Saint Therese relics Belfast-bound

The casket was taken into the Newry cathedral

The relics of Saint Therese have continued their tour in Northern Ireland, with record numbers of people turning out to worship in Armagh city.

The relics of the 19th Century French saint, are on a 75-day tour of the country, and have already generated huge crowds at churches and cathedrals in the Republic of Ireland.

The thousands of people who arrived at Armagh Cathedral mirrored the huge crowds who gathered in Newry to see the casket on its first stop in the province on Wednesday.

Nearly 2,000 people are believed to have visited the casket in the cathedral, making the Cathedral City one of the highlights of the tour so far.

The future Saint Therese at 15

Bishop of Dromore John McAreavey said that the city was honoured by a visit from the 'Little Flower'.

"My deepest hope and prayer in these special days is that we will appreciate more fully the divine life and divine love that surrounds us," he said.

The tour travels to Belfast on Sunday where it will visit St Peter's Cathedral in Divis.

On Monday, Clonard Monastery on the Falls Road will host the tour in west Belfast.

It will then be in Ardoyne in north Belfast next Tuesday before travelling to Londonderry to St Eugene's Cathedral next Wednesday.

The relics are being transported in a specially built van, the Theresemobile, and will arrive at each destination at 1400 BST, and remain for 22 hours before travelling onwards.

Controversy

The tour has sparked some controversy with visits to one of the Irish Republic's biggest jails.

Prisoners at Mountjoy Prison in Dublin were given the chance to venerate the relics and women prisoners held an all night vigil in the presence of the casket on Tuesday.

St Therese is traditionally associated with roses. When she died, she is believed to have said, "I let fall a shower of roses."

As a result, roses have come to be associated with the granting of favours, cures, or relief from suffering.

Many people queuing up to see the relics outside churches have carried roses which they have pressed against the brass and mahogany sides of the casket as they file past. Some stop to kiss the casket, and repeat prayers to St Therese.

In 1896: Therese had already been sick for several months

From the front seat of the Theresemobile, the tour's national co-ordinator Father Linus Ryan mans three mobile phones and holds press conferences on the road.

"We're into our second million half way through the tour," he said.

"There is a mass movement of the Irish population everywhere we go, which has to be supernatural in origin. She has got a supernatural magnetism."

Father Ryan admitted that before the tour began he was concerned that after years of rapid economic growth Ireland might be losing touch with religion.

Now he is drawing the opposite lesson.

"We have to conclude that material things are not giving people what they hoped for," he said.

"There is a great spiritual hunger out there."

Although fans of St Therese know her best for her association with roses, some of her followers are anxious to use the tour to show her off in a modern light.

Her autobiography has been revised, to undo some of the changes that had been made to it over the years.

When the relics leave Ireland at the end of the June, they will return to France before going on to Lebanon.