Gazetteer description of the pilgrim crossing

Gazetteer description of the pilgrim crossing

Lough Derg--Vicinity--Geography--gazetteer

The entry for Lough Derg in an 1842 Irish gazetteer

John Parker Lawson, d. 1852

The gazetteer of Ireland, containing the latest information from the most authentic sources, p. 312

Edinburgh Print. & Pub. Co., Edinburgh

1842

Digitised by Google, sponsored by University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, archived on Hathi Trust digital library

Public domain

Gazetteer

English

Gazetteer

DD_0490

54.606912, -7.860865

https://archive.org/details/gazetteerofirela1842laws/page/n10

"The vigil in the Prison must be no joke to encounter for twenty-four hours. In this hole the devotees neither eat, drink, nor sleep ; not even the Lough Derg wine is allowed, and prompt measures are in force to keep them from sleeping, which, if indulged, would nullify the whole effect of the pilgrimage. It is also customary to pray round saints beds — little circular stone walls containing stones and crosses in the inside. This is done by performing a number of stations round these on the knees, but it depends on circumstances whether this is done on the bare knees. Every candidate for the honours of a Lough Derg pilgrimage must bring a recommendation from his or her parish priest, without which ticket no one is admitted. ‘The pilgrims,’ says Mr Inglis, 'are stowed like so many brutes in the bottom of the boat, from front to stern, the master shoving and pushing them as he would a drove of pigs.’ — ‘The hum of their voices,’ says Mr Gamble, ‘as they repeated their prayers and counted their rosaries, resembled the buzz of bees, or the sound of flies on a summer day.’"

xvi, 812 p. 18 cm.