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23rd May 2025
01:02pm BST
Students at St Vincent's Secondary School in Glasnevin got the shock of their lives when moving a dusty old altar revealed a genuine saint’s relic hidden inside. According to reports the students uncovered a vial of ancient blood belonging to Saint Hilarii, who likely lived way back in the 2nd or 3rd century.
It all went down last week as fifth-years Colin Sheridan, Conor Brogan Carr, Munasar Omar, Jonathan Taite, Ethan Byrne, and caretaker Dermot Swords were shifting the altar downstairs for graduation prep. In a classic move that could be a Scooby Doo plot device Ethan noticed a weird false bottom and moments later, a mysterious parcel wrapped in ancient paper fell out.
It was basically a bundle of paper with a handwritten Latin note dated 1787. The students then rushed the discovery straight to principal Máire Quinn. Quinn called in reinforcements.
A former history teacher herself Quinn contacted the National Museum and staff at Glasnevin Cemetery as well as the Edmund Rice Trust, and Fr William Purcell.
Fr William Purcell is an archivist who specialises in saintly relic collecting. According to reporting from RTE he has over 2000 relics himself.
Once he had arrived from Kilkenny he cracked open the wooden box from Nantes, France.
Within the box there was another box of ornate green-and-red filagry sealed tightly with official wax. Inside that box was a 19th-century authentication certificate declaring the vial to be legit relic blood from Saint Hilarii.
Saint Hilarii was a super-obscure martyr who was acclaimed a saint long before the Vatican’s official process even existed. As of yet no one knows how long its been locked in that box within a box within a box. Since its discovery the relic has been the talk of the school, the leafy suburb, and the internet.
The officials have alerted the Diocese of Dublin and Vatican officials, to try to figure out how to safely display this artefact to curious future students.
