Whitefriar Street Church in Dublin’s city centre is not what you might consider a romantic hot spot, but today it will be bustling with lovers, young and old – and some sadly in mourning for their own true love – who will come to lay a red rose at the shrine of Saint Valentine.
St. Valentine, the patron saint of love, was executed in Rome and buried there in the 3rd century. Much later, an Irish priest was granted permission to exhume his remains, and now his skeleton lies under Whitefriar Church in Dublin. In 1835 an Irish Carmelite priest, Fr. John Spratt, used his Irish charm.
Every year in and around St Valentine’s Day, couples from far and wide make a beeline for the Shrine of St Valentine in Whitefriar Street Church in Dublin.