When pilgrims flocked to Barry Island (long before Gavin and Stacey!)

Local history with Graham Loveluck-Edwards

Glamorgan Star news 02/09/2024

3 minutes read

WHAT IS significant about 27th September?

I am sure it’s a date that’s already in your diary. In our house it is my stepson’s birthday. Perhaps something similar in yours? Or maybe you like to mark the date when William the Conqueror’s army set sail for the battle of Hastings in 1066? Or maybe you are aware that it has significance a little closer to home?

**| The charity walk aims to bring history to life.**

It is the feast day of St Baruc. “Who?” you may ask. The man they named Barry after. He has quite a remarkable story, but what is truly remarkable is that despite giving his name to the town and despite making Barry Island a place of significant pilgrimage for around 1,000 years, he is largely forgotten these days.

He was a monk based in the monastery at Llancarfan in the Vale. This was one of the most significant religious institutions in northern Europe in the 6th Century and missionaries from here established churches and towns across Wales, England, Ireland and Brittany in France. Baruc himself was originally from Ireland and had travelled to Llancarfan to join this monastery.

Barry Island at this time was uninhabited. It was only accessible at low tide and like many islands, it was believed to be a deeply spiritual place. A place where monks would go on retreats in pursuit of solitude and peace. According to his legend, Baruc was on such a retreat on Barry Island when he put to sea on his little boat to sail out to Flat Holm to collect a religious book he knew to be in the library of the monastery there.

On his return journey a storm blew up, and he was drowned. His body washed up on Jacksons Bay where it was discovered by some locals who buried him on the island.

Then the weird stuff started to happen.

First, a family in search of a meal were fishing off Barry Island when they caught and landed a salmon. When they cut it open, they found inside the book that had cost Baruc his life. Apparently in perfect condition. Then people started claiming to have been miraculously cured of disease and injury by drinking from the well on the island that had sustained Baruc in life. Pretty soon these stories of miracles and magic spread, and so Barry Island became a place of pilgrimage.

When the father of British history, John Leland visited south Wales in the 1530s (around 1,000 years later), he described Barry Island as a place with no buildings other than the 13th Century chapel, the remains of which you can still see on Friars Walk. He said it was a very busy place, packed with pilgrims wanting to visit the chapel and holy well of St Baruc.

Regardless of whether you believe in miracles, this was the town’s founding patron, and he deserves some recognition for that. So, this year, his feast day will be recognised rather fittingly with a ‘pilgrimage walk’. The event is being organised by the Vale Foodbank to raise badly-needed funds to help provide emergency food parcels for people in crisis. Year on year, they have seen demand for food parcels increase by 29% while donations have reduced by 15% as people struggle with the increased cost of living. Walkers will be charged a small fee for taking part and all profits will go directly to the foodbank.

The walk itself will start at Llancarfan, in the church on the site of the 6th Century monastery where walkers will be shown the incredible mediaeval murals on the walls. Then, onto Penmark and Porthkerry and all the way to Barry Island. History experts, authors, representatives of local churches and the odd celebrity will all add snippets of history and stories to add depth to the places we will pass through.

If you would like more information, visit the Vale Foodbank website at www.valefoodbank.org.uk

Graham Loveluck-Edwards is an historian, author, broadcaster, and public speaker. For more information or to buy books on Welsh history visit his website at www.grahamloveluckedwards.com