The Pope's visit: A memory

An Garda Síochána: Media preparing to leave Dublin Castle for Dublin Airport in preparation for the arrival of Pope Francis.

This brings back memories to your editor from 1979, when I was a younger journalist covering the visit of Pope John Paul II to Ireland, writes Brian Byrne. I was bussed from that same place in the early hours.

I was covering the visit for the Catholic Communications Centre's Network Productions, and also stringing for the Sunday World.

It was a frenetic couple of days, as in addition to attending the Phoenix Park mass from the (somewhat rocky) journalists' tower, I was at the audience for media in a northside Dublin school, and then covered Knock and his final event in Limerick thanks to lots of special trains laid on by CIE.

My photo above is one I took at the media audience. JP2 was healthy then.

Once of these is enough. Glad I'm not covering this one.

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