"Many pilgrims surveying the crowds during the night vigil promise themselves that, on their following night of freedom, they will look down from their cubicle windows at the fascination of the scene, when the people emerge and group themselves in…
"But we have not yet reached the island. We are still on the landing-stage looking up the long reaches of the lake (it covers and area of twenty square miles), noting the high, bleak, purple mountains which surround it, and the number of pretty…
"'And as parliament is usually dead slow,' added the Captain, 'it is much to be wished that Paddy, in the meanwhile, would take the affair [of Otter fishing] into his own hands : he is just the boy to do it well.'…"
"Occasional freakish summer storms are peculiar to Lough Derg. Pilgrims often alighting at the shore on a tranquil summer day are often surprised at the unexpected commotion of the deeps and the dark yeasty appearance of the water..."
A description of the lake taken from O'Connor's account of an 1836 story in the Dublin Penny Journal Count Raymond de Perilleaux's 1397 journey to the Purgatory
