James Howley highlights future plans for Ballintubber Abbey, Co Mayo, one of ireland’s oldest places of worship
In Ireland there are three former abbey churches founded at Ballintubber, Holy Cross and Duiske, all of which have been restored for use as parish churches. Of these Ballintubber in County Mayo is perhaps the most interesting with a history that includes an 800-year-old continuum of divine worship. Ballintubber Abbey marks the eastern end of an ancient Celtic walkway and later a pilgrimage route that is one of the most important cultural landscapes in Ireland. The route extends westwards from the abbey, for a distance of some twenty miles across County Mayo, terminating at Croagh Patrick, a striking quartzite cone that rises dramatically above Clew Bay on Ireland’s Western Atlantic coast. While the walkway, or tóchar in Irish, predates the arrival of Christianity in Ireland the religious significance of the place is strong. Tradition claims that St Patrick established an early church at Ballintubber from where he made a journey to the mountain, known locally as the reek, to make a vigil and to fast. A pilgrimage route was subsequently established, which today passes through farmland, bog and heathland, linking an impressive collection of pre-historic and early historic sites, between the abbey and Croagh Patrick
Stephanie McBride reflects on the extraordinary life’s work of Arthur Fields, the last of the street photographers
All around the globe, conflicts have and continue to shape the land and their inhabitants’; Elizabeth Magill explores the flipside of the buccolic in conversation with Brian McAvera.