"In the middle of this desolation [on Saints' Island] is an enclosure thickly overgrown with briars, to which barriers of nettles almost prohibit entrance..."
"As a boat was being loaded with passengers at eleven o'clock, an elderly man arrived at the shore and urgently signalled to his son to come away with him..."
"Ninety-three people were then crowded into an old and leaky boat, despite their protests. The fact that the boatmen were drunk made the passengers still more uneasy..."
"Occasional freakish summer storms are peculiar to Lough Derg. Pilgrims often alighting at the shore on a tranquil summer day are often surprised at the unexpected commotion of the deeps and the dark yeasty appearance of the water..."
"Although the transit to Station Island takes only ten minutes in normal conditions, there was not even this interval of calm all that day from nine o'clock in the morning until eight in the evening..."