"Foundations can scarcely now be traced"

"Foundations can scarcely now be traced"

Lough Derg--Pilgrimage--Magazine--Narrative

An account of Lough Derg from a late-nineteenth-century pilgrim.

Matthew Russell, 1834-1912

'Lough Derg: By a Recent Pilgrim', The Irish Monthly: A Magazine of General Literature Sixth Yearly Volume, p.25

M.H. Gill & Son, Dublin

1878

Sponsored and digitised by Google, Princeton University Library

Public domain

Article

English

Magazine Article

DD_0439

54.6153, -7.8864

https://archive.org/details/irishmonthlyvol01unkngoog/page/n5

"Unfortunately, the wind blew so briskly that we tried in vain to reach the Saints' Island, which is two miles to the north-west of Station Island. It is considerably larger than the latter, and was anciently connected with the shore by a wooden bridge. The boatmen pointed out distinctly the site of the old monastery, whose foundations can scarcely now be traced, and on the highest point of the island they showed me where a few trees marked the ancient cemetery in which was the cave called St. Patrick's Purgatory, ‘quid est in caemeterio extra frontem ecclesiae,’ says Henry of Saltrey. The ‘cave,’ however, was long ago filled up and its site quite forgotten. Wright tells us in his work on St. Patrick's Purgatory (London, 1824), that a certain Frenchman, from Bretagne, employed workmen during two summers to discover the original cave, but without success."

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