"I remember a strange Easter Sunday spent on Saints' Island, not indeed with any hope of finding archaeological confirmation of its history, but simply in communing with the past..."
"Early in the ninth century, an ominous cloud appeared in the north, which was presently to overcast all such fair scenses as that presented by Saints' Island..."
"In the middle of this desolation [on Saints' Island] is an enclosure thickly overgrown with briars, to which barriers of nettles almost prohibit entrance..."
"This shews that Saints island is the one on which the monastery, because the present station does not contain 10 acres. There is however a mistake in the phrase 'in media lacus' for Saints island is very near the land…"
"Lough Derg is dotted with forty-six small islands, some of them graced with shrubs and occasional rowans or ash, but the greater number are only bare rocks projecting out of the water..."
