Saintly relics arrive in Derry

On tour: St Therese's ornate mahogany casket

The relics of Saint Therese, which have been drawing huge crowds in Northern Ireland, have arrived in Londonderry.

The relics of the 19th Century French saint, are on a 75-day tour of Ireland.

After visiting Holy Cross Church in Ardoyne, north Belfast, on Tuesday the relics travelled to Derry to St Eugene's Cathedral.

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

It had travelled to Belfast the previous day where it visited St Peter's Cathedral in Divis.

The future Saint Therese at 15

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

On 23 May, crowds gathered in Armagh Cathedral in Newry, County Down, to see the casket on its first stop in the province.

Nearly 2,000 people are believed to have visited the casket in the cathedral.

Speaking about the visit to Armagh, Bishop of Dromore John McAreavey said that the city was honoured by a visit from the saint known as the Little Flower.

Controversy

However, the tour has also 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.

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."

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