Browse Items · Digital Derg: A Deep Map

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

An omen of disaster prior to the 1795 accident

"As a boat was being loaded with passengers at eleven o'clock, an elderly man arrived at the shore and urgently signalled to his son to come away with him..."

Tags: 1795 disaster, Alice Curtayne, boating, disaster, dream, drowning, eighteenth century, Folklore, omen, Oral History, pilgrim, pilgrim crossing, pilgrimage, supernatural, survivor, twentieth century

Otway muses on the metaphor of birds

"Having thus given the modern and ancient state of this purgatory, it is time to think of leaving it; and I confess I prepared to turn my back on this strong hold of superstition, without a desire ever again to visit it..."

Tags: birdlife, boating, Caesar Otway, crossing, greed, hills, nineteenth century, pilgrimage, profiteering, Protestant critique

Saints Island Quay Archaeological Survey

It is traditionally believed that a monastic settlement was founded here in the fifth century by St. Patrick who installed Dabheoc as the first abbot. There are forty-six islands in Lough Derg but only two of them are of archaeological interest. The…

Tags: Archaeological survey, boating, dryness, medieval, monasticism, pilgrim crossing, quay, Saints' Island, Saints' Island townland

Boating accidents on the lake

"Taking into account what angry storms sometimes sweep over the lake, lashing its waves into great fury, it is a merciful dispensation of Providence that more accidents have not occurred here..."

Tags: accidents, boating, Daniel O'Connor, disaster, storms