The business of ferrying pilgrims to Station Island

The business of ferrying pilgrims to Station Island

Lough Derg--Station Island--Pilgrimage--Criticism

"It is almost incredible what crowds visit this island annually, during the months of June, July, and August—it being no unusual thing to see from 900 to 1000 persons of both sexes upon it at one and the same time..."

Philip Dixon Hardy, 1794-1875

Hardy, Philip Dixon, The Holy Wells of Ireland : Containing an Authentic Account of Those Various Places of Pilgrimage and Penance Which Are Still Annually Visited by Thousands of the Roman Catholic Peasantry. With a Minute Description of the Patterns and Stations Periodically Held in Various Districts of Ireland, pp. 6-7

Hardy & Walker, Dublin

1840

Digitised by archive.org, sponsored by Boston Public Library

Public domain

Monograph

English

Holy wells

Text

DD_0011

54.606912, -7.860865

http://archive.org/details/holywellsofirela00hard

"It is almost incredible what crowds visit this island annually, during the months of June, July, and August—it being no unusual thing to see from 900 to 1000 persons of both sexes upon it at one and the same time—an extraordinary circumstance, when it is considered that the island does not measure more than three hundred paces in any direction. They are ferried across in a boat, which can carry seventy or eighty persons at once, for which they are charged 6½d ; each and yet so inadequate is this conveyance to the purpose, that the shores of the lake are frequently covered with persons waiting their turn — the greater number of whom have arrived from very distant places, many from England, some from France, and others all the way from America. It has been justly observed by an intelligent writer, that a painter who wished to make a drawing of the river Styx, the ferryman and his boat, with the groupes [sic] of expectant shades on the banks, could not find a better bodying forth of that imaginary scene than is presented by Lough Dergh."

Monograph