comedian Mark Watson’s Kitmas appeal for donations of old football tops here are my five faves.

Which will, of course, draw you to these countries.

Dutch of class

Argentina and the Netherlands in the World Cup final in 1978.

The Netherlands: And it was probably just as well that my parents didn’t give me the Dutch top in the Glasgow of the Seventies.

Because an orange top is identified in Scotland with King William of Orange and the Protestant team Rangers.

And that wouldn’t have gone down well in my Catholic school.

Thing was though that as an eight-year-old and uncluttered by such nonsense I was dazzled by that colour.

And the Netherlands of Cruyff and Krol.

And I did manage to blend in with the Oranje Army when I treated the-then Miss F to a night out.

Amsterdam to Rotterdam where the Dutch beat the Greeks 1-0.

Portuguese man of awe

Portugal: And while it’s mostly always the top you get sometimes you need the whole shirt and shorts ensemble.

So that Portugal‘s red top with the addition of green shorts becomes the Portugal flag.

Our guide Jose Madomis told us from the off that Portugal in the days of the dictator Salazar was run on Football, Fado and Fatima.

So much so that among all the stands of Our Lady merch in Fatima you’ll find the Portuguese shirt and Cristiano Ronaldo towel!

Moroccan roll

Morocco: And not just because they were Scotland’s last opponents in the finals of a major competition, a 3-0 defeat in 1998.

But because of the lengths I went to to get myself a Morocco top

On my travels in Marrakech. I picked the green one rather than the red.

Where I got roped in by a trader after some pointless bartering.

To buy his threadbare top off his stall for more than its worth.

Which set in motion a tragical mystery tour from Jemaa el-Fna around the souks.

And that was just the start of my rocky Moroccan roll.

Roman holiday

Hotti Totti: Roma legend Francesco Totti

Roma: And we’re still waiting to get to see the Gods of calcio after Dad here promised the Son and Heir a match only to forget his passport.

But we did get a Giallorossi (red, more of a maroon, and yellow piping) top snd pencil case.

Calcio too is a religion in Rome

And as you come out of the Vatican you’ll find the shops on one side of the street bedecked in yellow and white, the other in Roma red.

Dynamic Zagreb

Medjugorje: And, no, you didn’t read that wrongly…. the Balkans Wars just across the Croatian border in Bosnia & Herzegovina is solidly Croat.

Particularly in the Irish Centre, the focal point for your Marian tour.

Where your barman cranks up the volume when his faves Dynamo Zagreb play.

And with my Croatia friends on World Cup final day in 2018

And will accompany it with a tape of his best supporters’ songs.

Outside on the stands and in the shops and the only thing competing for space with Our Lady is…

Yes, you guessed it Croatia’s distinctive red and white checked tops.

And one just for me

Put your shirt on me

Quinta do Murto; And a postscript here… before I was invited out to Quinta do Lago to visit the hi-tec Campus.

I was asked my shirt size.

And when I was taken into the changing rooms where English Premier League sides set up camp there on the peg was…

My own black top with white sleeves with my name on the back.

America, Countries, Culture, Europe, UK

Driving entertainment in lockdown

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It’s all come a long way since the days when a drive-thru was getting out of the car and picking up the family’s takeaway.

Now because of COVID we can stay in our hermetically-sealed cocoon and enjoy all manner of thrills.

Park by the Pole

Lucky Devil Lounge, Portland, Oregon: And here’s where you can get extra with your bun… two buns actually!

Customers who order food can pay $30 per car and driver (plus $10 for any passengers in the car) to use the drive-thru and watch a show.

In normal years I find myself in the US around Gay Pride.

And my friends at the American Travel Fair, IPW, put on a fabulous Gay Pride night… Washington, Denver, Los Angeles/Anaheim.

Bless me, Father

Limoges, France: Maybe you’ve not been out enough over these lockdowns to have compiled enough sins but come on, all that food and drink.

And Sainte Jeanne d’Arc in Limoges will hear your darkest secrets from your car.

