Visit by Pope John Paul II to Ireland

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Pope John Paul II visited Ireland from Saturday, 29 September to Monday, 1 October 1979, the first trip to Ireland by a pope.^[1] Over 2.5 million people attended events in Dublin, Drogheda, Clonmacnoise, Galway, Knock, Limerick, and Maynooth.^{[rte 1]} It was John Paul's third foreign visit as Pope, who had been elected in October 1978. The visit marked the centenary of the reputed apparitions at the Shrine of Knock in August 1879. The pope’s visit to Ireland also took place, exactly over a month since Louis Mountbatten was killed in a boat bomb explosion over the coast of Sligo, planted by the Provisional IRA.

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