9 minute read
PEACE IN PILGRIMAGE
THE NEWLY REVIVED AND WAYMARKED ST DECLAN’S WAY IS A MODERN WALKING ROUTE LINKING THE ANCIENT ECCLESIASTICAL CENTRES OF CASHEL AND ARDMORE.
BY ANN MARIE FOLEY
Advertisement
St Declan’s Way hit the headlines on RTE’s All Walks of Life programme when former President Mary McAleese travelled the ancient trail along with Tánaiste Leo Varadkar in his mother’s native county of Waterford.
It was on the national airwaves again in September 2021, on the evening news, when the 115km way was officially opened following waymarking and remedial work. It became the sixth official ‘Way’ on the Pilgrim Paths of Ireland, and around 20-30,000 people are expected to walk it annually.
St Declan needs no introduction in Waterford and there are even some in the county who would say he arrived before St Patrick. Whatever the truth of the matter, it appears both saints brought Christianity to Ireland. St Declan was associated with bringing the faith to the Waterford and Munster area known as the Déise. Today, the saint’s church and a round tower in Ardmore, Co. Waterford are at the end of the trail which starts at another ancient ecclesiastical centre and seat of kings, Cashel in Co. Tipperary.
The trail includes sections that have been in existence for 1,500 years, according to Grainne Moynihan of the St Declan’s Way committee. She points out the importance of preserving trails such as St Declan’s Way, which our ancestors have walked. In recent years, modern farming methods and new roads and motorways can take over and fragment and damage such paths.
“There was a risk that 20-30 years down the line, parts of it could have been wiped out,” she says. For years now, a small local committee drawn from villages along the trail have worked together to bring St Declan’s Way to where it is today.
“Now it is time to bring it to the next level, forming a strong network of volunteer groups, accommodation and transport providers all along the trail, so that the villages become the eyes and ears of the visitor experience, and everyone is watching out for these pilgrims and helping them along the way,” says Grainne.
The trail
St Declan’s Way combines ancient and medieval pilgrimage and trading routes such as the Rian Bo Phadraig (Track of St Patrick’s Cow), Bothar na Naomh (Road of the Saints), Casan na Naomh (Path of the Saints) and St Declan’s Road. The waymarked route retains as many ancient roadways as possible. This route was taken by St Declan when going to Cashel to meet St Patrick in the fifth century. Over the centuries, pilgrims travelled it the opposite way to visit St Declan’s monastery, holy well and grave in Ardmore.
The trail begins at the carpark of the Rock of Cashel. It runs through Cashel, Cahir, Ardfinnan and Goatenbridge in South Tipperary. It goes on across the Knockmealdown Mountains into West Waterford and Mount Melleray, Lismore, Cappoquin and Aglish, finishing at St Declan’s Monastery in Ardmore, Co. Waterford.
Mount Melleray Abbey on St Declan’s Way
INNER PEACE
St Declan’s Way is part of a renewed interest in walking in nature and reclaiming old paths used by pilgrims. Its popularity was boosted by the Covid pandemic when walking increased in popularity.
Individual walkers can download a brochure outlining the route and follow the way marking, but there is also increased interest in group walks and pilgrimages. Earlier this year, a formal group walk on St Declan’s Way was 60 per cent booked within a month. It offered five days walking the entire trail over St Patrick’s weekend, Easter Saturday and the May bank holiday weekend, with up to 200 pilgrims walking on each stage.
“People mentally made the decision: ‘I am going to do this and I am going to commit
to it’ regardless of the weather,” says Grainne, explaining that many people booked in January even though the first walk wasn’t until March. “There is a huge interest in walking in the company of others.”
The Cistercian Mount Melleray Abbey in the Knockmealdown mountains in Co. Waterford marks the half-way point along St Declan’s Way. “Melleray is very important in the context of the trail. It brings a modern-day focus to what is an ancient theme of going on a pilgrimage and pushing yourself to walk further than you would normally do,” says Grainne.
Mount Melleray Abbey has a special place in people’s hearts and over the years has attracted many visitors. “The achievement of the monks and the community which helped build the monastery and helped build the farm and cultivate the land – that whole spirit of endurance, of pushing, working through difficult times, that resonates a lot with people,” she adds.
There are plans to open trails around the monastery and for a new hostel which will be part of what Grainne calls a ‘spiritual tourism’ project for the monks and the local community that works with them. Above all, those who are drawn to Melleray find their own spiritual experience and sense of peace there.
