With under a week left until Valentine's Day, love birds across Dublin will be scrambling to plan the perfect day for their romantic partners.
From candlelit dinners to chocolate and roses, February 14 is everything about love and romance. But did you know that the saint who the day is named after is buried under our very feet?
St Valentine was a 3rd-century Roman saint who was born circa 226 AD. From the High Middle Ages, his Saints' Day has been associated with a tradition of courtly love.
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Sadly, St Valentine had a rather gruesome end to his life. He didn't die in Ireland but in Rome. The then Emperor of Rome, Claudius, ordered for him to be beheaded for refusing to renounce his Christian faith.
On February 14 269, he was beheaded with his remains buried in Rome. But where do Whitefriar Church in Dublin city centre and an Irish priest come into the equation?
You have to go all the way back to the 1800s and one priest called Father John Spratt. He was a famous preacher of his day, and one of his many fans was none other than Pope Gregory XVI.
Fr Spratt was invited to Rome to speak at the Church of the Gesu, where Pope Gregory was amongst those listening to him. And it was here that the Pope decided to gift Spratt with the remains of St Valentine and a vial of his blood.
The remains were contained in a small wooden box wrapped in a white ribbon. Fr Spratt arrived back in Ireland with the remains of St Valentine in November 1836.
Since that day, the remains of St Valentine have been on show for all to see in Whitefriar Street Church. So while the likes of Paris and Milan may consider themselves cities of love, it's Dublin that has St Valentine's actual remains.
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