JWT closure a blow, but ‘the Irish will be the first back into Lourdes’

The closure of Joe Walsh Tours is a major blow for Irish-organised pilgrimages to Lourdes and other Catholic shrines on the continent, says a priest who has brought thousands to Lourdes annually for three decades.

The departure last week of JWT Pilgrimtours was a blow, he said. Anyone could get a cheap flight to Biarritz, Toulouse or Bordeaux if they wanted to visit the holy grotto at Lourdes, said Fr Martin Noone. But JWT had decades of experience with the people on the ground in Lourdes; the hotel and transport providers; local guides; and the Accueil Notre Dame, which has many of the facilities of a modern hospital and is a place of welcome for sick people, close to the grotto.

The State’s biggest diocese, the Dublin Diocese, undertakes two pilgrimages to Lourdes each year, at Easter and September, involving a total of 2,000 pilgrims and their helpers.

“The pilgrimage in September is one of the biggest events in the diocesan calendar and is led by the Archbishop,” said Fr Noone, who works in the Dublin Diocesan Pilgrimage Office.

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Of the 2,000, about 180 would be sick people staying at the Accueil, he said. Another 550 are voluntary helpers, made up of nurses and doctors, male and female helpers, known as handmaids and “brancardiers” (meaning “stretcher bearers”), a team of chaplains and the Dublin Lourdes Choir.

A further 200 young people help to care for the sick pilgrims, with many of these coming from Catholic-run secondary schools and colleges from around the diocese.

In the past the diocese relied heavily on Joe Walsh Pilgrimtours and the other major operator in the pilgrim tours business, Marian Pilgrimages, to look after their needs, which cannot be met by flight-only deals.

While the Dublin Diocese organises pilgrimages for 2,000 people annually, it is not unusual for smaller dioceses to send 500-1,000, often more than once a year.

Diocesan pilgrimages are not the only pilgrimages, however. There are the pilgrimages organised by the religious orders, among them the Franciscans, the Oblates and the Cistercians.

Up to recently Marian Pilgrimages brought in people from North America to Ireland first, before progressing to European destinations. In recent years they have tended to bring them direct to their destination.

The Defence Forces too has an annual pilgrimage to Lourdes which Fr Noone said was surpassed in numbers only by the French military who organise a similar pilgrimage. The Irish are the largest group per capita in Lourdes, according to the Dublin Diocesan Office.

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A spokesman for JWT said pilgrimages were not the type of business that the internet could replace. “The closure of Joe Walsh Tours is more than the closure of a travel agency; it leaves a hole in the fabric of Irish society,” he said.

Fr Noone agreed pilgrimages were not traditional “leisure” holidays. “We were waiting for the economic crash in 2009 to hit pilgrimages, but it didn’t happen,” he said.

He referred to the “pilgrimage family” and while “thinking of the JWT directors and staff” he echoed the confidence of Bishop Kevin Doran, president of the umbrella body, United Irish Pilgrimages to Lourdes, that the pilgrimages would resume in 2022.

Niall Glynn, managing director of Marian Pilgrimages, said the roots of the pilgrimage went deep into parish groups and were remarkably resilient.

Eighty thousand people travel annually, the majority going to Lourdes. The next most popular destination is Fatima followed by Medjugorje and the Holy Land and a scattering of venues in Italy.

For the second year these venues are all suffering with souvenir shops, hotels, restaurants, bars, transport operators and and guide businesses all closed.

However, Mr Glynn said “the Irish will be the first back into Lourdes” adding that pilgrims did not see pilgrimages as leisure travel. “It is like a retreat,” he said, part of their religion, a deep cultural commitment.

“Some people go as many as three pilgrimages a year,” he said.