Northern Ireland city leads first coordinated worldwide Marian Eucharistic procession

In Derry City, Northern Ireland, on June 13, to mark the feast of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, Our Lady of Fátima, and the feast of St. Anthony of Padua, 6,000 people took part in a Eucharistic procession that completed its route in the shadow of the city’s famous walls.

The prayer event kicked off a worldwide Eucharistic procession honoring the Blessed Mother including more than 550 parishes and 15 prominent shrines across six continents in what organizers say is the first-ever united and coordinated global Marian Eucharistic procession.

Participating Marian shrines included Knock, Fátima, Lourdes, La Salette and Pontmain Shrine in France, Garabandal in Spain, Beauraing Shrine in Belgium, and the Coimbra convent in Portugal, where Our Lady is believed to have appeared to Sister Lucia, one of the Fátima seers.

Barry Mallett from the Guardians of the Faith group, who organized the Derry procession, spent over a year contacting parishes, dioceses, and Marian shrines around the world to bring them together for this remarkable global outpouring of Eucharistic adoration, held in unison at the same time in each area of the world.

“Fruits from the last Eucharistic processions [held in February and November 2025 in Derry] are an increase in Mass attendance and vocations, with a real hunger and desire to see these continue to help lead our youth back to God,” Mallett told EWTN News. “We have seen an increase in conversions and an uplift in faith amongst the Gen Z population locally.”

He added: “There isn’t any coincidence that this is all taking place so shortly after Archbishop Eamon Martin, a Derry man, reconsecrated Ireland to the Sacred Heart of Jesus in June 2025 and to the Immaculate Heart of Mary at the Rosary Rally in Knock on the 6th of June.”

Mallett said he has been getting messages from around the world from participants in the procession who say “they were overwhelmed and that it was such an honor to be part of this synchronized event to honor the holy mother of God.”

“Locally here in Derry the buzz is incredible; people were saying it’s absolutely beautiful. As the procession wound its way through the city, devotional items were handed out to passersby, and people came out of shops, restaurants, and public houses to watch the very significant event,” Millet explained.

“There’s a very famous prophecy by St. Patrick in 433 about a light rising and shining from the north of Ireland, spreading throughout the whole of Ireland, on to Britain, Europe, and the whole world.”

The city of Derry is remembered for some of the most notorious incidents of the Troubles in Northern Ireland.

During the opening Mass before the procession, Father Roland Colhoun, curate in the Derry Diocese, Parish of Ardstraw East, said: “A procession visually and spiritually transforms streets and sanctuaries into places of contemplative peace. The exercise of communal prayer elevates the district into a place of holiness. We walk under banners with messages of faith, carrying our rosary beads as instruments of prayer. We venerate the image of Our Lady, adore the Eucharist, and meditate on the mysteries of the faith as we process. By taking part in the worldwide Marian procession today, you and I are making our contribution to world peace. May the Prince of Peace reign in our hearts and in the hearts of our brothers and sisters across the world.”

After Mass, celebrated in the Creggan estate, a well-known housing development built for working-class Catholics, where the 1972 Bloody Sunday civil rights march started, the route of the procession followed that of the march, culminating at the Long Tower church — the site of the last Penal mass in the city in 1784 and now known as the home parish church of Servant of God Sister Clare Crockett, an Irish sister who died in an earthquake in Ecuador at the age of 33. The church is also close to the site of St. Columba’s original church in Derry.

Sister Clare Crockett’s uncle, Danny Doyle, said: “Clare would have loved today and been thrilled to have this on her own patch where she was born and reared.”

Sisters from the Letterkenny convent of Sister Claire Crockett’s congregation, Home of the Mother, were present in Derry, and other sisters participated from their convent in Spain.

Among the procession participants was Father Patrick Desmond, OP, from the Dominican congregation in Newry, who told EWTN News: “It’s great to be here. It was so well organized, and everyone played their part. So many young people. So many young families. It would just give you confidence and encourage you to remember that the Lord is in control and it’s his Church!”

Desmond said he believes the Lord “is going to renew the Church in the world in his way and in his time, and it’s happening. It’s very exciting to be at the heart of it. I’m very encouraged, and I’m going to go back to my congregation, and I’m going to try to encourage them with some of the joy that I’ve experienced here and remind them that God will have the victory ultimately! This needs to be multiplied and magnified!”

Source: https://www.ewtnnews.com/world/europe/derry-ireland-leads-first-coordinated-worldwide-marian-eucharistic-procession