The purgatorial chapel

The purgatorial chapel

Lough Derg--Vicinity--Purgatory--Travel guide

An account of the religious history of Lough Derg for the traveller.

J. B. Doyle

Tours in Ulster: A hand-book to the antiquities and scenery of the north of Ireland.
By J. B. Doyle. With numerous illustrations, chiefly from the author's sketch-book, p. 364

Hodges and Smith, Dublin

1854

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

Public domain

Handbook

English

Travel guide

DD_0483

54.609244,-7.871791

"At this station the votaries have to repeat all the prayers said at the seven stations, after which they are ‘prepared’ for purgatory. The Purgatory chapel is capable of holding seven hundred persons tightly packed; into this they are permitted to go at sunrise, and to remain there until sunrise the next day, without food, drink, or sleep, and during the whole time they are never for a moment to cease repeating their prayers. Should they unluckily fall asleep, they must go through the purgatory again ; to avoid this there are persons who undertake for a small gratuity to keep them awake; these are furnished with long wands to be used upon the pates of the unlucky sleepers to keep them up to their prayers, and many a good hard knock is dealt out before the votary is placed beyond danger. It is no sinecure ; for in consequence of the state of exhaustion, and the heat of the place, and the buzz of so many voices murmuring their prayers, sleep is most likely to be induced. When the twenty-four hours' imprisonment is over, it would be difficult to recognise many of those who entered in. Their pale and emaciated looks as they emerge into daylight, covered with dust and perspiration, render them not inapt representatives of spectres gliding from the shadows of death."

396 p. illus. 17 cm.