Permit for Visiting town issued to Johanna Crowe

Dimensions: Overall: 220 x 105 mm Medium: Paper, ink A collection of paper ephemera relating to Irish-Australian Johanna (Annie) Crowe (1908-1995) and her participation in the Fourth National Australian Pilgrimage to Lourdes in 1960. History Annie Crowle was either born with a crippled foot or contracted polio as a child. She lived in Chippendale and then Glebe in Sydney with her family. Her father Patrick Crowle was Irish born and the family were active in the Irish National Assocation. Sometime before 1960 Annie won a substantial prize in the Opera House lottery. This enabled her to participate in the Fourth National Australian Pilgrimage to Lourdes in 1960. She also travelled to Rome and Ireland. The tour group travelled on SS ORION. Since an apparition of Our Lady of Lourdes in 1858, the village of Lourdes in the Pyrenees in southern France had become the site of annual pilgrimage for tens of thousands of Catholic worshippers every year. The first Australian Pilgrimage was led by the famous Irish-Australian Archbishop of Melbourne Daniel Mannix in 1925 and organised by Cooks Tours. The spring water from a grotto at Lourdes was believed by many to possess healing properties, and this may have been a signficant factor in Annie's desire to join the pilgrimage. Certainly in the photograph of the Australian pilgrims for 1960, there are several people in wheelchairs, including Annie. Significance The collection of ephemera relating to Annie Crowle highlights a little known but poignant story of overseas passenger travel - religious pilgrimages.