{"id":380896,"date":"2026-04-04T01:44:10","date_gmt":"2026-04-04T01:44:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/380896\/"},"modified":"2026-04-04T01:44:10","modified_gmt":"2026-04-04T01:44:10","slug":"crowd-gathers-in-dublins-phoenix-park-for-good-friday-pilgrimage-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/380896\/","title":{"rendered":"Crowd gathers in Dublin\u2019s Phoenix Park for Good Friday pilgrimage \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

More than one hundred people gathered in the Phoenix Park<\/a> in Dublin<\/a> to take part in an event to mark Good Friday. <\/p>\n

The Way of the Cross in Dublin marks five scenes from Jesus Christ\u2019s crucifixion, beginning at the Wellington Monument and ending at the Papal Cross.<\/p>\n

Families, couples and people with their dogs came to take part in the short pilgrimage to the white cross erected in 1979 for the visit of Pope John Paul II, the first papal visit to Ireland.<\/p>\n

There were prayers, readings and choral singing to mark the beginning of the Easter<\/a> weekend.<\/p>\n

\"AA small crowd took part. Photograph: Grainne Ni Aodha\/PA Wire <\/p>\n

The event on Friday was led by the Archbishop of Dublin Dermot Farrell, who spoke to the crowd about compassion, the plight of the hungry, and voluntary organisations that were \u201ccrying out for help in our time-poor society\u201d.<\/p>\n

Independent Senator Ronan Mullen, who was among the crowd, said he attends the event most years before heading home to Galway.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve seen different crowds in different years, and this, I think is one of the better crowds,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

He said the event aimed to mark \u201cthe high point of the Church year\u201d and allowed people to gather with other Catholics<\/a>. <\/p>\n

\"PeoplePeople take part in the gathering in the park on Friday. Photograph: Grainne Ni Aodha\/PA Wire <\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s an almost pilgrimage element to this, I\u2019m a big fan of the Camino myself and there is something about walking, being with others, reflecting, praying.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne of the things I like most about it is you see the church in all its diversity here because there\u2019s an awful lot of new Irish people, from all races and nationalities, and it\u2019s lovely to see.\u201d<\/p>\n

Expanding on his address to the outdoor congregation, Farrell told PA that there are many people who feel marginalised and many wars in the world, including Lebanon, South Sudan and Yemen. <\/p>\n

\u201cAll of these people are suffering greatly today,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

\u201cMany innocent people being killed by people who are waging war remotely sometimes, you can be sitting thousands of miles away on a computer and directing drones to kill innocent people as a way of putting pressure on regimes to change, etc.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo there is cruelty there, a huge loss of innocent life which is totally contrary to any understanding we have of a just war.\u201d \u2013 PA<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"More than one hundred people gathered in the Phoenix Park in Dublin to take part in an event…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":380897,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[12780,615,109388,61,60,43,29685],"class_list":{"0":"post-380896","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ireland","8":"tag-catholic-church","9":"tag-dublin","10":"tag-easter","11":"tag-ie","12":"tag-ireland","13":"tag-news","14":"tag-phoenix-park"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/380896","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=380896"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/380896\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/380897"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=380896"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=380896"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=380896"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}