"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."
"Year by year the Gaelic heart turns thither, as the magnet to the north, and pilgrims come across the division of the seas. The sighs of dead generations are heavy in the air, and the very stones are steeped with their prayers..."
"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…
"Throughout all the perversions and confiscations [of the Reformation], however, the Church never relinquished her hold upon the one grey rock which then was Station Island..."
"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…
"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…
"With the fall of night the world slipped away. We seemed to stand in a dim place where two worlds meet. At intervals we walked into the misty starlight and stamped a little warmth into our feet..."
