THERE are about 15 people praying in companionable silence in the little chapel in Achill Sound's House of Prayer. It's the focal point for pilgrims who come to see Co Mayo housewife and mother of two teenage children, Christina Gallagher, who claims to be a stigmata, a claim he investigated by an ecclesiastical commission set up by the Most Rev Micheal Neary, Archbishop of Tuam.
As in everything to do with the House of Prayer, there are contradictions and complexities in the chapel. Despite the disembodied head of Christ, crowned with thorns, placed on a shelf high above the altar, the realistic painting of the Virgin weeping tears of blood and the illuminated Host glowing whitely within the breast of a wooden representation of the Virgin, there is an air of a lady's boudoir here, a profusion of flowers, two velvet, midnight blue, button back chairs, a sky blue ceiling with puffs of white cloud and a couple of cute little plaster cherubs sitting saucily on the edge of the altar.
Later, in the merchandising shop, Christina takes my hand in a gesture of friendship but her words, spoken in a low, lacklustre voice, are angry: "I didn't reply to your letter because that's the answer: no. I won't talk to journalists. They've been nothing but trouble. How would you like it if people came looking in your window, and writing about you. That's the sort of muck I have to put up with."
She is short of stature, her face ale and stressed and when she withdraws, her movements are minimal and mechanical.
"It's been a crucifixion for her," says one of her helpers, a middle aged nun, fingers stabbing the cash register.
In what way?
"It's all in her book there." A short - stocky man - T shirted and with a walkie talkie, he looks like a bouncer - gives out a warning note: "And if you contradict anything in that book or twist it at all, something'll be done." Then he goes out to see off a TV crew, slamming shut the gates against them.
The book in question is Out Of The Ecstasy And Onto The Cross, a biography of Ms Gallagher, written by herself and her spiritual director, the Rev Dr Gerard McGinnity. Subsequent requests by The Irish Times for permission to reproduce photographs of Ms Gallagher from the book were met with the same, definitive answer: no.
In Achill, the pilgrim coaches arrive bringing people from America and Britain as well as Newry, Sligo and Cork.
A woman from Lancashire has been to Lourdes and Medjugorje as well: "We've had a lovely time here, singing hymns in the coach all the time. It's true about Medjugorje, by the way. When I was there, Our Lady changed colour and I have photographs to prove it.
After the afternoon rosary, Christina appears with her spiritual director, Father MacGinnity, a teacher at St Patrick's College, Armagh. He leads another decade of the rosary and when Christina, moving through the pilgrims, clasps a few hands, he reaches over her head and lays his hand too upon the chosen person.
The pilgrim from Lancashire eyes closed, has started to intone the rosary again and a woman from Galway, less devout, comments. You see that's the sort of thing that puts people off.
Does she not think the woman is holy?
"That's nothing to do with it. There's a man in Scotland's got the stigmata and he doesn't even believe in God."
A woman from Seamus Heaney's country of the mind sidles up to us: "Do you have to tell her what's wrong with you or is it best to say nothing?"
A man from England tells us Christina says the whole of Ireland is going to burn down. "Why, you people must have been really bad," murmurs a woman from Independence, Kentucky.
There are few people from Achill here and indeed, the only local interest in the House of Prayer comes from those directly affected the hoteliers and the B&B people who have benefited greatly from it. Even these are confined to Achill Sound: on the other side of the island, it's work as usual for the surfers and canoers, undisturbed by praying multitudes.
Chris Connaughton, proprietor of the Achill Sound Hotel says the House of Prayer brings about 8,000 people a year to Achill, some of whom stay at his hotel. A genial, astute businessman, he's intent on getting the balance right between religion and opportunity.
"This whole things been great for Achill - both spiritually and commercially." He understands Christina's dislike of publicity: "She's a lovely woman. Lovely."
Father John Fallon, parish priest of Achill, has never met Christina and has been in the chapel only once, in the company of the Archbishop. Nor has he ever met Father McGinnity: "I was in the same room as him once but he never spoke to me."
In the hallway of the presbytery a picture of Padre Pio and in the church, empty and dark compared to the House of Prayer, there is a poster advertising pilgrimages to Lourdes.
"There's not many of my parishioners go up beyond so there's no conflict," says Father Fallon. Nevertheless, at the entrance to the House of Prayer, a handwritten notice reads: "At the Archbishop's request, local parishioners are requested to fulfill (sic) their Sunday and Holyday obligations at their local churches." Achill was chosen as the site for the House of Prayer on the advice, it appears, of the Virgin which coincided serendipitously with the local Mercy Convent being put up for sale and a generous loan by an unnamed man of his entire life savings.
According to Christian's biography, her feet bled from the crucifixion nails on March 11th 1995. She has also displayed bleeding cuts in her forehead said to be made by a crown of thorns. She is said to have wrought miracles found herself able to understand foreign languages heard voices had the mark of the devil inflicted upon her arm in the shape of a claw and to have seen into the minds of troubled priests.
Such phenomena are not new. "There have been about 300 documented cases of stigmata over the centuries, including St. Francis of Assisi - and more recently, Theresa Neumann and Padre Pio. Indeed the first autobiography written in the English language was by a sturdy mystic and homely housewife, Margery Kempe (c1400) who documented graphically her experiences of enduring the Passion of Christ and seeing white lights flying through the air. For this, she was castigated and denounced by priests and bishops alike.
FORMER BBC religious affairs broadcaster Ted Harrison, in his book Stigmata: A Medieval Mystery For A Modern Age, makes a connection between the appearance of female stigmatas in the 1400s and the parlous state of the male dominated church, the behaviour of whose clerics at the time was less than pious.
In her co authored biography, troubled priests are singled out for special attention by Christina Gallagher whose sufferings on their part "are different and greater than all other forms of suffering given to her". This will be one aspect of the phenomenon the three person commission which includes a senior parish priest, a nun and a curate all experienced in the fields of teaching and pastoral care and one of them a canon lawyer - will look at.
"We would always investigate where there seems to be a question of supernatural phenomena, as there seems to be in this case," says Father Brendan Kilcoyne, Tuam Diocesan Secretary. The commission of course will go into it with an open mind. It is dangerous to prejudge in such complex, religious matters." He agrees that women have always been prominent in this area: "I don't know why. Maybe it's because they're holier?
Jim Cantwell, director of the Catholic Press and Information Office, however, quoting from the New Catholic Encyclopaedia says: "There's no intrinsic connection between sanctity and stigmatisation."
What strikes a discordant note in this particular case, however, is the ring of the cash till. After Christina Gallagher's afternoon appearance, there were five assistants working behind the counter selling House of Prayer merchandise. Black rosary beads retailed at Pounds 4.50, red and green at Pounds 4. Audio tapes made by her or Father McGinnity cost Pounds 6.99. People who wanted to buy the ubiquitous Immaculate Conception medal were offered instead the Matrix medal. This, it appears, is a piece of House of Prayer merchandise struck on the advice of the Virgin. There are three versions, 30p, 50p and Pounds 45. The biography published this month and selling at Pounds 10, is the third book to be brought out. A woman proffered Pounds 20 as a donation from our bus and on a bus day, there are as many as 10 buses.
The ecclesiastical commission will concern itself primarily with the issue of the stigmata and if needs be, will request the services of medical experts.
The stigmata is our primary concern" says Father Kilcoyne. And though we are aware of the great interest being expressed about the financial side of things, that's something down the road."
