Our Lady of Dublin
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1800
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The shrine of Our Lady of Dublin lies in the Carmelite Church in Whitefriar Street. It is carved oak and experts claim it is the work of Albrecht Durer, the fifteenth century German master painter and sculptor. Originally, the shrine was in the Abbey of St. Mary on the North Side of the Liffey. This Abbey was confiscated at the order of King Henry VIII and all images were burned. This was the time of the Reformation. The date was 1539. The statue, scarred and singed only at the back, was taken by a zealous pilgrim and hidden in the ground in an innkeeper's yard. It lay face down. The burnt and hollow back protruded through the clay and pebbles. For over 50 years it was used as a pig trough. To those who used it, it looked like a hollow length of wood embedded in the earth. In 1824, a Carmelite priest, Father John Spratt, saw it in the window of a second-hand shop in Capel Street, Dublin. Our Lady of Dublin was found again. Restored, the shrine was erected in the Whitefriar Street Church after 300 years of obscurity.
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