When all this is over, of course many of us will be going all Medieval and giving thanks to the Great Redeemer.

In France, that’s Lourdes, in Portugal it’s Fatima, Italy is Rome, Spain the Camino and Medjugorje in Bosnia & Herzegovina.

Probably the best gig

Denmark: And Mads Langer doesn’t let a small thing like lockdown make him down his mic.

Mads sold 500 tickets for a concert at Tangkrogen outside Aarhus, Denmark’s second city after Copenhagen.

The cars were rockin’ and rollin’!

Airport movies

Bringing some colour into our lives

Edinburgh Airport: And all of this drive-thrumania has been triggered by the news that my local airport Edinburgh is putting on a Halloween offering.

Drive-ins were always the stuff of James Dean movies (the first drive-in cinema was actually New Jersey, not LA).

You never forget your first time though and that for me was Toronto and a Bond movie, The Living Daylights. And while our first albums are usually embarrassing I’m happy with that choice.

Anyhoos back to Edinburgh. You’ll get Ghostbusters, Hocus Pocus, Coco, The Lost Boys, Jaws (not nearly as terrifying at Universal Studios Hollywood) and Halloween.

November brings us Back to the Future, Rocketman, Mamma Mia and more.

There’s entertainment galore, food and drink from local producers Cold Town Beer and Alandas plus DJ Captain Calverto will entertain you before each film with car discos. singalongs and quiz fun.

They’ve offered me (and I guess you too) the chance to win tickets.

And you might even see a plane flying overhead… and hopefully I’ll be on it.

Africa, Countries, Culture, Europe, Ireland, UK

My cousin, the Chief of the Igbo tribe of Nigeria

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So, the Chief of the Igbo tribe of Nigeria, my cousin, Father Donald McGlynn, has gone back to the Great Spirit in the Sky.

And I will never get to ask him of his life with the Nigerians and what powers being chief of the Igbo gave him.

Which is, of course, a pity.

It strikes me that I have two choices.

Try and find out from his relatives at his funeral or go out to Nigeria and discover it for myself.

Happen, I’ll do both.

Father Donald was that most impressive of men.

You know the type… smart as a tack, well-travelled, well-balanced and non-judgmental.

And somebody who would let someone else take the floor and vent their spleen.

Without any knowledge of the subject on which he would have been an authority.

And so it was when he told us of his empathy for the Palestinians as he discussed a recent tour of The Holy Land.

After the Mass that he officiated at at my parents’ Golden Wedding Anniversary.

Father Donald and his Brother and five Sisters (and I cap them deliberately) were a regular presence in our house growing up in Glasgow.

And that vestment would certainly fit me

The progeny of my Mum’s Uncle and Auntie, Danny and Norah McGlynn of Brockagh, Co. Donegal.

The patriarch was even personally blessed by Pope John Paul II when he visited Ireland.

And all of that rubbed off on me. Because like every Catholic boy in Glasgow I flirted with becoming a priest.

Before I discovered girls.

I have though made it my life’s mission to get round the Marian sites… Lourdes, Fatima and Medjugorje

But Father Donald, missionary extraordinaire, you did and you were the best of us.

And as they say in Ireland…

Go raibh mile maith agat.

Countries, Deals, Europe, Pilgrimage

What’s the story, Medjugorje? Wouldn’t you like to know?

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It’s 5.40pm in mid-October in Medjugorje and everyone and everything stops… for Our Lady, although check your times as I’m told it’s 6.40pm in the summer.

The fast-praying, gesticulating Italian priest (I’ll call him Fr Luigi) in his open-necked dog collar… it’s a balmy late afternoon.

Fr Leon, the wise-cracking, whip-cracking Chaplain to the English-speaking Community.

And the Irish Franciscan brother and pastor to the young, Brother Columba.

Who thankfully isn’t standing too close to the candles – he admits that he once burnt his navel-length beard at a procession.

We are all marking the moment 38 years ago in 1981 when Our Lady appeared on a cloud to six children from the village.

Ivan Visionary

She can’t be much of a fan of teatime television then or maybe she had Neighbours on record.

