Large crowds gather to see relics of St Bernadette in Belfast

Queues formed outside St Mary’s Church on Chapel Lane on Tuesday to view the relics. Picture: Liam McBurney/PA

Large crowds gathered to view the relics of St Bernadette following their arrival in Belfast.

Queues formed at St Mary’s Church on Chapel Lane on Tuesday to view the relics.

The relics are on tour from Lourdes in France (Liam McBurney/PA)

The relics are on tour from Lourdes in France, where they attract millions of Catholic pilgrims each year.

Born in Lourdes in 1844, Bernadette Soubirous said that she saw the Virgin Mary 18 times at the Grotto of Massabielle in 1858.

She died at the age of 35 and was proclaimed blessed in 1925, then a saint in 1933.