“Some people like to go to confession or Mass but some haven’t been to either in years. However, that same generation wants to still be in touch with their spiritual mind and inner self. It is there, we all have a conscience, we all think deeply in different ways, we all want to connect with that,” she says.
“So whether pilgrims go to confession or go for a walk, everyone can find that inner peace in Melleray but just in different ways.”
OPEN TO ONE ANOTHER
Fr Denis Luke who runs the café in Melleray says that the monastery guest house has hosted many people over the years – for retreats, time out, to seek help in times of trouble or addiction. Visitors on Declan’s Way, or pilgrims as he likes to call them, will be different, not least because the time they spend will be shorter.
“It certainly will bring a lot more visitors or walkers here, but it will be a different type of people,” he says. The monks have held short
St Declan’s Way walkers at Cahir
pilgrim walks around the abbey and grounds, and pilgrims finish by going to the church to light a candle or to attend a prayer service with the monks.
“No one objected to visiting the church” Fr Luke says. “The opposite in fact. People are very much open, when they are walking. They are open to one another. If they are alone, they are connecting with nature or the environment, and they have a chance to connect with themselves, and with God in prayer, to reflect.”
There is a pilgrim passport for those on St Declan’s Way and it can be stamped at Melleray. While people are stopped at the abbey, they will be able to avail of the 35-bed hostel which has been developed in what was once the noviciate. It has been delayed due to dry rot but when it opens it will offer bed and breakfast to pilgrims – not unlike what is on offer on the European Camino pilgrimage.
Secondary school student groups are among those who walk St Declan’s Way. Fr Luke says it is a new experience for them to learn that they are walking on a path previously used by saints, scholars, soldiers and their ancestors for over a thousand years. They ask questions about the monks’ life and why they are in a monastery in the mountains. Likewise, Fr Luke hears what they think about the monastic life with their comments ranging from “boring” to “there have always has been monks”.
“Monasteries have come and gone but monastic life has continued,” he says. Melleray Abbey is there almost 200 years. There are fewer than ten monks at present, compared to 50 when Fr Luke arrived.
LOOP WALKS
Just as St Declan’s Way is being developed, the monks have also received grant aid to develop five loop pilgrimage walks which are connected with St Declan’s Way or the monastery, or both. They range in length: for example, 4km to the Holy Year Cross, built in the 1950s by local people with the help of students in the now closed Melleray boarding school run by the monks. Other walks include The Well (2km), The Source (9km), Byrne’s Bridge (15km) and The Grotto (4km).
The Source is where, in 1887, Br Vincent Stapleton engineered the diversion of a river to supply water to Melleray Abbey and to help expand the farm herd. The engineering and the fact that the river appears to flow uphill are points of interest, as is the wild mountain landscape.
To help develop the loop routes, a Mountain Meitheal, a branch of the national Meitheal volunteer organisation, was set up. Sixty people attended an information evening and 20 have already started working on waymarking trails and placing steps and stiles to improve the walking conditions.
Fr Luke often meets groups, giving talks to them and walking some of the way with them. He points out the places and sites of interest, especially of the saints and early Christians and the rich monastic history on St Declan’s Way. There were monasteries in Cashel (Hore Abbey), Ardfinnan (Carmelite Abbey and association with St Finnian), Lismore (St Carthage cathedral and site of learning) and by the sea Ardmore (St Declan’s Monastery and Cathedral, burial place, well and stone) to name but a few.
History of The Source loop walk
In 1887, 50 years after the Cistercians arrived in Mount Melleray, their wells were running dry due to farm expansion. Br Vincent Stapelton was no engineer, but he had some experience of diverting streams in his native Tipperary. Local lay workmen and monks began 3km away from the abbey where three streams met at the source of the Rough Glen River. They diverted it around the slopes of Knocknafalla at around 475m high, for about half a kilometre. This creates the illusion that the water is running uphill. It continues down the mountain via an open conduit, an earth and stone channel lined with clay, approximately one metre wide and half a metre deep. There are waterfalls, and the conduit cuts deep in places and elsewhere it is propped up. Modern-day engineers say it was the best possible route and the supply of water has never failed.
For other points of interest, the local communities and the brochure of St Declan’s Way provide all the information.
For more information:
www.stdeclansway.ie mountmellerayabbey.org www.mountainmeitheal.ie
