"Shaking the very stars with their fusillades of Paters"

"Shaking the very stars with their fusillades of Paters"

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

The repetitive power of an imagined Celtic Christian pilgrimage and prayer in the context of Irish national myth making

Alice Curtayne, 1898-1981

Curtayne, Alice, Lough Derg: St. Patrick’s Purgatory, p. 174

Burns Oats and Washbourn, Ltd., London and Dublin

1944

Citation for the purposes of criticism

Monograph

English

History

DD_0149

54.608913,-7.870977

"An old legend in a life of St. Brendan the Navigator relates how three clerical students went off to a desert island, determined to win Heaven for themselves. They devoted all their days to praying in just such a fashion as one prays during the night vigil on [Station Island]. They recited the ancient prayers in enormous blocks and in every posture: standing upright, sitting, kneeling, with outstretched arms, with hands joined. They prayed like athletes drilling, repeating the words almost like physical exercises are repeated, shaking the very stars with their fusillades of Paters. The legend recalls the methods of spiritual training devised by the early Irish Christians and gives a clue to the present-day island practice."

Monograph