Whitefriar Street Church

Dublin is the last place you'd expect to find the remains of St. Valentine, patron saint of romantic love, yet here they are — in a modest Carmelite church on Aungier Street that most tourists walk past without a second glance. The relics were a gift from Pope Gregory XVI to Father John Spratt, a Dublin Carmelite friar whose preaching in Rome in 1835 was so electrifying that the Pope decided to send him a present. That present was a reliquary containing "the bones and a small vessel tinged with blood" of St. Valentine, removed from the cemetery of St. Hippolytus on the Via Tiburtina in Rome.

The relics arrived in Dublin on November 10, 1836, and were received by Archbishop Murray in a solemn procession. They were placed under the high altar for safekeeping during church renovations — and then everyone basically forgot about them. The reliquary sat under the altar, gathering dust, until it was rediscovered in 1940. A proper shrine wasn't erected until 1956, featuring a statue by Dublin sculptor Irene Broe.

Today the shrine draws visitors year-round, but the real action happens on February 14th, when the church holds two special masses at 11:30 AM and 3 PM that include a blessing of rings. Couples come from across Ireland and overseas to have their rings blessed at the shrine of the actual saint whose feast day it is. It's a genuinely touching scene in a church that feels nothing like a tourist attraction.

The wooden casket containing the relics is sealed with red silk ribbon and official papal seals. Whether you're a believer or a skeptic, there's something wonderfully Dublin about the patron saint of love ending up in a side street in the Liberties because a Pope was impressed by a good sermon.