It was certainly a half-time break back in 1981 in the big Yugoslavian basketball game which helped draw the two boys out.

Ivan Visionary (our guide Daniella’s nomenclature for him) will join us later in the week at the Blue Cross where Mary first appeared.

*My way: And I’m say*ing me some rosaries

Although when I say join us, he is two rows of heads in front in a circle of worshippers.

I had hoped to see him in the ecstatic trance of those childhood photos on the boards in the grounds of St James’s Church.

Or heard some speaking in tongues. I know I’m unlikely to see Our Lady or hear her but Ivan Visionary has been on speaking terms with the Mother of God for 40 years.

Mary’s flower

I’ve every chance of seeing her though, or at least feel her presence, around Medjugorje which has expanded a millionfold since 1981.

From that two-towered hurling posts-looking church, some tobacco fields and vines, to what it is today, a Marian resort dedicated to the worship of Her and Him.

And as with everywhere, Commercialism.

Our Lady is there in every shop on every corner, as are her beloved rosaries,

Where you can get your own name engraved on them.

Holy water bottle, anyone?

There are holy water bottles aplenty and any amount of religious paraphernalia including your own cassock.

But Our Lady is also here in the minds, in the souls and the hearts of the pilgrims, of which I am one.

A mother and daughter in our 20-stong Marian Pilgrimages (http://www.marian.ie) group when we visit in October ask expectedly if I smelt the roses, Mary’s flower, as I make my way back from 10am Mass.

Try as I may, and maybe that’s where I’m going wrong, I can’t raise her.

But I do see Her in the eyes of eager Eddie who buries his head into his brother’s chest at the Blue Cross.

And who shoots a smile towards me from his wheelchair by Our Lady’s statue at the 5.40pm remembrance.

A cross to bear

A million flock to the Bosnia & Herzegovina village every year to feel the grace of Our Lady, to ask her to intercede on our behalfs to Our Lord.

And to climb up to the Blue Cross, Apparition Hill and Cross Mountain.

Many leave changed by their visit while many return year on year.

Marie from our group is back for her 60th pilgrimage.

She is in with the bricks at Mileina, our boarding house for the week, where she embraces Ines’s daughter at the breakfast table, whom she has known since she was a baby.

Ines looks after us all like her very own babies with breakfasts to set us up in the morning, the best of which is the steaming porridge.

And for dinner where we settle down, after Grace Before Meals obviously, for big plates of family food, hearty soups and meaty feasts, chicken, lamb chops, potatoes (we are Irish after all) and veg.

Wine is a religion

With jugs of her own house wine.

I swear that ‘permanent’ house guest Marie gets an extra portion!

Like Marie, Medjugorje drew Scottish pilgrims Magnus and Fergus MacFarlane-Barrow back time after time following that first visit.

To set up a support system for the village during the Balkan Wars in the mid-Eighties.

And then a charity for disadvantaged people around the world, Mary’s Meals, which feeds 1,000,000 children around the world for a €15 donation which energises them to then go to school.

It feels infectious this Christianity in action.

A holy Mother

Mother Elvira runs a rehab centre, Comunita Cenacolo, near the village while there is also an orphanage nearby.

We hear the testimony of Italian Twentysomething Andre, a dyslexic who suffered from Attention Deficit Disorder as a child and felt swamped in a family where his two brothers were super-achievers.

And whose life spiralled out of control, landing him on the street, in trouble with the law and twice overdosing.

Before Mother Elvira rescued him and is now setting him and others like him back on the right path.

Andre is now looking after maintenance in the house and serving the greater community, all of it underpinned by Christian observance.

Which is also the watchword for Medjugorje as a whole where your whole day is framed by Christian worship.

The ISIS hostage

Mass in the morning followed by a talk in the hall (we heard the extraordinary story of a priest who was an ISIS captive).

*A part of history*: Franz Ferdinand and Sophia

Those walks in the hills with Stations of the Cross along the way, the 5.40pm pause, an International Mass and an Adoration of the Host.

Phew!

