"Ballyshanny. (Nov. 1, 1835.) I visited the far-famed terrestrial Purgatory of Lough-Derg but received no benefit from my tours except a severe cold, which I attribute more to the wet mountain bogs that surround the Lake..."
"In the county of Donnegal, at the distance of four miles from Lough Earn, and in the midst of mountains and morasses, extending every way to a considerable distance..."
"The position of [Saints Island] agrees with the description of Coppinger and Jones, written two hundred years ago; and it is probable, that when by the direction of the Council Board, Sir William Stuart invaded and uprooted this nest of superstition…
"No record was kept of all the years that passed after the coming of the Danesmen till the Archbishop of Armagh sent a band of canons regular of the rule of Augustine..."
"The three days of fasting, the night spent in prison, the prayers prayed in the cold water at the Pilgrimage to-day, are all in glorious descent from the time of the Culdees..."
"On every side of the island lay the watery fields, winding themselves into inlets and across bays. Great sheets of water, unbroken save by a group of smaller islands that rode like ships that had run to seed and blossom in tropical seas, with the…
