ST. DINGAN'S BONES

Ballydingan is a small village on the shores of Connemara, Eire, which takes its name from the humble (and obscure) St. Dingan of the fifth century. Ballydingan is a backwater town; its people like it that way. Its quiet was violently disturbed when, on the 30th of May, the feast of St. Joan of Arc, the five Conneelly children were vouchsafed a vision of St. Brigid in the garden of the Holy Trinity Church (Protestant). That the Catholic children's usual attraction to Holy Trinity was only the garden strawberries was forgotten in the especial favor granted them. St. Brigid's message- ""St. Dingan's bones lie under these stones"", the discovery by the children of an appropriately aged relic, and subsequent miraculous cures attributed to the presence of the bone put the once retreat- like Ballydingan in a class with Lourdes, or so the papers said. Before a scholar could demolish the faith-full facade by informing the proper authorities that St. Dingan was buried at Kildare, not Ballydingan, events had grown most un-Ballydingan-like. Possession of the relic was disputed, the British newspapers were having a field day and finally, the Conneelly dog ran off with the bone. A fanciful, humorous excursion (pilgrimage?). Total effect: a surfeit of whimsy.