THE SAINT OF SPONSORSHIP? –

July 14, 2024 – Fr Selva Thomas, one of the Salesian priests who ministers at the Church of Our Lady of Lourdes in Dublin, Ireland where Talbot is buried, says that many people grappling with alcoholism or drug addiction continue to come to Talbot’s tomb to pray nearly 100 years after his death. “Matt Talbot has become the source of inspiration for so many,” Fr Thomas said.

People feel that the Matt Talbot Shrine in central Dublin is a place where they can come and experience “spiritual rehabilitation as they undergo other forms of rehabilitation,” he said.

Talbot was born into a poor working class family in Dublin on May 2, 1856.

He was the second of 12 children — nine who survived beyond infancy — and grew up surrounded by poverty and alcohol abuse in the wake of Ireland’s Great Famine.

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