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A pilgrimage medal for Lourdes. Lourdes is a small market town lying in the foothills of the Pyrenees, famous for the Marian apparitions of Our Lady of Lourdes that are reported to have occurred in 1858 to Bernadette Soubirous.Until the war years National Pilgrimages, organised by a National Pilgrimage Committee regularly travelled from Scotland to Lourdes. During the war years it was impossible for Scottish Pilgrims to travel in Europe and instead they gathered at Carfin. It was at the 7th Lourdes Pilgrimage to Carfin on the 20th of July 1947 that the possibility of restarting pilgrimages was considered, but with difficulties of transport and food it was dismissed. On the 25th of February 1948 meeting of the Pilgrimage Committee, Mr McGregor reported on the establishment of a branch of the Lourdes Hospitalite in Glasgow. The headquarters and meeting place of the new organisation would be Our Lady of Lourdes parish in Cardonald. The branch would be responsible for the care of the sick to, at and from, Lourdes during pilgrimages. The branch would be subject to the Diocesan Pilgrimage Committee which would appoint the Doctors and Nurses. Property of Robert Pool