Hungary:Irish dignitaries will gather today in the historic Hungarian city of Gyor to remember a Galway bishop and a holy painting credited with revealing its miraculous powers on St Patrick's Day.
Minister of State for Housing Noel Ahern and Brendan McMahon, ambassador to Hungary, will unveil a plaque in Gyor Cathedral to Walter Lynch, bishop of Clonfert, who arrived here 350 years ago via Inishbofin and Flanders after fleeing from Cromwell.
He brought with him a painting of the Holy Mother and Child, and it still hangs above an ornate altar in Gyor's Cathedral, where Lynch was buried in 1663 after he died as he prepared to return to Clonfert. On the morning of March 17th, 1697 - the day after parliament in Dublin passed the notorious Act of Banishment - historical records say the painting exuded a "bloody sweat", causing crowds of Catholics and Protestants to cram into the cathedral to glimpse the phenomenon.
The painting's provenance is a mystery, but many people insist Bishop Lynch brought it from his native Galway, where an empty stone framework in the Lynch family tomb of the Church of St Nicholas is mooted as the original home of Our Lady of Gyor.
Where Pope John Paul II prayed on a visit in 1996 and President Mary McAleese in 2000, Mr Ahern and ambassador McMahon will be joined today by Fr Cathal Geraghty of Loughrea and Fr Noel Madden of Donnycarney. They will unveil a plaque in memory of Bishop Lynch, mounted on the cathedral wall where the Madonna hung when it wept, 308 years ago.