Eucharistic Congress

Large-scale public celebration of Irish Catholicism held triennially in different cities in the early years of the Irish Free State. The first one in Ireland (and 31st of a series of international Catholic congresses) took place in 1932, when Dublin was chosen as the host city to mark the 1,500th anniversary of St Patrick's mission to Ireland. In many ways this was a follow-up to the 1929 Emancipation Centenary Festival. Some 14,000 people attended a Blackrock College garden party, one million attended an open-air mass in Phoenix Park, and 500,000 attended benediction at O'Connell Bridge.