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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..."
The lough in the twelfth century
"On every side of the island lay the watery fields, winding themselves into inlets and across bays. Great sheets of water, unbroken save by a group of smaller islands that rode like ships that had run to seed and blossom in tropical seas, with the…
Jenny asks Bobby to go to Lough Derg
The story opens as Jenny asks to visit Patrick's purgatory, to the confusion of her male companion Bobby
Bobby interrogates Jenny about her motivations
As they drive towards Lough Derg, Bobby interrogates Jenny as to her motivations for wishing to visit Lough Derg this year of all years. She responds that it is a particularly Irish form of religious devotion and expression.
Bobby expresses his confusion
Bobby expresses his confusion at the extravagant embodied devotion and extreme austerity of the pilgrimage to Lough Derg and that it exposes a side of Jenny that he has never seen before.
Lough Derg in the rain
Jenny and Bobby arrive at Lough Derg in the rain and are greeted by the sight of the lake and the pilgrims waiting to cross
The impression of Lough Derg on Jenny and Bobby
Jenny discusses her expectations of the place compared to the reality and hopes that it will not be too commercialized, like Lourdes
Jenny crosses to Station Island
Jenny gets a sensory impression of the island as she approaches and encounters its contents and topography
Jenny completes the stations
As Jenny completes the stations at the penitential beds, she reflects on the power of repetition and prayer and feels the elements