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The approach to the lake

"Pettigo. (July 23, 1824). A country road leads in this direction a mile: after leaving which we passed over the mountains following a path, which the number of devotees who visit the Island, had marked too distinctly to be mistaken..."

aesthetics, crowds, heath, mountains, negative, negative description, nineteenth century, Pettigo, pilgrim path, pilgrim road, pilgrimage, pilgrims, Shane Leslie, view, vista, weather

The nature of granite outcrops

"Ballyshannon. (July 25, 1824.) Soon after leaving Pettigo going towards Lough Derg, the limestone ceases and the mineral productions change entirely..."

aesthetics, approach, barrenness, emotion, geology, granite, limestone, mineral, mountains, nineteenth century, outcrops, pilgrim path, Shane Leslie, silver

The ruins of Saints Island

"The ground-works of many ruins can still be traced to Saint Daveog's Island on Olean na Naomh or Island of the Saints) and a paved way (via strata) or old road can still be traced..."

bridge, John O'Donovan, nineteenth century, ordnance survey, pilgrim path, Royal Irish Academy, ruins, Saints Island, Seeavog Townland, Shane Leslie, St. Dabheoc, Templecarne Graveyard

The slopes of the mountains

"The Lough, which is said to be about nine miles in circumference, is situated in the midst of high hills, which rise on all sides without the slightest appearance of cultivation..."

aesthetics, barrenness, hills, isolation, loneliness, mountains, nineteenth century, rural landscape, Shane Leslie

"There is a pool or lake saith he in the parts of Ulster that invironeth an Island"

"I think it good to begin with St Patrick his Purgatory, partly because it is most notoriously known and partly the more that some writers as the author of Polychronicon and other, that were miscarried by him, seem to make a great doubt where they…

Gerald of Wales, Isle of Demons, lake, Polychronicon, Protestant critique, purgatory, Ranulph Higden, Raphael Holinshed, Shane Leslie, sixteenth century, St. Patrick, Station Island, superstition

A great thunder

"Now when I was shut in and had taken notice of the greatness of the Cave which I conceive to be about four cubits, I found the inner part thereof to turn and extend under me weak and shaking that it seemed as though it could not bear a man..."

miracle, pilgrimage, pilgrims, prison house, purgatory, Shane Leslie, supernatural, thunder

Antonio Mannini is rowed to the island

"The prior accompanied my as far as the water, and put me into the boat himself, first kissing me and giving me his blessing..."

Antonio Mannini, Augustinians, barefoot, boating, canon, crossing, fifteenth century, pilgrim crossing, prior, Shane Leslie, weather

Antonio Mannini prepares for his journey

Antonio Mannini, Augustinians, boating, fifteenth century, mountains, pilgrim crossing, pilgrimage, pilgrims, preparation, Shane Leslie

Destroying Station Island

"And therefore we do hereby order and resolve that Letters shall be dispatched from this board unto the Rev. Father of God the Lord Bishop of Clogher, Sir John Dundarre High Sheriff of the County of Donegal, Edward Archdale and Leonard Blennerhasset…

1632, Clogher, demolition, destruction of built heritage, James Magrath, land acquisition, legislation, penitential beds, Privy Council, Protestant critique, Reformation, seventeenth century, Shane Leslie, St. Patrick, Station Island, stations, superstition, suppression

How the demons came to Lough Derg

"Some of the evil spirits settled on the Island of Swimmers to which they gave the name of demons. The demonaic island in truth is girded by an inland lake..."

banishment, Croagh Patrick, demons, Folklore, Isle of Demons, Isle of Swimmers, myth, mythology, origin of purgatory, Shane Leslie, St. Dabheoc, St. Patrick, Station Island

The demon Corna

"When we were within half a bow-shot of the said island of the Purgatory I saw a bird blacker than coal take flight ; it had not a single plume or feather on its back..."

Augustinians, birdlife, boating, Corna, crossing, demons, miracle, pilgrim crossing, Shane Leslie, St. Patrick, Station Island, superstition, transformation

The Island of Swimmers

"There is on the cliff of Cruachan looking out on the sea and the Western sun a very deep cave exhaling icy blasts all the time..."

banishment, Croagh Patrick, demons, Folklore, Isle of Demons, Isle of Swimmers, myth, mythology, origin of purgatory, Shane Leslie, St. Patrick

The miracle of the floating crosses

"Among all the prodigies and all the great miracles which happened at Loch Derg, it is told in particular in those latter times..."

Clan O'Donnell, cross, Hugh O'Donnell, lake, miracle, purgatory, Shane Leslie, sixteenth century, Station Island, Tirconnell, vision, water

The seizure of Purgatory

"(June 8, 1632) Right Honorable. I have received a copy of a letter sent by my lord Balfour, directed to his Lordship, myself and others for seizing until his Majesty's use St Patrick's Purgatory..."

"Fainting heart and failing eye, Aching head and footstep weary"

"Fainting heart and failing eye, Aching head and footstep weary ! Courage, for the Lake is night There beyond the hilltop dreary..."

approach, emotion, hills, lake, negative description, poetry, Shane Leslie, vision

"He who bathes, no Stygian flood need fear."

"Spirituum hic thermae, his Lethaea piacula : qui se Balneat hic, Stygii non timer amnis aquas / Here souls may bathe : Lethe's atonements here : And he who bathes, no Stygian flood need fear."

bathing, Latin, Petrus Cadellus, seventeenth century, Shane Leslie, water, water station

"That's the Red Lake unless I mistake"

"Now it seems there's a place they call Purgat're, so I must write it, my verse not admitting the O. But as for the venue I vow I'm perplext To say it's in this world or if in the next, Or whether in both for 'tis very well known That St Patrick at…

description, doggerel, humour, lake, poetry, purgatory, Shane Leslie, Station Island, Thomas Ingoldsby

"The fame of that place has been so scattered through European parts that it seems to go on wings"

"It is more certain than certainty that in the northern shore of Ireland a place horrible by its terrors was found by him and is generally called St Patrick's Purgatory. The fame of that place has been so scattered through European parts that it…

Europe, fame, miracle, reputation, seventeenth century, Shane Leslie, Thyraeus

Lough Derg in the Seventeenth Century

"The Liffer largens near its source and forms a lake in which there is an Island with a little Convent, near which there is a grotto narrow enough and full of spectres horrible to the view..."

hydrology, lake, purgatory, seventeenth century, Shane Leslie, Station Island

The sanctity of Lough Derg

"From Armagh it is almost one day's journey to a certain Island, which is slightly large called Mabeoch and beyond this Island to a small island in which is the Purgatory aforsaid..."

Augustinians, crime, lake, lake crossing, pilgrimage, purgatory, reliugious life, sanctity, Shane Leslie, Station Island

"Some dark spot in the midst of flowing silver"

A description of the lake taken from O'Connor's account of an 1836 story in the Dublin Penny Journal Count Raymond de Perilleaux's 1397 journey to the Purgatory