Browse Items · Digital Derg: A Deep Map

Rathnacross Fairy Fort

"There is a circular fence of earth on top of a hill in the school district. It is known as Rathnacross and is situated in the townland of Drumawark.

There is a hole in the middle of it where a Celtic cross stood but it is broken now and the…

Tags: Drumawark Townland, fairy fort, Folklore, High Cross, hills, marker, pilgrim road, pilgrimage, Rathnacross

The journey from Pettigo to Lough Derg

“From Pettigo to Lough Dergh, the distance is about three miles, over bog and mountain. It is a scramble all the way, endeavouring to avoid the marsh and bog land, that cannot, however, be avoided..."

Tags: barefoot, barrenness, bogland, hills, impressions, landscape, marsh, mountains, Pettigo, Philip Dixon Hardy, pilgrim road, pilgrimage, quaking bog, second-hand accounts

The legacy of the Druids

"It is a long passage of time since the men of Ireland first felt the mystery of those quiet little hills and looked for the unseen in the waters that lie at their feet, for the spiritual history of Derg stretches back into the dimmest age of…

Tags: Celtic revival, Druid, dryness, forest, hills, myth, pre-Christian, prehistory, Rome, Shane Leslie, St. Patrick, storytelling

The coming of the Norsemen

"One soft autumn noon, the lough lay in a haze of golden mist. Behind the eastern clouds the sun puffed out some streaks of red, angry and livid in their broken setting, but softened and mellow ere they reached the hillsides of Ireland or rested on…

Tags: blood, Celtic revival, hills, literature, massacre, monasticism, myth, ninth century, Norse, Shane Leslie, St. Patrick, Vikings

The Augustinians

"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..."

Tags: Augustinians, Celtic revival, hills, literature, mountains, Saints Island, Shane Leslie, St. Patrick, twelfth century

Unimpressed by Lough Derg

A dismal scene of the view to the lake on the walk from Pettigo, originally included in Caesar Otway's 'Sketches in Ireland'

Tags: bogland, Caesar Otway, disappointment, hills, landscape, medievalism, mountains, negative, Pettigo, pilgrimage, Protestant critique, St. Patrick, Station Island, The Gothic, William Carleton

A description of Lough Derg and its topography

“Lough Derg is a lonely sheet of water, extending from north to south, about six miles in length..."

Tags: Caesar Otway, Daniel O'Connor, geography, geology, hills, hydrology, lake, landscape, mountains, nineteenth century, positive description, River Derg, topography, watershed

St. Dabheoc's Seat and the old pilgrim road

"To the west of St. Brigid's Chair, and about two furlongs from the shore of the lake, but somewhat further from the chair, is situated on the very summit of a mountain a carn-shaped eminence, on the summit of which is St. Dabheoc's Seat..."

Tags: bogland, Daniel O'Connor, hills, John O'Donovan, mountains, ordnance survey, pilgrim path, Seedavog Mountain, St. Dabheoc's Seat, swamp

The northern shore of the lake

"On the northern shore of the lake, near where the River Derg debouches, may be seen a beautiful white strand. Smoothly-rounded pebbles, small shells and Crustacea, such as may be seen on the sea-shore, are here to be met with..."

Tags: beach, Carry Mouth, Daniel O'Connor, hills, mountains, northern shore, pearls, River Derg, shellfish, watershed

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

Browse Items (26 total)