Lough Derg

Lough Derg , in Ireland. 1 Expansion of the Shannon River, 23 mi (37 km) long and 1 to 5 mi (1.6-8 km) wide, W central Republic of Ireland. On the lake is the republic's first (1927) major hydroelectric power plant, with an 85,000-kW capacity. On Holy Island or Iniscaltra are ruins of churches and a round tower. 2 Lake, c.20 sq mi (50 sq km), Co. Donegal, NW Republic of Ireland. Station Island, traditional site of Saint Patrick's Purgatory, the popular name for the saint's vision of Purgatory, is a famous place of pilgrimage. Saints' Island has ruins of a monastery.

Lough Derg, Lough Dearg
1. [Ir. derg, red]. Lake 6 by 4 miles, 4 miles NW of Pettigoe in south Co. Donegal, also called St Patrick's Purgatory, long the focus of religious pilgrimage. No documentable evidence survives to prove that St Patrick (d.493?) ever visited the lake, but a well-known legend has the saint banishing the monster Caoránach to its waters, turning them red. Pilgrimage to the lake began well before the 12th century, with the institution of a cavern known as the Purgatory. Medieval legend assumed that St Patrick had descended into Purgatory through a cavern on Station Island in the lake. Today, thousands of pilgrims ferry to Station Island on weekends between 1 June and 15 August to spend a night in the cavern without sleep, along with three days of fasting and praying at the nearby modern basilica. See Shane Leslie, Saint Patrick's Purgatory (London, 1932); Alice Curtayne, Lough Derg, St. Patrick's Purgatory (London, 1945); Michael Haren and Yolande de Pontfarcy, The Medieval Pilgrimage to St. Patrick's Purgatory (Enniskillen, 1988); Alannah Hopkin, The Living Legend of St. Patrick (London, 1989), 84–105. Michael Dames's highly speculative interpretation of the Lough Derg pilgrimage, Mythic Ireland (London, 1992), 22–54, must be read with caution and scepticism. See also Seamus Heaney's meditative poem Station Island (New York and London, 1985).

2. An expansion of the Shannon River, 24 miles long and an average of 2 miles wide, above Killaloe, between counties Clare and Galway on the west and Tipperary on the east. This Lough Derg was named for Eochaid (1), a possible sun-god, who sometimes bore the epithet Deirgderc [red eye].

Lough Derg (‘St Patrick's Purgatory’), Co. Donegal, a place of severe penitential pilgrimage where, reputedly, Patrick fasted to expel demons. Although there probably was an earlier cult, the legend originates with Henry of Saltrey's Tractatus de Purgatorio Sancti Patricii (1184). He told of the pilgrimage of a knight, Owein, to where Patrick fasted, and of a deep cave which was the gateway to hell. Soon this was a standard piece of information about Ireland, mentioned, for example, by Gerald of Wales. Prior to the 16th century, we have many accounts not only of Irish, but of European pilgrims; it is prominent on medieval maps; and copies of the Tractatus were widespread in Latin and translation. Pope Alexander VI forbade the pilgrimage (1497), but to little effect. Lough Derg was destroyed by the Cromwellians as a place of superstition, but was well established again by the mid‐18th century and grew in popularity during the 19th, in what has been seen as local manifestation of the devotional revolution. By this time the cave had been sealed, and the focus of the modern pilgrimage shifted to the church building. The pilgrimage, differing from the western model in its exclusive focus on penitence, continues today between June and August.

Thomas O'Loughlin