There are though respites from your religious observations around the village.

And a coach out of town to Sarajevo for just €16 return where you can visit the spot where Gavrilo Princip assassinated the Archduke Franz Ferdinand and triggered the First World War.

*Armie*’s tale: He helped a Balkans survivor

And the Museum of Crimes against Humanity and Genocide which chronicles the 1,425-day Siege of Sarajevo in the 1980s.

Don’t miss Sarajevo

At the heart of this beautiful city on the River Miljacka in the apron of the Dinaric Alps is the Old Town, the centrepiece of which is the Bey Mosque.

Turkish shops, cafes and restaurants fan out, showpiecing authentic Bosnian food (I’d recommend the Bey’s chicken and vegetable soup, in the dainty adorned pots).

Back in Medge, The Irish Centre serves up more familiar fare.

From home at under a tenner and Herzegovina beer (at just 5 B&H Marks or €2.50, they take both).

Oh, Brother!

And you’ll find an old new friend there, Columba, in with a fellow Fransiscan Brother to watch the Ireland v New Zealand rugby match with us.

As well as mending your soul he can fix the TV too when it freezes.

And a jaunt up to where they held the 1984 Winter Olympics

And it’s always good to have your own Franciscan monk on hand to say a prayer for Ireland to turn over ‘those New Zealanders’.

Our Lady is obviously busy though somewhere else with someone more deserving (really).

Up by the Blue Cross, Apparition Hill or Cross Mountain.

Asking us to pray more rosaries!

Do: The bus to Sarajevo costs €16 return (remember to bring your passport for money exchange).

Bey’s Mosque in the centre of Sarajevo and the Museum of Sarajevo for everything on the Assassination of Franz Ferdinand.

Seven-night trips including flights from Dublin to Dubrovnik cost from approx. €585pp, departing May 15. For packages see www.marian.ie and www.medjugorje.org.

As published in the Irish Sun in 2020.

Countries, Europe, Pilgrimage

Give us this Day – the best bar nun

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Pope John Paul II only blessed my Uncle Danny and Auntie Nora.

For rearing six children in south Co. Donegal, all of whom became monks or nuns.

Which, without any signposting, other than maybe me watching Call the Midlife…

I’ve decided to shine a light on our Brothers and Sisters.

I more than fulfilled my holy obligations last year with visits to the holy sites of Lourdes…

See The Lourdes prayer, https://en.lourdes-infotourisme.com and Medjugorje The faces of 2019 – Pilgrimages.

And I hope to see Oberammergau in action this year after sampling the preparations last year https://www.passionsspiele-oberammergau.de/en/home.

I had always thought that there was a height requirement to be admitted into the Holy Orders… you needed to be under 5ft.

Slam dunk

Until I was told of a basketball-playing nun in Medjugorje https://www.medjugorje.org on my Marian Pilgrimages tour www.marian.ie.

and, no, she doesn’t run between the opposition’s legs.

Basketball, incidentally, plays a part in the Marian apparitions story…

Our Lady only interrupted the big game on TV that day with her message of world peace and rosaries.

Monks, of course are great fun too and I wish I’d appreciated the brown-robed, big-bearded ones who regularly came a-visiting.

Way of the world

So what if they’d never heard of Heavy Metal or Celtic and Rangers, they knew exactly what was going on in Africa and the Middle East.

And so to this little Italian Franciscan dude who would do hours and hours of confessionals in Balkan Bosnia & Herzegovina.

Or Sister Elvira whose hostel for drug dependents in the hills above the town.

It’s always good insurance to say a prayer with a monk or a nun.

And particularly when they are Maria dos Anjos, the niece of the Last Shepherd of Fatima.

And I’d love to share her secrets with you.

Only a bolt of lightning would strike me down.

See. www.visitportugal.com and Secret Portugal.

MEET YOU IN THE PEWS

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Give us this Day – The Wee Chapel

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Living in area known for its orchards we were drawn to our house by its apple trees.

One of the other attractions was its outhouse which is a popular feature of houses in Ireland.

