Laurent Vital hears of a pilgrimage to Donegal

Laurent Vital hears of a pilgrimage to Donegal

Lough Derg--Travelogue--Middle Ages--Kinsale

A sixteenth-century account by Laurent Vital of information gathered during the visit of Archduke Ferdinand to Kinsale

Laurent Vital

Laurent Vital, Archduke Ferdinand's visit to Kinsale in Ireland, p. 291-92

CELT: Corpus of Electronic Texts

1517-18

CELT: Corpus of Electronic Texts: a project of University College, Cork. Translated into English and donated to CELT by Dorothy Convery.

Citation for the purposes of criticism

Electronic text translation

English, translated from French

Travelogue

DD_0563

51.705477,-8.523765

https://celt.ucc.ie/published/T500000-001/

"Then everyone went outside; there were about twelve people. Our hostess had often heard tell of the marvels to be seen in this place, and because of that had so wanted to go there, but nevertheless she saw neither saw nor heard anything. For after she had kept vigil for a long time in contemplation, and prayed devotedly to God as she had been exhorted, finally she fell asleep, and remained asleep for a long time, thanking God that she had neither seen nor heard anything. But she has a good memory about what she heard said, and recounted by some others of that company, who said that they had visions and heard wonders of hideous and frightening things there. She has forgotten of what they were. And although she was young, she still had a good memory of the layout of this place which is called St Patrick's Cave. She said that it is a little place, low and dark, in order to go in there you have to bend down a little and it is such a low ceiling that one cannot remain standing; and there must not be more than twenty persons to fill this place. This seems to be a little cellar, through which passes a small stream of sweet water which is only half a foot wide. When first she entered there she thought she would find a wide, extensive place, where she could go from one place to another — as she had heard spoken of — and to find there marvellous apparitions, and to finally find herself in a beautiful orchard. From this it would seem that none there were speaking of seeing wonders, only visions in dreams, which they remembered from their dormitions. As to whether this place had been bigger heretofore and that it had since been closed and shut down, she knew nothing, other than the time she was there and spoke about. This place is in the church, behind the choir, beneath an altar where mass is said. I believe that the good old lady, our hostess was speaking the truth, although at other times it has been written that there were marvels there. If one wants to learn more, one should read the legend of St Patrick, in which one could hear about the visions, which with divine permission happen to some, because reading these would give fear and terror to bad Christians so that they would mend their ways.

Archduke Ferdinand's visit to Kinsale in Ireland, an extract from Le Premier Voyage de Charles-Quint en Espagne, de 1517 à 1518. Dorothy Convery (ed), Electronic edition, CELT Project, Cork (2012)