Quietly overseeing the construction of Crossrail, the new commuter line across London that includes an underground section in the city centre, is St Barbara. A statue of her, pictured right, is attached to the tunnel wall at Liverpool Street Station. It follows a tradition that whenever a tunnel is started, a statue of St Barbara is brought down to the site and blessed by a priest. She is the patron saint of miners and is said to protect workers from dangers connected with underground labour. John Rodgers, site manager at Liverpool Street’s platform tunnels, told us he first encountered St Barbara when working in Athens on the metro in 1994. Mr Rodgers explained that he and a number of other tunnellers are from Arranmore Island, off County Donegal in the north-west of Ireland. There