Once Inchicore was the company town of the Great Western and Southern Railways, then of CIE. An old archway in the park was built of clinker from the steam trains, according to local historian, Seosamh O Broin. The grotto itself is an exact replica of the one at Lourdes, and was opened in 1930 when the Lourdes cult was at its first peak in Ireland. It is estimated that 80,000 people attended its inauguration. Within living memory, the February Novena has been a bigger occasion.

People used to walk to it from all over the city, John Brogan remembers. "They walked to it as part of their penance, " he said.

Betty Harling has been attending this novena since 1950. Both she and her friend Mary Malone stayed on in their parents' houses in Inchicore, and reared their own families in them. "It's mostly for your children, " says Malone when asked what she prays for. "When you have children you pray for them. I have everything I want." She has five children. "I light five candles every day."

The church bears the marks both of Inchicore's past and its present. On one side of the altar is a big brass plate telling the devout they will get 300 days' partial indulgence (time off from limbo, now defunct) if they visit the Lourdes statue every day. On the other side is a book of condolence for the relatives of those who died in the recent accident at Katowice, Poland, when a snow-laden roof collapsed on a convention of pigeon fanciers. There are several Polish names in the book. Inchicore has had its own pigeon fanciers in its time.

The culture of the industrial worker was once as universal as that of the Roman Catholic church.

But not quite. Joseph Chacko and Rajan Tharian are from Kerala, southern India.

They were raised in the novena tradition too. "It's worldwide actually, " says Tharian, "the same adoration." What is new to them is the biting cold.

Their wives, both nurses, are working at St James's Hospital tonight.

Marjorie Burke and her husband, Tony, used to come to the grotto "to pray for a house and the money to get married", she says. The Burkes have now been married for 52 years. As a teenager, Marjorie visited the grotto with her girlfriends.

She wouldn't do that now. "At night you see lads with bags of cans. So I'd get a bit nervous."

One thing that hasn't changed is the February cold. The torchlight procession which ended the novena last night, Lourdes Day, has always been bitingly cold. "One year we had snow. We were all stuck to the ground, " says Burke. It was their faith that saw them through when one of their five children, a son, went missing while walking in Yosemite National Park in the US. He has never been found. The Burkes have 13 grandchildren.

John Jennings and Paddy Grant say hello. Christy Keeley is an honorary Oblate and tonight he is parking cars.

There is no rota for this. "We just come voluntarily, " says Keeley. "John Brogan, he's a meals-on-wheels man, Michael O'Reilly, Aidan Murphy." Keeley worked at an ESB powerstation and has been attending the novena for 51 years. He is originally from Drimnagh and now lives in Wexford. "They come from everywhere for the novena, " he says, "Ashbourne, Drogheda, Bray."

Within the last 10 years, the old gates to the grotto, known as 'St Peter's Gates', were repaired in the old CIE workshops. The ESB fixed the holy water tank. But the industrial activity of Inchicore has shrivelled. The old workshops have closed. The bus-making plant is now the site of luxury flats.

"They're importing trains and everything now, " says Keeley.

The orchard that once graced the back of the church was demolished to make way for the sports hall where a variety of activities, including gym classes for children and drug rehabilitation, take place. A small field, where local people walk their dogs, nudges the bare graveyard of the Oblate community. The current parish priest, Fr Michael O'Connor, points out a little cultivated corner. "One of the priests set potatoes, " he says.

"The children come to see them being dug out of the ground. It's a new experience for them. We have a big dinner in August of floury potatoes."

O'Connor thinks the novena is akin to a religious festival on the continent. John Brogan remembers it as a huge occasion and the two men agree that the novena was always a celebration. "Now we can celebrate every day, " says O'Connor.