Love-seekers flock to St Valentine's resting place in Dublin for blessings

Searching for success in love, couples and singletons alike have been visiting a shrine in Dublin that contains the partial remains of St Valentine.

The Carmelite church on Whitefriar Street in the city centre has, over the last few decades, become a traditional place of pilgrimage at this time of the year, with blessings administered to engagement rings, and prayers offered for help meeting the right person.

But how did St Valentine end up in Dublin?

The patron saint of love was executed by Emperor Claudius II, known as Claudius the Cruel, for his work in secretly marrying Christian couples.

He was buried in Rome in the 3rd century.

In 1835, Pope Gregory XVI gifted the exhumed remains to an acclaimed Irish preacher visiting Rome, Father John Spratt.

The relics - thought to include bones and a sample of blood - were taken to the Whitefriar Street church in 1836.

Over time, they were gradually forgotten about, until a new shrine to the saint was constructed in the 1950s.

The relics were displayed behind a glass case, and their popularity as a tourist attraction grew.

Father Simon Nolan, the prior of the church said: "Lots of people come here. You get engaged couples coming here, couples who are together for years and want to celebrate their love.

"And you also get people who are going through a tough time with their relationship and are looking for a bit of help."

Father Nolan says several proposals have been carried out in front of the watchful eye of the statue of St Valentine.

In recent years, many Irish and foreign visitors pray at the shrine, looking for help in meeting their true love.

The Catholic Church has started a tradition of blessing engaged people at the church, and on Saturday four engaged couples received a special blessing from Bishop Michael Router.

Couples seek blessings from the shrine

Heather Andrews told Sky News that she hoped the blessing would bring good fortune.

"I think we've been pretty lucky so far anyway, eight years on and he's still putting up with me anyway! But for the rest of our lives together I hope it does bring us good luck and fortune in the future and I'm sure it will."

Her fiancée Josh Warde said: "It's great to have it in Dublin. Usually you have to go to Rome or places like that to get something cool like this, something so important that people come from abroad to see it.

"So it was an honour to be asked to be involved in the occasion and hopefully it will bring us a bit of luck. But we already have good romance between the two of us!"

Last year, COVID-19 restrictions interrupted the flow of St Valentine's Day visitors, but the church is open to all today.

The Catholic marriage advisory service Accord says that the demand for Catholic marriages is rebounding as Ireland emerges from the pandemic.

In 2021, nearly 13,000 people attended Accords marriage preparation course online, a 53% increase on the previous year.

So far this year there's been a 39% increase in enrolments as the country's restrictions are lifted.

Dublin is not the only European city to lay claim to St Valentine. Churches in Rome, Madrid and Glasgow, among others, claim with varying degrees of success, to possess various partial remains of the martyred saint.