Browse Items · Digital Derg: A Deep Map

From Magrath to Leslie

"The Monastery of Lough Derg, like most other Irish monasteries, was endowed with extensive lands at an early date by neighbouring chieftains..."

Tags: Clogher, confiscation, fifteenth century, Leslie family, Magrath family, Margaret Gibbons, monastery, ownership, patronage, seventeenth century, Termon Magrath

"Tradition, when jealously guarded and carefully handed down is a reliable source of information"

"With the destruction of the buildings in Lough Derg and the expulsion of the Franciscans in 1632, all the records of its glorious part were also destroyed..."

"On prizing up a few loose stones, one exposes heaps of enormous bluebell bulbs, white and skull-like in shape"

The rampant flora overgrowing Saints' Island

The Franciscans

"The Franciscans took up the charge of St. Patrick's Purgatory when it was the most persecuted and derided institution of the Irish Church..."

Tags: Alice Curtayne, Catholicism, eighteenth century, Franciscans, neglect, penal times, pilgrimage, Protestant critique, purgatory, ruin, secret worship, seventeenth century, Station Island, suppression, twentieth century

"The shaft on which this iron cross is set is precious, for it was salvaged from the lake"

"The pilgrim then walks to St. Patrick's Cross, a poor but cherished relic made of rude iron and set on a very ancient stone column..."

Tags: 1632, Alice Curtayne, destruction of built heritage, lake, pilgrimage, re-use, Reformation, seventeenth century, spoliation, St. Patrick's Cross, Station Island, stations, submerged objects, twentieth century, water

A 1603 description of Lough Derg

"An inquisition taken at Donegal in the 1st year of [James I in 1603] may throw some light upon the time of this removal: In the parts of Ulster near the territory calle O'Donnell's Countrie, are the walls and monuments of a certain Monastery or…

Tags: abandonment, description, destruction of built heritage, dissolution, John O'Donovan, letters, neglect, nineteenth century, ordnance survey, ruin, seventeenth century, Station Island, suppression

The March of the Dead Maguires

An account of Lough Derg folklore on a fishing trip, explaining the strange circular currents of the lake in supernatural terms

Tags: fishing, Folklore, ghosts, Henry Newland, lake, Maguire family, memoir, mythology, nineteenth century, seventeenth century, Station Island, supernatural, water, weather

Termon McGrath Castle and Settlement Archaeological Survey

Located on the NW side of a tower house (DG105-014001-) and associated with a settlement cluster (DG105-014002-). The lands of Termon McGrath were granted to James, son of Archbishop Myler McGrath in 1610 (Hill 1877, 183-4). In 1611 Carew records…

Tags: civil war, Magrath family, McGrath Castle, ownership, politics, ruins, seventeenth century, Termon Magrath, vicinity