Browse Items · Digital Derg: A Deep Map

"The buildings give the impression of resting on the water"

"The lake surface is broken by numerous scattered islands, the greater number of which are just rocks without either historical or scenic interest..."

Tags: Alice Curtayne, artificial land, Basilica, building, illusion, islands, lake, lake bed, Saints Island, Station Island, twentieth century, water

Forty-six small islands

"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..."

"Rolling, tawny bogland framed the blue water"

"Turning back from [St. Dabheoc's Seat] to look down on Lough Derg, the aerial view of Station Island is exquisite..."

Tags: Alice Curtayne, birdlife, bogland, climate, colour, isolation, lake, larks, quaking bog, silence, St. Dabheoc's Seat, Station Island, twentieth century, view north, vista, weather, wind

"Floating on some miracle raft"

"Down below [Dabheoc's Seat], Station Island rose up in imperial grandeur against its background of low hills..."

Tags: Alice Curtayne, Basilica, colour landscape, hills, illusion, Isle of Patmos, light vision, miracle, revelation, St. Dabheoc, St. Dabheoc's Seat, St. John, Station Island, twentieth century, vista

The Franciscans

"The Franciscans took up the charge of St. Patrick's Purgatory when it was the most persecuted and derided institution of the Irish Church..."

Tags: Alice Curtayne, Catholicism, eighteenth century, Franciscans, neglect, penal times, pilgrimage, Protestant critique, purgatory, ruin, secret worship, seventeenth century, Station Island, suppression, twentieth century

The 1795 disaster

"The end of the eighteenth-century history of Lough Derg is sadly remembered because of a particularly bad boating accident..."

Tags: 1795 disaster, accusation, Alice Curtayne, boating, disaster, drinking, drowning, eighteenth century, Friars' Island, malfeasance, pilgrim, pilgrim crossing, poteen, Station Island, twentieth century

"There were boats at hand, and presence of mind, even among the onlookers, could have averted the tragedy"

"Ninety-three people were then crowded into an old and leaky boat, despite their protests. The fact that the boatmen were drunk made the passengers still more uneasy..."

Tags: 1795 disaster, accusation, Alice Curtayne, drinking, drowning, Friars' Island, inaction, incompetence, malfeasance, onlookers, Oral History, panic, pilgrim crossing, Station Island, twentieth century