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LAST UPDATE | 25 Apr
THE COFFIN OF Pope Francis has been sealed in a private ceremony in St Peter’s Basilica.
The ceremony, which was presided over by Camerlengo and Irish-born Cardinal Kevin Farrell, marks the end of public viewing in the basilica, which saw a quarter of a million people pass through to pay their respects to the late pontiff.
Francis died on Monday morning and has been lying in state in the basilica since Wednesday morning.
He was moved from the chapel in Santa Marta on Wednesday in a ceremony that was also overseen by Farrell.
St Peter’s Basilica closed to the public at 6pm Irish time in preparation for the liturgical rite of the sealing of the coffin.
Over 250,000 people filed into St Peter’s Basilica to pay their respects to Pope Francis. Now the square lies virtually empty ahead of his coffin being sealed by Irish-born Cardinal Kevin Farrell @thejournal_ie pic.twitter.com/5Ce0r5EeUY
— Diarmuid Pepper (@Diarmuid_9) April 25, 2025
The wooden coffin, in which the pope is lying wearing a red chasuble, white mitre and black shoes, with a rosary laced around his fingers, was closed at 7pm Irish time.
Today, the Vatican confirmed that since St Peter’s opened to the public at 11am on Wednesday, some 250,000 people passed through the basilica to pay their respects to Pope Francis.
The basilica was due to close at midnight on Wednesday, but remained open until 5.30am and re-opened at 7am due to the number of people who had arrived to see the late pope.
For a second night in a row, the Vatican kept St Peter’s open past the scheduled hours to accommodate the queues, only closing the doors between 2.30am and 5.40am this morning.
Francis’s funeral will take place at 10am tomorrow. More than 50 heads of state and 10 monarchs are expected to attend, alongside around 200,000 mourners.
President Michael D Higgins and his wife Sabina, who paid their respects to the late pope earlier today, will be in attendance. They will be joined by Taoiseach Micheál Martin and Tánaiste Simon Harris.
After the funeral, Francis’s coffin will be driven at a walking pace for burial at his favourite church, Rome’s papal basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore.
According to officials, the hearse will pass down Rome’s Fori Imperiali – where the city’s ancient temples lie – and past the Colosseum.
Big screens will be set up along the route on which to watch the ceremony, according to Interior Minister Matteo Piantedosi, who estimated the crowds at around 200,000.
The Vatican said a group of “poor and needy” will be at Santa Maria Maggiore to welcome the coffin of Francis, who was known for his advocacy of the poor.
Naoise and his father Diarmuid were among those to visit Santa Maria Maggiore tonight for a Rosary which was led by Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa, the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem.
Naoise and his dad Diarmuid outside Santa Marie Maggiore, where Pope Francis will be buried tomorrow morning. Naoise talks about his hopes for the next pope while Diarmuid discusses having met a group from Palestine at the rosary which was said from the basilica @thejournal_ie pic.twitter.com/eIv8HMGZ2T
— Diarmuid Pepper (@Diarmuid_9) April 25, 2025
Naoise spoke of his hopes for the next pontiff while Diarmuid remarked on a conversation he had with a group of Palestinians.
The Palestinian group had been due to go to the canonisation of Carlo Acutis, which was scheduled for Sunday but has been postponed due to Francis’ funeral.
A group of Palestinians who were due to be here for the canonisation of Carlo Acutis, which has since turned into the funeral of Francis, who was described as a “friend of Palestine” by the country’s President Mahmoud Abbas @thejournal_ie pic.twitter.com/aBnD65VZAi
— Diarmuid Pepper (@Diarmuid_9) April 25, 2025
Tomorrow, Francis will be interred in the ground at Santa Maria Maggiroe, his simple tomb marked with just one word: Franciscus.
Tonight, there will be a “presence of prayer and vigil for the body of the Francis, until the preparations for Holy Mass tomorrow morning”.
People will be able to visit the tomb from Sunday morning.
With reporting from Jane Moore
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The mindless distruction of Wood Quay by Dublin City Council deprived future generations of what was possibly the most important archaeological site in western Europe and a major lucrative tourist attraction. Instead we have possibly the ugliest building in Europe.
