Situating Lough Derg

Situating Lough Derg

Lough Derg--Antiquities--Guide--Commentary

A history of Lough Derg and its Antiquities.

James Stephens, 1882-1950

Illustrated handbook of the scenery and antiquities of Southwestern Donegal ... / [by Monsignor James Stephens] ; with notes of the road for tourists to the wild, p. 90

McGlashan and Gill, Dublin

1872

Digitised by Google, sponsored by New York Public Library, archived on Hathi Trust digital library

Public domain

Handbook

English

Illustrated handbook

DD_0467

54.6083, -7.8714

“This famous place of pilgrimage and penance is situate in the Co. Donegal, on the confines of Tyrone and Fermanagh. It is only a few miles from Pettigo, a station on the Enniskillen and Bundoran Railway, being separated from it by a large tract of uncultivated and desolate moorland. This lake is about three miles long, by two and a half miles broad. It is dotted over with islands and rocks, and is surrounded by hills of mica slate from seven to twelve hundred feet high. It was anciently called Derg abban (the river of the woody morass), from a river which flows from it into the Erne. It was also called Fion loch, (the fair or white lake), and it is said to have received its present name of Lough Derg, from a legend which ascribes to St. Patrick the killing of a monster, the blood of which tinged the lake a red colour. It was also called St. Fintan's Island, from a celebrated saint of the Connellians of Tirconnel in the seventh century. The history of this island and its antiquities are recorded by many writers, among whom I may mention Giraldus Cambrensis, Mathew Paris, Camden, Ware, Colgan, Archdall, and Lanigan. A monastery was founded here, about the end of the fifth century (490), of the order of St. Augustine, by St. Dubeog. It was called Termon Dubeog, and was dedicated to SS. Peter and Paul. We often times find it mentioned in ‘The Annals of the Four Masters.’”

iv, [3]-128 p., [10] leaves of plates : ill. ; 19 cm