"The stones become doubly slippery and the whole slope acquires a slithery and greasy surface"

"The stones become doubly slippery and the whole slope acquires a slithery and greasy surface"

Lough Derg--Pilgrimage--Description--Alice Curtayne

"The stone circles [of the Penitential Beds] are small. When this sanctuary was demolished in the seventeenth century the despoilers left only the rude foundation stones protruding from the soil..."

Alice Curtayne, 1898-1981

Curtayne, Alice, Lough Derg: St. Patrick’s Purgatory, p. 170

Burns Oats and Washbourn, Ltd., London and Dublin

1944

Citation for the purposes of criticism

Monograph

English

History

DD_0148

54.608913,-7.870977

The stone circles [of the Penitential Beds] are small. When this sanctuary was demolished in the seventeenth century the despoilers left only the rude foundation stones protruding from the soil. Over these the pilgrims walk to-day: they are stones not merely sharp, but frequently so steeply inclined on the slope that it is difficult to get a footing on them. When hundreds are making the exercise at the same time, fatigue is trebled in the cramped space. The pilgrims have to kneel as best they can on the jagged rocks; some of them (aged and excusable) rise by leaning heavily on the shoulders of others, who are still kneeling. To understand the possible misery of it, think of rainy conditions, frequent on the island, when the stones become doubly slippery and the whole slope acquires a slithery and greasy surface." (p. 170)

Monograph