Message of unity and peace as thousands take part in Cork city’s Eucharistic procession

Amid the brightly coloured sparkling umbrellas of the Indian Syro-Malabar community and Ukrainians in traditional vyshyvanka or embroidered shirts were the Dominican friars in their black and white habits.

They were joined by Franciscans in brown habits, members of the Legion of Mary and young Catholics from Youth 2000, as the procession made its way across the River Lee via the Christy Ring Bridge.

Once again, the Butter Exchange Band led the event with fittingly solemn religious hymns, as it has since the procession started almost a century ago. Cork city’s traffic ground to a halt to allow the religious parade pass.

In his address at the concluding outdoor benediction on Grand Parade, Bishop Fintan Gavin said the procession was “not simply a tradition or a spectacle” but a “proclamation” and “a living testimony”.

He prayed for “a war-torn world that needs peace and healing now more than ever” and for families striving to stay together amid pressure and pain, young people searching for meaning and purpose in a chaotic world, for the elderly who feel forgotten and migrants who feel alone.

Cork’s Lord Mayor, Fergal Dennehy, recalled how the procession had been established in the first years of the new State as a way of bringing people together in the aftermath of the Civil War.

“Given the state of our world today I think it is very important that the message today was one of unity and peace,” he told the Irish Independent.

“Today we can see the expanding community in Cork here. It is a very different community to what it was 99 years ago when this procession began. There is a great sense of togetherness here today.”

Trish Harrington has been a member of the Butter Exchange Band for 46 years and has played in the procession for every one of those years.

“It was only men in the band up until 1978, I was the first uniformed female in the band.”

Wife and husband, Noreen and Liam Willis from Cork, take part in the procession every year with their fellow parishioners in Mayfield.

They recalled how as recently as 40 years ago the procession was a male-only affair.

The men walked while women and children stood along the route looking on.

“In later years, it became more family-orientated so everyone is walking,” Noreen explained.

Another Cork local, Frank O’Neill, was one of those who watched the procession yesterday as mobility issues prevented the 66-year-old from taking part, which he has done annually since he was an altar boy.

“The streets were packed,” he recalled.

“The mothers and the children would be looking on as the men walked in the procession. It is nice to see the different nations adding colour and swelling the numbers now.”

Husband and wife, Taras and Anna Kushnir from Ukraine revealed that they met in Cork in 2003 under the Shandon bells and their three boys were all born in Ireland. Participating was not just about faith but expressing gratitude to Ireland.