Four pals swap pub crawl for Mass marathon

FOUR young men from Baltinglass have attended Mass at more than 50 churches since November 2024 and their journey of faith and friendship has taken them across much of Co Carlow.

Luke Doogue, Stephen and Neil Patterson and Dylan Byrne, who grew up together in Baltinglass, on the Carlow border, hatched the idea as an alternative to the Christmas tradition of a 12-pub crawl. Instead, they would visit 12 different churches for Sunday Mass.

Some 90 Masses later, they show no signs of stopping.

“At the start, people thought we were mad,” said Luke (20), a second-year Business student at Dublin City University, who attended Knockbeg College in Carlow. “They thought we were doing it for brownie points, but we just told them we had decided to do something different.” Carlow has featured heavily in the trio’s travels. They have attended Mass in the Carlow Cathedral, Askea, Tullow, Ardattin, Bennekerry, Rathvilly, Tinryland, Hacketstown, Ballinabranna and Leighlinbridge, as well as Graiguenamanagh, Castledermot and Arles, just over the county border. A candlelit Easter Saturday service at Bolton abbey in Moone also made the list.

Of all the churches they visit, Tullow has become something of a second home. Their former parish priest in Baltinglass, Fr Ger Ahern, who featured in an RTÉ documentary accompanying the friends to Mass, later moved there, with the lads following him.

“We go to Tullow probably more than any other place,” Luke said. “We’d always go to see him and go for breakfast with him after Mass.” The post-Mass breakfast has become as central to the ritual as the Mass itself. When they are in the Baltinglass area, they make for Fisher’s; if they are out Castledermot way, it is Behan’s; and no visit near Grangecon is complete without a cinnamon bun from Grangecon Kitchen.

Luke is emphatic that he and his friends are not, as he puts it, “Holy Joes.” The appeal lies in community, routine and the mental clarity the weekly outing provides.

“It’s the greatest excuse to see somebody once a week,” he said.

“My mother’s aunt said to her recently ‘I’m afraid now Luke is going to come and knock on my door.’ She was full sure I was part of a cult or something. I said I haven't changed even a little bit because of it ‒ it’s me plus this (Mass). She was afraid I’d start quoting Bible scriptures and I said ‘no, Roisin, unfortunately I haven’t got the time to go knocking on doors’.”

Their story has attracted considerable media attention, including radio appearances, an RTÉ feature and the reaction of parishioners, many of them decades older than the lads, has been one of delight.