Everyone is invited to join online in prayer with Bishop Fintan Gavin as he celebrates Mass at the Oratory in Gougane Barra on Sunday Sept 27th at 3pm.
Due to Covid19 people cannot travel to Gougane Barra this year for the annual pilgrimage which marks the feast of St. Finbarr (Sept 25th).
Rosary will be prayed at 2.45pm. Mass will commence at 3pm. Join in prayer from home or wherever you are at that time.
St. Finbarr is Patron Saint of Cork City and of the Diocese of Cork. He is believed to have died in 623. Tradition holds that Finbarr was one of a community of monks who established a monastic settlement near the place where the river Lee rises. This is in Gougane Barra in Uibh Laoire parish.
St. Finbarr’s Oratory was built there in the early 1900s on the small island on a lake at Gougane on what has long been a place of pilgrimage and prayer.
St. Finbarr is said to have journeyed to the mouth of the Lee where it meets the sea and established a monastic school around which grew what developed into the city of Cork.
An annual pilgrimage day at Gougane is held on the last Sunday of September. Due to the pandemic, the Mass in broadcast online this year and people will not be able to access the island in person.