"There is a pool or lake saith he in the parts of Ulster that invironeth an Island"

"There is a pool or lake saith he in the parts of Ulster that invironeth an Island"

Lough Derg--Pilgrimage--Chronicle--Holinshed

"I think it good to begin with St Patrick his Purgatory, partly because it is most notoriously known and partly the more that some writers as the author of Polychronicon and other, that were miscarried by him, seem to make a great doubt where they need not..."

Shane Leslie, 1885-1971

Raphael Holinshed, Chapter IV, 'Of the Strange and Wonderful Places in Ireland', Leslie, Shane, Saint Patrick's Purgatory: A Record from History and Literature, p. 44

Burns Oats and Washbourne Ltd, London

1932

Citation for the purposes of criticism

Collection of sources

English

Monograph

DD_0084

54.6083, -7.8714

"I think it good to begin with St Patrick his Purgatory, partly because it is most notoriously known and partly the more that some writers as the author of Polychronicon and other, that were miscarried by him, seem to make a great doubt where they need not. For they ascrive the finding out of the place not to Patrick that converted the country but another Patrick an Abbot, whom likewise they affirm to have been employed in converting the Island from heathenry to Christianity. But the author that broacheth this opinion is not found to carry any such credit with him as that a many may certainly affirm it or probably conjecture it : unless we relie to the old withered worm-eaten legend, loaded with as many loud lies as lewd lines. The better and more certain opinion is that the other Patrick found it out in such wise as Cambrensis reporteth. There is a pool or lake saith he in the parts of Ulster that invironeth an Island, in the one part thereof there standeth a Church, much lightened with the brightsome recourse of Angels : the other part is ugly and ghastly, as it were a Bedlam allotted to the visible assemblies of horrible and grisly bugs. This part of the Island containeth nine caves. And if any be so hardy as to take one night his lodging in any of these inns, which hath been experimented by some rash and hare-brained adventurers, strait these spirits claw him be the back and tug him ruggedly and toss him crabbedly. This place is called St Patrick his Purgatory of the inhabitors."

Monograph