"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..."
"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…
"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…
"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..."
"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..."
"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..."
