Browse Items · Digital Derg: A Deep Map

The snake of Lough Patrick and Lough Peter

"There are no holy wells in this district but there are two holy lakes called Lough Patrick and Lough Peter. These lakes are in the townland of Drumlougher and form the boundary between County Monaghan and County Armagh. St Patrick's stone is in a…

Tags: cattle, County Donegal, County Monaghan, cure, Drumlougher, Folklore, hills, Lough Patrick, Lough Peter, miracle, Oral History, pilgrimage, snake, St. Patrick

Leprechauns and Mermaids

"Very few stories are told of mermaids in this district as it is too far from the sea. The mermaid or 'maigdean mara' is very attractive. Once upon a time a glan man who made a station in Lough Derg returned home by Bundoran. He spent a few hours…

Tags: Bundoran, County Cavan, County Donegal, drowning, Folklore, Glen, mermaid, Oral History, pilgrimage, supernatural

St Peter's Island and St Peter's Well

"St. Peter's Island and St. Peter's well are situated about a half a mile due North of the village of Mountcharles. They are in the townland of Turras Hill. The little Island is in the centre of the lake, but since the erection of the waterworks in…

Tags: Augustinians, Catholicism, exile, Folklore, hills, holy well, island, lake, Mountcharles, seventeenth century, St. Peter's Island, Turras Hill, vanished island

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..."

Tags: 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 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..."

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

"The water, the water of the seas and of lakes and of mist and rain, has all but made the Irish after its image"

Yeats' reflection on the affinity for bodies of water within the Irish poetic imagination and psyche

Tags: Folklore, Irish identity, mythology, religion, W. B. Yeats, water

The comedy of fantastical myth

"Whether this narrative should have been given in a tragic or comic style; or should excite tears or laughter, is wholly submitted to the state of spirits your lordship shall happen to be in when it shall arrive from."

Tags: amusement, Clogher, derision, Folklore, mythology, Philip Skelton, pilgrimage, Protestant critique

Keeronagh, the Devil's mother

"They here shew a bass relief of Keeronagh, the devil's mother, rudely done on a coinstone of one of the chapels, a figure somewhat resembling that of a wolf, with a monstrous long tail and a forked tongue..."

Tags: blood, Caoranach, Clogher, Dabheoc's seat, etymology, Fionn mac Cumhaill, Folklore, Keeronagh, monster, mountains, mythology, Philip Skelton, pilgrimage, Protestant critique, stonework

Fionn mac Cumhaill escapes the monster's belly

"…Fin M’Coul stood before the monster; but instead of innocently submitting to be sucked in like a common man, Fin, famed as he was above all the Fions for feats of agility, took a hop, step, and leap, and fairly and clearly jumped down its…

Tags: blood, Caesar Otway, colour, dryness, evacuation, Fionn mac Cumhaill, Folklore, hills, lake, monster, mountains, nineteenth century, St. Patrick, superstition

The origin of Lough Derg's name

"There are two different opinions to account for the meaning of the denomination, Lough Derg..."

Tags: Annals of the Four Masters, blood, bogland, colour, Daniel O'Connor, etymology, Fionn mac Cumhaill, Folklore, John O'Donovan, pilgrimage, place names, Royal Irish Academy, St. Patrick, water, wine

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