I duly named it the Wee Apple and turned into a bar.

I promptly set up a grotto too which I christened The Wee Chapel.

All of which is my roundabout way of saying that prayer houses don’t have to be as grand as St Paul’s Basilica.

Any church you go into in Italy of course will beckon you in to pray.

This is what it’s all about… https://jimmurtytraveltraveltravel.com/2019/08/04/see-rome-on-e50/.

And https://jimmurtytraveltraveltravel.com/small-roads-lead-to-rome/.

And it’s not just us Catholics that have the best churches, as we’d like to think. Here’s the Frauenkirche in Dresden… https://jimmurtytraveltraveltravel.com/dresdens-renaissance-martin-luther/,

And the Muslims have their Blue Mosque in Istanbul https://jimmurtytraveltraveltravel.com/wham-bam-thank-you-hamam/.

*Blue for you: The Blue Mosque in Istanbul*

We really do find God in the smallest of things and the quietest of places, in nature and in us.

Catholic priests, who tried to say Mass during the days of Henry VIII and then again under Cromwell, would often find a hidden room in an estate.

While in Ireland it was a Mass rock.

For Muslims a makeshift prayer place can be set up anywhere.

With a few stones placed in the right direction… towards Mecca.

As I found in Wabi Rum in Jordan this year https://jimmurtytraveltraveltravel.com/petra-jordan-jesus-and-the-sands-of-time/.

The Blue Cross

The reason why I’m talking about my Wee Chapel this week is because I have come back with more trinkets from my latest pilgrimage.

Of course I was falling over holy paraphernalia in Medjugorje https://jimmurtytraveltraveltravel.com/2019/10/20/give-us-this-day-confessions-and-medjugorje/.

Now Our Lady and the Blue Cross will be taking up residence in my Wee Chapel.

Which means that when I’m out picking up the apples I will say a wee prayer as I pass.

Me picking up apples?

Now The Scary One really will consider that a miracle!

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Holidos and don’ts – Passports

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Why do we have to surrender our passports to hotels?

It’s not as if they’re national security and they can just as easily cover your expenses and the risk of flight with a credit card.

Because let me tell you you’re always safer when you’ve got your passport in your possession.

Preferably behind lock and key in the safe in your room.

Or if you need to take it out with you then you’ve only yourself to blame if you lose it.

Yes, it can be pickpocketed but I always think that your front pocket is the best place to keep the passport and the wallet.

And just make sure that you never come close to brushing people in a busy market.

So, why am I hot under the collar over hotels or guest houses taking your passport.

Because there is always the danger that somebody may pick yours up by mistake.

Which is what happened in Tenerife last month when a fellow British traveller picked mine up by mistake and then went walkabout in town.

Nor did the girl at reception seem particularly bothered as she continued to try to sell hotel goodies to people as I slowly boiled with frustration.

You’ve got my passport

My fellow traveller was deeply apologetic when everything was resolved but I didn’t necessarily blame him as accidents happen.

The thing is that the situation should never exist in the first place.

Of course, every holiday has its hiccups and it in no way marred a wonderful visit to Tenerife which is officially my favourite Spanish island now…

Follow www.webtenerife.com, and read my thoughts on this magical island https://jimmurtytraveltraveltravel.com/tenerife-walk/

Yes magical, but La Gomera and its whistlers may run it close if someone would care to invite me out there.

The old passport tripped me up again on my recent trip, out to Medjugorje in Bosnia & Herzegovina.

Daniella took everyone’s passport in the party for safe keeping I guess but also for her own security, but she did give me mine back when I went to Sarajevo for the day.

I would need it for currency exchange.

Where it went wrong though was because I have another passport too .

And when I got back, tired, I got in a muddle…. all of which I can explain here. https://jimmurtytraveltraveltravel.com/2019/10/23/on-the-road-to-dubrovnik/

Medjurgorje, Sarajevo and Bosnia & Herzegovina should be on your list and here are a few sites to help you out… https://www.medjugorje.org, https://sarajevo.travel/en and http://www.bhtourism.ba/eng/