"Croagh Patrick is the name of a quartzite mountain in Mayo which rises about twenty-five hundred feet above Clew Bay...According to tradition, St. Patrick and some of his followers climbed this mountain to spend the days of Lent in prayer and fasting within the small chapel they erected on its summit. Through the centuries, devout Irish pilgrims have followed in the footsteps of their Saint in what is known as the Journey to The Reek. The official day of pilgrimage is the last Sunday in July. On that day, as many as 80,000 persons, many of them barefoot, make the difficult ascent along the steep rocky paths to confess their sins and hear Mass at the top."  ~Sister Maryanna Childs, O.P.

I took this picture in 2010. It makes me sigh to be there again...