The walking stick of St Teresa of Avila is in Ireland as part of a worldwide tour to mark the 500th anniversary of the birth in 1515 of the founder of the Discalced (shoeless) Carmelites congregation.

It will arrive at the Carmelite Abbey in Loughrea, Co Galway, on Saturday morning and at St Joseph’s monastery in the afternoon.

In a 20-year period before her death at the age of 67 in 1582, St Teresa established 17 foundations around central Spain.

One of the leading Christian mystics, she was canonised 40 years after her death, in 1622, and declared a doctor of the church by Pope Paul VI in 1970.