Athlone and Ireland were spellbound by 1932 Eucharistic Congress

"History will emblazon on its pages this week as the greatest in Irish annals." Thus began a June 1932 editorial in this newspaper about the Eucharistic Congress. The article sat alongside several joyous accounts of the impact the Catholic gathering had both in Athlone and in the country at large. The 50th Congress will get underway in Dublin this Sunday and the week's events are expected to be attended by over 200,000 people. However it's unlikely the level of national engagement with the Congress in 2012 will be comparable to that in 1932, when a fledgling Irish republic was enraptured by religious celebrations on a grander scale than anything seen previously. The events of 80 years ago culminated with over a million people gathering in the Phoenix Park for a Mass which was celebrated by one Athlone native, Archbishop Michael Curley, and featured the singing of another, John Count McCormack. The ceremonies of the Eucharistic Congress comprised the first radio broadcast from the new Moydrum station in Athlone - indeed the opening of the facility was rushed in order to facilitate coverage of the Congress. It scarcely needs to be stated that, in 1932, the country was a radically different place to the Ireland of today. In the weeks leading up to the Congress, the Westmeath Independent decried the "shocking" sanitary conditions which prevailed in Athlone. "In normal times the sewerage system is antiquated and defective, but in the present warm weather , with the Shannon at a low level, danger lurks in every corner. We shudder to think what would be the consequences should an epidemic break out here now," wrote the paper's editor. Regular columns in the paper included 'Notes on Dogs', 'Household Hints' and 'Poultry Notes' (one of the latter columns was entitled 'Hens That Eat Their Eggs'). Against this backdrop, a number of significant religious developments were taking place locally. A few days before the Eucharistic Congress began, the Papal Nuncio came to Athlone to consecrate the town's new Franciscan Church. It was reported that the Nuncio also inspected the broadcasting station at Moydrum "to make sure that everything would be in readiness for the broadcasting of the Congress." The closing Mass of the Congress took place in Dublin on June 27, but Athlone had marked the occasion by staging its own procession a week earlier. "A Stirring In what this paper called version of the Congress a week earlier.