"In describing the seventeenth-century Fauna, Knox makes note of wolf and red deer at Lough Derg. 'The deer come some times from Barnesmore to this Estate but having no coverts they do not stay in it,' whereas 'the wolves are but rare in the country…
"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…
"From Armagh it is almost one day's journey to a certain Island, which is slightly large called Mabeoch and beyond this Island to a small island in which is the Purgatory aforsaid..."
"The Liffer largens near its source and forms a lake in which there is an Island with a little Convent, near which there is a grotto narrow enough and full of spectres horrible to the view..."
"Now it seems there's a place they call Purgat're, so I must write it, my verse not admitting the O. But as for the venue I vow I'm perplext To say it's in this world or if in the next, Or whether in both for 'tis very well known That St Patrick at…
