"The pilgrimage was again resumed"

"The pilgrimage was again resumed"

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.30

M.H. Gill & Son, Dublin

1878

Sponsored and digitised by Google, Princeton University Library

Public domain

Article

English

Magazine Article

DD_0444

54.6083, -7.8714

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

"The pilgrimage, however, soon revived; very probably it was never wholly suppressed, for we find the visit of the French knight recorded by the Four Masters in 1516. It is not easy, however, to determine when the formal transfer of the station to Station Island took place, or when the guardianship of the place passed to the Franciscans. In Peter Lombard's time the change of place had occurred, but not of guardianship. The Canons Regular were still on Saints' Island, but the Prior of the Purgatory lived on Station Island. It is not improbable that the change took place on the revival of the pilgrimage after the Pope's prohibition. In 1632, some years after the plantation of Ulster by the English and Scotch ‘Undertakers,’ by order of Adam Loftus and Richard Boyle, Lords Justices, Sir James Balfour and Sir William Steward “drove the friars from the island, caused their dwelling to be demolished, and the cell (on Station Island) to be broken open, in which state it hath lain ever since, so that the pilgrimage is now come to nothing,’ says Boate (in his Natural History), who wrote in Cromwell's time. But as soon as the folly of the persecution had blown over, the pilgrimage was again resumed, for in the 2nd of Queen Anne, it was enacted that — ‘whereas the superstitions of Popery are greatly increased and upheld by the pretended sanctity of places, and especially of the place called St. Patrick's Purgatory, in the county Donegal, be it enacted that all such meetings all be deemed riots and unlawful assemblies, and all sheriffs, &c. &c., are hereby required to be diligent in putting the laws in force against all such offenders.’"

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