Galway couple Margaret and Michael Duignan spent more than three decades leading many hundreds of people from Galway on an annual pilgrimage to Lourdes in the south of France. They spoke to BERNIE NÍ FHLATHARTA about their memories of those trips and their strong faith, which has helped them through life’s challenges.

Margaret and Michael Duignan have given a lifetime of voluntary services through their involvement in bringing thousands of pilgrims to Lourdes and though they’re retired now, they continue to support others through their devotion to the Rosary and prayer.

The Duignans, who live in Newcastle in the city, are known throughout the city and county because of the Notre Dame de Lourdes (NDL) annual pilgrimages that ran for 32 years. Their voluntary work was recognised earlier this summer when they were nominated for the Mayoral Awards.

That nomination by a family friend, Martin Badger from the Claddagh, also mentioned the grotto to Our Lady in their front garden, which has for four decades become a beacon for people who believe in the power of prayer.

As well as raising a family and holding down careers, the Duignans committed themselves to their Catholic faith and sharing it with others.

They say the Rosary every day and attend Mass most days, though in recent years, Margaret has developed health issues that have curtailed her activities. It has not, however, dampened her enthusiasm or her warm welcome and hospitable nature.

Michael, a native of Canal Road in the city, held a number of jobs before he joined the then Regional Hospital’s ambulance service.

Margaret, from Abbeyknockmoy, was nursing when she met Michael and had to give up her job due to the ‘marriage ban’ which prevented married women in public service employment working outside the home.

Like many others, the pair headed for London after their wedding, but returned a few weeks later, realising that Galway was where they wanted to be. Margaret eventually returned to nursing when the ban was lifted and spent 40 years as a paediatric nurse in University Hospital Galway.

Michael is the first to admit that, like many Catholics, he had, as a younger man, been non-plussed about his religion or its rituals.

However, that all changed when he first visited Lourdes with an extended family group from the Claddagh.

“It had a profound effect on me. Something about Lourdes got to me. I can’t say that it was the Grotto (where Our Lady is said to have appeared to a young girl called Bernadette in 1858) or the night vigil or anything in particular. Everything about those few days in Lourdes made such an impression on me, that I knew I’d be back,” he recalls.

He says he found his faith in Lourdes. Suddenly, he realised that faith had nothing to do with the bigger organisation of an organised church and that it was all about the personal conviction. He also found a calmness, an inner peace that has helped him through his adult life.

And the couple were indeed challenged many times during their 56 years of marriage — first with a miscarriage and years later, the drowning of their 20 year old son Ronan in a boating accident 33 years ago. He had gone up the river with two friends when their boat hit rocks and capsized. Though a strong swimmer, he was unfamiliar with that part of the river and didn’t survive.

Pictured: Margaret and Michael Duignan at their garden grotto.