It’s official: 152,000 people turned out for Papal Mass
The mystery of how many people attended the Papal Mass in the Phoenix Park finally appears to have been solved.
The Office of Public Works has revealed that the final count was almost certainly just under 152,000 after pedestrians and those bussed to the venue were counted.
The OPW released official figures following an FOI request and said the number of pedestrians to enter the park on the day was 131,875.
In addition to that, an estimated further 20,000 people travelled to the event by bus and were not officially subject to headcount.
The OPW had counting systems in place on the day of the final Mass for health and safety reasons.
This data was critical for the egress after Mass as each gate had a flow capacity, and all had to be out of the park before sunset,” it said, adding that the 131,875 figure only includes those who entered the site through monitored gates by foot.
An information note explained: “In addition to those on foot, there were several thousand attendees who entered the site by vehicle access through the unmonitored gates such as invited guests who were coached in, the choir, those involved in the Mass, and those availing of universal access.”
The OPW said its best estimate of how many came in this way was “in the order of 20,000”. It said the maximum capacity for the event had ended up being 485,000 tickets, all of which were supposed to have been taken.
It said: “When the ticket allocation was complete, the World Meeting of Families collated all of the information in conjunction with its ticketing company, and gave an oral presentation, confirming that it had reached all its ticket targets.
In the immediate aftermath of the visit, neither gardaí nor the OPW said they were in a position to confirm exactly how many people had actually attended.
However, they did confirm that attendance was lower than expected, which had made managing the event much easier than anticipated.
On social media, some claimed that the crowd had barely topped 100,000 while commentators supportive of the Catholic Church said it was likely to have been in excess of 200,000.
The turnout paled in comparison with the number who attended the Mass celebrated by Pope John Paul II in 1979 when an estimated one million people turned up.
The poor attendance for the event was blamed on a variety of factors, including poor weather and the distance that people, particularly older people, would have to walk to get there.
Separately, warnings for those suffering from health problems as well as reports about the spread of contagious diseases may have turned off others.
In addition, unknown numbers of tickets were block-booked by protesters who had no intention of attending. One man, part of the ‘Say Nope to the Pope’ Facebook page, claimed to have got 800 tickets in this manner, including booking several tickets in the name of ‘Jesus Christ’.
