In Honour of Our Lady of Perpetual Help
Every year in the month of June, Redemptorists gather in Belfast, Esker, Athenry, Ballinalsoe and Limerick to celebrate the solemn novena (nine days of prayer) in honour of Our Lady of Perpetual Help. It is the major occasion for us in our proclamation of God’s Word in Ireland. The solemn novena takes places in the presence of the icon of Our Lady of Perpetual Help, which has a long and colourful history. Each year the novena has a particular scripture-based theme which is then developed in nine homilies over the days of the novena. The theme this year is "Lord, that I may see!" In exploring this theme we will proclaim Jesus’ vision and values as the only way forward for all of us, who have been so deceptively blindsided by the false economic and material values of recent years. We will look at how some of the less attractive aspects of so-called Celtic Tiger economics have affected us as Jesus’ disciples as well as focusing on his own sense of God’s kingdom and how we can make it a reality in our lives.
Every year in February, Redemptorists, in partnership with the clergy and people of the Diocese of Galway, organize and preach the Galway Solemn Novena in the city's Cathedral 
Parish. It is without doubt the largest faith-event in the city and in the west of Ireland. Similarly, every May, we preach the Solemn Novena in Our Lady of Perpetual Succour Parish, Foxrock, Dublin 18. View Matt Kavanagh's (Irish Times) photos of the 2009 Galway Novena. Just click on the movie icon.
The story of how the Novena came to Ireland is fascinating. In 1866 Pope Pius IX commissioned the Redemptorists to make Mary known under the title of Our Lady of Perpetual Help. In 1916 the American Redemptorists celebrated the fiftieth anniversary of that event by establishing a perpetual novena, that is a weekly celebration of the novena. Eventually a young Redemptorist by the name of Matthew Meighan CSsR became the novena director. Then in 1942 the attack on Pearl Harbour happened and the USA entered World War II. 
Matthew Meighan joined the US marines as a chaplain and quickly found himself posted to Northern Ireland in 1943. When visiting Clonard Monastery in Belfast he urged the Redemptorists to establish a perpetual novena and on Thursday, 09th December 1943 the novena began. It flourished in Belfast and quickly spread to other Redemptorist centres, especially Mount Saint Alphonsus in Limerick. In the late 1970s a team of Redemptorists based in Mount Saint Alphonsus, led by Vincent Kavanagh CSsR developed the novena even further, giving it the particular festive atmosphere and popularity it enjoys today. That team is pictured here (left to right): the late Gerard Daly CSsR, Vincent Kavanagh CSsR and Rick McMahon CSsR.
The Man Behind the Novena (Reality, June 2009) Anne Demsey profiles Vincent Kavanagh CSsR whose vision and energy have made the Solemn Novena what is is today. In the 1970s a promotion video entitled Reds on the Road was produced by Vincent Kavanagh CSsR and the Limerick Novena Team. The video captures the early days of the Solemn Novena phenomenon. Just click on the movie icon to view the programme.
In Honour of Saint Gerard Majella
Saint Gerard Majella was born in 1726 in southern Italy, in Muro near Naples. As a young man he spent a lot of time in prayer, and was known for his kindness, especially to the poor. At the age of 23 he left home to become a Redemptorist who eventually was well known for his care of the poor and distressed. At the age of 29, he got tuberculosis and died on 16th October 1755. He was declared a saint by Pope Pius X in 1904. He is the patron saint of mothers and babies and is popularly known as "the mothers' saint." 10,000 people come to the annual Solemn Novena in honour of Saint Gerard, which takes place each year in October at Saint Joseph's, Dundalk.
Devotion to Saint Gerard in Dundalk’s Redemptorist church began a few months after his beatification in 1893. The growth of that devotion has had an extraordinary history. The local people took the new Saint to their hearts. The people found Saint Gerard, a powerful intercessor with God. They consistently invoked him as the patron of a good confession, patron of the poor, patron of workers, but, most of all as the patron of expectant mothers as they prayed to him for the gift of a child. From those early days in 1893, devotion to Saint Gerard has continued to grow, especially in Dundalk and surrounding areas. In the early days, he was honoured on his feast day, 16th October. Then, for some years, a Triduum (or three days of prayer) was held in his honour each October. In 1936, the novena got underway. It grew and developed rapidly during the years of World War II. By 1948 up to 12,500 attended the novena. Records show that such numbers increased each year. More novena sessions were added to accommodate the ever-increasing crowds. For many years the most popular of all the daily sessions has been the Blessing of Children and their Parents. In 2008 there were ten sessions each day in the Redemptorist Church and two daily sessions in the local Church of the Redeemer, drawing well over 10,000 people each day.