Browse Items · Digital Derg: A Deep Map

Sliabh Dubh Holy Well

"About eight miles from the Four Masters’ School in Byrne’s mountain on the old foot-road across Croney to Lough Derg is a Holy Well called [Sliab Dub ?]. ( ½ ml. from the Donegal-Tyrone border)

Local tradition says that as Saint Patrick was going…

Tags: Annals of the Four Masters, Folklore, headache, healing, holy well, mountains, offering, pilgrim road, sore joints, St. Patrick, toothache

The Friary

"The Friary is a townland on Killymard ([Cill O mBárd]) side of Lough Eske. It was here the Friars settled when banished from Donegal and ministered to the spiritual wants of the neigh-bouring districts.

There is now no sign of a church or…

Tags: Catholicism, County Donegal, Folklore, friars, Lough Eske, Oral History, religion, suppression, The Friary

Dutch Map of Ulster with Purgatory

Curator's description: "In 1577, at the age of 63, Adriaen Coenensz from Scheveningen, a Dutch fishing port, started his Vis booc. Over a period of three years he collected all kind of information about the sea, the coasts, and coastal waters,…

"A landscape that is usually a monotonous monochrome of either brown or grey tints"

"There is a lake called Lough Derg in County Donegal which has acquired extraordinary fame both in Christian history and in general literature..."

Tags: Alice Curtayne, colour, description, emotion, Heather (Calluna vulgaris), isolation, landscape, mountains, Rome, rural landscape, twentieth century, vista

"One of the loneliest places on earth"

"[Lough Derg] is one of the loneliest places on earth. Its boulder-strewn shores, thirteen miles in circumference, seem to have retained all their original wildness..."

Tags: agriculture, Alice Curtayne, Birch (Betula spp.), forest, Heather (Calluna vulgaris), hills, isolation, larch, loneliness, negative description, reforestation, rural landscape, stones, trees, twentieth century, underdevelopment

"No road, and not even a defined path, goes around the lake"

"Only one main road leads to the lake, that from the small town of Pettigo, four miles distant. This road ends at the ferry, where there is a house and a few other buildings..."

Tags: Alice Curtayne, barrenness, hills, isolation, loneliness, paths, rural landscape, twentieth century, underdevelopment

"Those trackless hills enfold the lake as though to hide it."

"It is remarkable how completely the exterior world is shut out. Those trackless hills enfold the lake as though to hide it..."

Tags: Alice Curtayne, barrenness, hills, isolation, lake, mountains, rhetoric, rural landscape, timelessness, tradition, twentieth century, water

"The buildings give the impression of resting on the water"

"The lake surface is broken by numerous scattered islands, the greater number of which are just rocks without either historical or scenic interest..."

Tags: Alice Curtayne, artificial land, Basilica, building, illusion, islands, lake, lake bed, Saints Island, Station Island, twentieth century, water

Templecarne: Patrick's first church?

"…Tirechan says that Patrick founded a Church in Tirhugh. Where now is the location of that church?..."

Tags: Alice Curtayne, ancient church, Barony of Tirhugh, building, fifth century, myth, ruins, speculation, St. Patrick, Templecarne, Templecarne Graveyard, twentieth century

"He always looked for the most inaccessible place in every district"

"Think of [Saint Patrick] located somewhere near Templecarne for several months and thus surrounded. The lake would certainly invite him with its promise of refuge and sanctuary..."

Tags: Alice Curtayne, Catholicism, church, fifth century, hermitage, isolation, Parish of Templecarne, pilgrimage, purgatory, ruins, speculation, St. Patrick, Templecarne, Templecarne Graveyard, twentieth century

Browse Items (616 total)