"Dore bowden with iron and stele"

"Dore bowden with iron and stele"

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.25-6

M.H. Gill & Son, Dublin

1878

Sponsored and digitised by Google, Princeton University Library

Public domain

Article

English

Magazine Article

DD_0440

54.6083, -7.8714

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

"The history of this Purgatory of St. Patrick is very curious and interesting. The first recorded account of the place is from the pen of Henry, a Benedictine monk of Saltrey, in Huntingdonshire in England, who wrote a treatise de “Purgatorio S. Patritii," about the year 1152. He declares that he received his information from Gilbert, a monk of Loda, or Louth, in Lincoln, who himself received all the details from a certain ‘Oenus Miles,’ or, a soldier-knight called Owen, who served in the armies of King Stephen. Owen was an Irishman, and made a pilgrimage to the Purgatory, all of which he in confidence communicated to Gilbert. Henry of Saltrey adds that Owen's account was continued by the testimony of Patrick, third of that name, who was bishop of the place where Lough Derg is situated, and who also declared that 'many of those who visited the cave never returned, and even those who return pine away because of the great torments they suffered.’ There is no bishop of the name of Patrick at this time in the lists given by Ware either for the diocese of Clogher or Raphoe. Henry of Saltrey's story is to this effect : ‘Our Lord Jesus Christ, visibly appearing to Saint Patrick, led him into a desert place, and there showed him a circular cave (fossam rotundam) dark inside, and at the same time said to him, whoever, armed with the true faith and truly penitent, will enter that cave and remain in it for the space of a day and a night, will be purged from the sins of his whole life — in modern language, obtain a plenary indulgence — and moreover, passing through it, if his faith fail not — (si in fide constanter egisset) — he will witness not only the torments of the damned but also the joys of the blessed." He then adds, that after this vision, St. Patrick in great joy built a church on that spot, and made the canons of St. Augiistine guardians of the same, and he surrounded the cave, which is in the churchyard in front of the church, with a wall,
and closed it with a —

‘Dore bowden with iron and stele
And locke and key made thereto
That no men should the dore undo.’

Metrical Version"

Article