Over the six days of Clogher’s virtual pilgrimage a dedicated website was accessed nearly 12,000 times and attracted participants from places as diverse as Australia, the USA, Kuwait and Trinidad & Tobago.

Bishop Larry Duffy leads celebrations in the Diocese of Clogher as Fr Kevin Connolly is ordained to the priesthood at St Macartan’s Cathedral in Monaghan.

Fr Laurence (La) Flynn intends to seek the way for Lough Derg to move ahead ‘in a missionary key’, reaching out from a place that is geographically ‘on the margins’ to offer a welcome to those who feel themselves to be ‘on the margins’.

“Suicide touches everybody regardless of whether you have faith or not. It is no respecter of age, gender, background, class or religious denomination,” said Fr Deery.

‘Healthy’ and ‘holy’ unease thinking of those suffering at Christmas challenges believers to open their hearts to people in need – the homeless and refugees, says Bishop of Kilmore.

Describing prayer as the wellspring of all Christian life, Bishop Kelly said this was the example Jesus showed and priests' whole being and every utterance must be founded on prayer.