@Brian MacCarthaigh: Agreed. http://www.historyireland.com/volume-22/heritage-outrage-wood-quay/
@Honeybadger197: I was on that march, thanks for the link.
@Brian MacCarthaigh: Good man, no problem.
@Brian MacCarthaigh: Absolutely 110% correct. This was mindless vandalism by Dublin City Council and if The Minister of Arts and Heritage has her way they will destroy the Moore Street 1916 Battlefield site too. Our future generations heritage is in the hands of mindless individuals who’s motivations are seriously suspect.
@Brian MacCarthaigh: didn’t the Danish government lobby the oiks here in trying to realize the significant nature of woodquay
What happened at Wood Quay is one of the greatest scandals in modern Irish history, the largest Viking Settlement in Europe discovered in our capital city, the revenue that could have been made from tourism, and they built that horrendous obscenity on top of it. The DCC offices should be torn down and the site preserved.
During the time of Brown Envelopes
@Mick Cullen: you say that as if somehow it were in the past Mick. It isn’t. It’s the same as ever and with NAMA getting worse no doubt. Unaccountable, enormously wealthy NAMA. The ultimate ‘hong bao’ (red packet) as they say in China. But plenty more besides it.
Caffrey (my own mother’s surname) stems from the son of Godfred (Viking). McAuliffe, from son of Olaf. McAuley, also from Olaf. In the Irish language, we have margadh, scilling, bád, garraí, seol, etc. They left a very rich heritage in our history. Doyle, Gallagher, etc. have also been linked to the Vikings, but we’re not 100% certain
We know one thing. Sam Stephenson proved them bones dem bones dem dry bones make great hardcore for office block foundations.
Amazing really. To look at those bones and reflect that when they were animated it was in a world so far removed from ours, topographically and geographically the same but in every other aspect far removed as ours as the next habitable planet from us is. To look at their goods and see they’re not so different from ours yet though. Those are the goods of civilized people, at least civilized towards each other and perfectly barbaric to everyone else. And are we so different today, with our foreign wars and colonisations (as in we in the West)? But we absorbed them, despite two hundred years of largely turning the other cheek it seems to me, booted them out at Clontarf and kept what they left behind. So they’re us too. We should have respect for them even if they, setting fires at the bottom of round towers and smashing up the altar vessels while robbing the gold and silver, killing the monks and burning their books of knowledge that were the only things preserved the accumulated wisdom of the Classical Age, did not much respect us. Suppose few hundred years from now archaeologists will be excavating the ruins of Anglo-Irish houses and churchyards and we’ll be saying the same and holding no heart hearts towards their descendants in England no more than we do to the Vikings now. Time heals all as it erodes all.
@John O’Driscoll: well written
It was the Vikings that brought red hair to this country, now every c#nt on the planet thinks everyone with red hair is Irish. Thanks a bunch Vikings
@Blue Moon rising: And the cancer gene as some believe? But is red hair not Celts???
@Blue Moon rising: Did you mean to say blue eyed and blond?
@Alois Irlmaier: I had that perception too until a visit to Denmark; I was expecting blonde & fair but was surprised to discover that red hair & freckles predominates
Those two buildings should be to torn down what lies beneath is worth more to Dublin now and in the future than for office space for civil servants
Very interesting, thank you. A word of caution though. Radiocarbon dating has a pretty wide potential error margin. During the Early Medieval period written historical evidence is usually far more reliable for chronological stuff in Ireland in particular. Wish it weren’t so, to cast doubt on such a good story, but lets enjoy the possibility anyway…..
Well their hardly going to meander into the national history museum and say pull a chair up we have something to tell you lovely people of Ireland. The Vikings were savage they played a part in this world but there gone.
The part about the man getting on with it in spite of having a bad back is definitely appropriate to me. Since 2015 I’m waiting for help with a bad back and still waiting under the HSE. I guess I’ll take it to to my grave like this guy. The only difference is my grave won’t be robbed because the Viking dies with more possessions than I have.
The Viking’s were not really see off there were other settlements around the place apart from Dublin
have your say