Celtic Camino comes to Mayo

Áine Ryan

WITH Croagh Patrick as a dramatic backdrop, Westport is a perfect location for the upcoming Celtic Camino Festival’s celebration of the country’s maze of pilgrim paths and their integral connectedness to European spiritual and religious history. Indeed, the Tóchar PhΡdraig pilgrim path and its heritage trail – replete with Celtic and Christian artefacts – will be the pilgrim walk during the weekend festival, scheduled to be held from Friday, April 13 to Sunday, April 15. ‘Bringing the Camino to Ireland’ is being orgnaised by the  Camino Society Ireland.   
The festival will open on Friday, April 13 with a feature film in the W Cinema, ‘The Camino Voyage’ (Iomramh an Chamino) by Dónal Ó Céilleachair. This is the story of a crew who embarked on a three-summer voyage – an epic 2,500 kilometres completed in June 2016 –  from Ireland to northern Spain, in a traditional naomhóg, the Naomh Gobnait. The film features musicians Glen Hansard and BreanndΡn Ó Beaglaoich, an expert oarsman, as well as  Liam Holden, Brendan Moriarty and the late celebrated writer and poet Domhnall Mac Síthigh. He took ill and died last summer on another voyage to Spain when the naomhóg he had built capsized after being caught by a wave close to the Minho river estuary on the Spanish-Portuguese border.
The weekend celebration will also feature presentations, discussions and workshops by internationally renowned Camino experts. Its launch will be held in Hotel Westport on Sunday next, March 11 at 12.30pm.

MORE For registration www.caminosociety.ie