05/06/2026
🕯️ Carrying You to the Island | Exam Season 2026
As thousands of young people across Ireland are getting ready to sit their Junior and Leaving Certificate examinations — and many more face tests and assessments at every level — Station Island is carrying them in prayer.
Every day on the Island, pilgrims walk the ancient Penitential Beds, keep the Vigil, and lift their intentions to God. And this time of year, so many of those intentions bear the names of sons and daughters, grandchildren, nieces and nephews.
Parents and grandparents, aunts and uncles — you who come to Lough Derg with a young person's name written on your heart — know that your sacrifice and prayer here is one of the most powerful gifts you can give them. In a tradition inspired by the memory of Saint Patrick, Lough Derg has been a sacred site across the centuries — a place made holy by God's grace through the penance, prayer, and spiritual endeavour of God's faithful pilgrim people.
That faithfulness is alive today — in every bare foot on cold stone, in every sleepless hour of Vigil, in every quiet prayer offered for a young person facing the pressure of exams.
To every student: you are not alone. You are being carried.
🙏 Share this prayer with someone who needs it.
