Dublin Dossier Pat Keenan on happenings in and around the capital
Celebrating St James and the Camino in Ailesbury Road
Celebrating St James in the magnificent garden of the Spanish Ambassador to Ireland in Ailesbury Road, Dublin
An invitation to a garden party at the residence of the Spanish Ambassador on Ailesbury Road was hard to resist. It would be my gentle return to social mingling, just as I was beginning to get used to some of the carefree aspects of my anti-social way of living with Covid, a good place to re-engage, and at a suitably urbane level, sipping wine and chatting with the ambassador, no less. We gathered the day before Spain would celebrate a special Sunday for the Camino de Santiago Holy Year - Xacobeo 2021. Santiago de Compostela is the capital of Galicia, the westernmost region across the top of Spain facing the Bay of Biscay and the Atlantic. About 730 miles due north in Dublin they would celebrate too, with a special mass in Saint James's Roman Catholic Church on James Street North. This year the facade of the church was uniquely illuminated for the occasion. These Holy Years only happen on years when the feast of St.James falls on a Sunday. The next one will be in 2027. Because of the pandemic this Xacobeo holy year will be extended to include 2022. There is another Dublin connection. His Excellency Ildefonso Castro, the Spanish Ambassador was here with us in the leafy, sun dappled Dublin 4 garden hails from Galicia. He has been Ambassador here since 2018. No stranger here, having worked at the embassy previously for seven years at a different diplomatic level. Previously he has been in Dominican Republic, Equatorial Guinea, Paraguay and Sweden. 34 Senior Times l September - October 2021 l www.seniortimes.ie
The Saint James's Catholic Church link with Camino de Santiago dates back to medieval times. In 1220, St James’s Gate was the starting point for Irish pilgrims on their journey to the shrine of St James the Great in the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela. At that time Dublin was a walled city and the original St James’s Gate guarded the western entrance. It was demolished in 1734 but later gave its name to St. James's Gate Brewery of Guinness fame. St James’s Church keeps its pilgrimage link alive through the Camino Society of Ireland which is based there. The Camino Information Centre is manned by volunteers - all veteran pilgrimage completers. They offer information on the journey and issue the official Pilgrim Passport which will mark your route and will be duly stamped along the way. Visit their site at www.caminosociety.ie/ Then there is the fine house itself, now the residence of the Spanish Ambassador on Ailesbury Road. It was built for the Mitchells, the prominent Dublin wine merchants for over 200 years. William Mitchell came to Ireland from the North of England in the early 1800s and set up a bakery business in Fairview. They later moving to 10 Grafton Street, opening a tea/coffee and confectionery shop - a place where a gentile lady of the time might sit, little finger raised, sipping tea or...perhaps a discreet port served in a dainty teacup. McDonalds now occupy the spot today, that would be a Big Mac, large fries and a diet coke. In 1887 Mitchell & Son moved to 21 Kildare Street
