"The pilgrimage was suppressed and the cave destroyed"

"The pilgrimage was suppressed and the cave destroyed"

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.29

M.H. Gill & Son, Dublin

1878

Sponsored and digitised by Google, Princeton University Library

Public domain

Article

English

Magazine Article

DD_0443

41.902782, 12.496365

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

"A Dutch monk, from the monastery of Eymstede, came in pilgrimage to Lough Derg. With great difficulty he got the requisite permission from the Bishop, Prior, and Prince of the territory, to enter the cavern — ‘omnes enim petierunt pecuniam’ — and he had none to give. However, he was let down into the cave by a rope, taking with him a little bread and water; but, whether from a want of faith or of imagination, he saw nothing in the cavern. Going forthwith to Rome he declared the whole story of the cave was a fraud, and, by way of proof, narrated his own adventures in Lough Derg. Accordingly, in 1494, Alexander VI. issued a Brief, directed to the Guardian of the Convent of Donegal, and the official of the Deanery of Lough Erne, ordering the suppression of the pilgrimage and the destruction of the cave — ‘quia fuit occasio turpis avaritiae.’ The aforementioned monk was himself the bearer of this Brief to Ireland. On the 17th March, 1497, the orders of the Pope were executed ; the pilgrimage was suppressed and the cave destroyed."

Article