Songs of Praise: Christianity in County Down (BBC One Sunday 21 May 2023)

Songs of Praise: Christianity in County Down airs Sunday 21 May 2023 on BBC One

Joining two nuns on a Saint Patrick-themed pilgrimage that includes kayaking in and around County Down in Northern Ireland, Claire McCollum paddles in the wake of the patron saint.

Saul Church, also called Ireland’s “cradle of Christianity,” was constructed on the spot where Saint Patrick performed the first known Christian worship service.

Claire also travels to the 12th-century Cistercian priory Grey Abbey, one of Ireland’s most impressive examples of early Gothic architecture, where she meets its fascinating founder, Princess Affreca, known for her strong religious patronage in the very male-dominated environment in which she lived. She also visits the abbey’s crowning achievement—a recreation of the original physic garden, which features plants used in mediaeval medicine and whose histories are steeped in legend.

The two eventually meet on the shores of Strangford Lough, where Claire learns about a Christian artist in her area whose work is inspired by Christian values, the splendour of God’s creation, and the human condition.

Season 2023 Episode 21

Songs of Praise is a BBC Television religious programme that presents Christian hymns which first aired in October 1961. The first edition was broadcast from the Tabernacle Baptist Church in Cardiff, and the series is one of the longest-running of its kind on television anywhere in the world.

What time is Songs of Praise: Christianity in County Down on tonight

Songs of Praise: Christianity in County Down airs Sunday 21 May 2023 at 13:15 on BBC One

Featured image credit: BBC One