UK, Ireland FilCom celebrates Sinulog Festival
Devotees in Ireland pull the processional cart of the Child Jesus during the religious procession in honour of Santo Niño. (Londo PE photo by Dax Baldestamon)
LONDON 16 January 2020 — Filipinos in the United Kingdom and Ireland will celebrate the Sinulog Festival in honour of Santo Niño this January 2020. The celebrations, which will mostly take place on 19 January, will be led by different Filipino community organisations together with a number of parishes.
The Feast of Santo Niño is one of the largest and most vibrant religious and cultural celebrations in the Philippines originating in Cebu. In the Philippines, the feast is celebrated every third Sunday of January and is marked by religious events such as a novena mass, street and fluvial processions, and the Sinulog Festival, a dance ritual in honour of the Child Jesus.
"Over the years, the Feast of Santo Niño in the UK and Ireland has brought together and strengthened the sense of community among thousands of Filipinos who are devotees of the Child Jesus," said Philippine Ambassador to the United Kingdom Antonio M. Lagdameo.
"I believe there is a need to celebrate our faith. No matter where in the Philippines one comes from, no matter what dialect one was taught as a child, no matter what state in life one is in right now, there is a need to show that we, Filipinos, can be together in expressing our gratitude and faith as one," said Head Coordinator of Santo Niño Ireland Marlou Patindol, in the community’s commemorative souvenir programme.
This year’s celebration marks the 22nd year since the Feast of Santo Niño was first celebrated in the UK and the 21st since it was first celebrated in Ireland. The Feast of Santo Niño was brought to the UK in the 1990s by Filipino volunteers at the Church of Our Lady of Victories in London. It eventually spread to Ireland upon the reassignment of the church’s parish priest to Dublin. Since then, the Feast of Santo Niño has become an annual celebration, gathering thousands of Santo Niño devotees all over the UK and Ireland.
For more information, visit https://www.londonpe.dfa.gov.ph or https://www.facebook.com/pg/PHLinUK or https://twitter.com/philippinesinuk.