"Some dark spot in the midst of flowing silver"

"Some dark spot in the midst of flowing silver"

Lough Derg--Pilgrimage--Depiction--Penny Journal

A description of the lake taken from O'Connor's account of an 1836 story in the Dublin Penny Journal Count Raymond de Perilleaux's 1397 journey to the Purgatory

Daniel O'Connor, 1843-1919

Daniel O’Connor, Lough Derg and Its Pilgrimages: With Map and Illustrations, p. 97

J. Dollard, Dublin

1879

Digitised by archive.org, sponsored by Harvard University

Public domain

Monograph

English

Pilgrim handbook

DD_0071

54.626894, -7.924317

https://archive.org/stream/loughdergandits00ocogoog/loughdergandits00ocogoog_djvu.txt

"Count Raymond, tortured in conscience for his crime, proceeded on pilgrimage to Lough Derg, in order to appease the wrath of heaven. The story graphically proceeds : — 'It was a beautiful evening in the autumn of 1397, and the flood of rich yellow light from the setting sun bathed the wooded shores of Lough Derg, tipping with gold the waves on its surface. At this time the naked hills, which now surround the lake, were covered with majestic woods of oak and beech,* and fringed with a thick copse of brushwood to the water's edge.

'The little island on which was situated St. Patrick's Purgatory, lay about a mile from the shore, resembling some dark spot in the midst of flowing silver.

* In a visit which the writer paid to Lough Derg, on the 4th September, 1877, he observed, on a portion of the mountain in the possession of a family named Gallagher, the stems and wide-spreading roots of two enormous fir trees, from above which the peaty surface had been cut. This is evidence that at a remote period, when our climate was much more temperate, large trees grew among these mountains, which are now so bare and barren."

Monograph