Posts Tagged ‘icons’

Our Lady of Mount Carmel

Sunday, July 16th, 2023

If you go to the web site of St. Peter’s Italian Church in Clerkenwell today you will find the programme for this year’s Procession in Honour of Our Lady of Mount Carmel, which has been taking place there since 1883. It will probably be taken down soon after the event, and at some time be replaced by the programme for next years event on Sunday 21st July 2024.

Our Lady of Mount Carmel

Theis year it takes place this afternoon, 16th July 2023, and the programme has some photographs from previous years, along with a map of the area showing the location of the church on Clerkenwell Road, roughly opposite Hatton Garden, the route of the march, this year going down Leather Lane and across Greville Street to Return up Hatton Garden, and the location of the Sagra in Warner Street. There is also a long list of the 38 groups in the order of the procession, the final one following Our Lady of Mount Carmel being the crowd of Parishioners.

Our Lady of Mount Carmel

Of course if you go there you will be able to pick up a printed copy. It’s best to arrive in plenty of time to enjoy an ice-cream, snack or plastic cup of wine or two at the Sagra before the procession begins at 3.30pm – and you can go back there again after the procession. It’s an event where everyone is welcome and there are no tickets or booking required.

Our Lady of Mount Carmel

The pavement on Clerkenwell Road gets very crowded so unless you are tall you will want to get there at least a few minutes before the start to find a good place to stand, though once the end of the procession has gone past you can walk to see it coming back to the church.

Our Lady of Mount Carmel

Many also go into the church well before the procession and even if you don’t wish to pray it is worth a visit. According to the web site it has been described as “one of the most beautiful churches in London“. When built in 1863 its “Irish architect John Miller Bryson worked from plans drawn by Francesco Gualandi of Bologna, modelled on the Basilica of San Crisogno in Rome.” And while it may not be entirely to my taste it is certainly remarkable.

Our Lady of Mount Carmel

As too is the procession, with its floats on lorries and walking groups in costumes related to the life of Jesus , the first communicants, and various groups and associations, some carrying the heavy statues from the church decorated for the occasion.

Our Lady of Mount Carmel

Our Lady of Mount Carmel is one of the titles of the Virgin Mary, who was adopted as the patroness of the Carmelite Order which was begun by hermits on Mt Carmel in Palestine around the end of the 12th century. July 16 became the liturgical feast of Our Lady of Mount Carmel and the procession takes place on the closest Sunday – and this year, as in 2017, it is on the actual saint’s day.

Our Lady of Mount Carmel

The pictures here are all from Sunday 16th July 2017 – and there are many more on My London Diary at Processione della Madonna del Carmine as well as more from other years.

You can also see the pictures I made the first year I went to the festival, in 1992, in an album on Flickr with 50 black and white and 19 colour pictures. In some ways I think this remains the best set of images I’ve made of the event over the years.


In Honour of Our Lady of Mount Carmel

Thursday, July 21st, 2022

2019

In Honour of Our Lady of Mount Carmel The annual procession from St Peter’s Italian Church in Clerkenwell first took place by special permission of Queen Victoria in 1883 and continues annually. On the third Sunday in July, this years was last Sunday, but in both 2019 and 2013 it was on Sunday 21st July. For this post I’ll use photographs from these two years though I’ve been on quite a few other occasions.

2013

I can’t remember when I first got to know about the procession, one of London’s oldest and most colourful religious festivals, but I think it will have been in the early 1990s when I belonged to a group called London Documentary Photographers, organised by the senior curator of photography at the Museum of London, Mike Seaborne, and became friends with another photographer, Paul Baldesare, who as his name suggests, is of Italian extraction, his father coming to the country before Paul was born.

2013

Since then its been a fairly regular entry in my diary, though I’ve been away from London some years, or had other pressing business. More recently it’s been more of a social occaision, where I’ve met Paul and other photographer friends with perhaps more interest in the Sagra in the street below the church, where Italian food and wine are sold, with wine often being brought in specially from small Italian family winemakers, mostly good and mainly cheap.

2019

I didn’t go last Sunday, mainly because of the amber heat warning. There is little shade and taking pictures means much standing in direct sunlight, something dangerous for any length of time, particularly someone of my age and infirmities. Instead I stayed inside, drinking plenty of water and keeping as cool as possible.

2013

It’s a great event, with lots of people, colourful statues being carried around the streets and a succession of floats and walking groups in costumes largely reflecting biblical scenes of the life of Jesus. There are I think two Jesus’s in the line-up, one with a communion cup leading the first communicants and another carrying a heavy wooden cross.

2019

Photographically for me the climax comes with the release of a white dove or doves, though both the number of doves and how they are set free has differed over they years. But most years recently I think there have been three who have been held in the hands of clergy and supposedly released together. Except the clergy are not always well-synchronised and the doves too have minds of their own. Its hard to get a picture capturing all of them in a single shot.

2019

Sometimes the doves shoot up almost vertically while at other times they speed past the cameras just over our heads. And although we think of white doves as being photogenic, at some points in their flight they look decidedly ugly and even maimed.

2013

Back in the times of film when the cameras I used just took a single picture when you pressed the shutter release you seldom had more than one chance to capture them. Nowadays digital cameras all have modes to take multiple frames and this cuts much of the danger of missing the birds completely. It’s probably the only time in the year I have any use for the 8 frames a second my camera has on offer, though the first time I tried this the camera went into sulk mode and refused to take even a single shot and I had to grab my second camera.

2013

But its also something I’ve now done many times and find it hard to approach in a new and fresh way. Some events evolve enough to make event fatigue not a problem but those that stay more or less the same can’t arouse the same level of interest. Perhaps I might have taken a break this year even if the weather had been less of a problem.

Dancing at the 2019 Sagra

More pictures and details on My London Diary from 2013 and 2019 with a separate group of pictures from the 2019 Sagra.