Ciaran’s Peculier [sic] Blog

The site of St Patrick’s Purgatory in Lough Derg, Co. Donegal has drawn pilgrims for many centuries. During the later middle ages the fame of the site was known throughout Western Europe. Few mediAeval tourists were as intrepid and fearless as pilgrims. They

The modern basilicam Lough Derg

had to be, and while dangers and annoyances were commonplace nearer home, the idea of travelling for months into inhospitable lands inhabited by fearsome people, would have dissuaded all but the most foolhardy.

 Among those who liked to live on the wilder side was a young nobleman from Catalonia named Joan Jose de Perelhos. He came from a good family and was quite wealthy. In the last decade of the fourteenth century, just a half century after the Black Death, he decided to travel to Ireland. This was a trip to the limits of the known world. involving at least two sea trips before he got to our shores. Once here he would have found the weather very different from at home. He would have had great difficulty in communicating with the locals. Travel was difficult as there were no established roads leading to Lough Derg. Accommodation must also have been a problem, and what was more he arrived at a time when the north of Ireland was experiencing a food shortage. The only food available consisted of thin oaten wafers. Because he was a member of the nobility he was given shelter by the most powerful family in the area, the O’Neills. Fortunately some of the priests at O’Neill’s court knew Latin, a language understood by Perelhos.  On returning home he wrote an account of his adventures. While such brave travellers were rare we can be confident that Perelhos was not the only person from the continent to attempt the journey, but if they left any account of their trip it has not survived.

 A little over a hundred years later a Dutchman made up his mind to go to Lough Derg, inspired by the tales of self-abnegation which pilgrims had to undergo there. Little had changed in Ireland. On arriving at the lake it was raining heavily; the Dutchman was brought in a rather leaky boat towards a cave where he was told the true purgatory of St Patrick was located. It was cold and, apart from the unpleasant sensation of entering a damp, dark cave, the Dutchman could see nothing. Rather than feeling that he had indeed experienced something like purgatory he left Lough Derg under the impression that the whole thing was a scam, a medieval tourist trap to lure the devout and wealthy world traveller and separate them from their cash. So disgusted was he that wrote a report to the Vatican who responded by formally suspending the pilgrimage to Lough Derg and removing all papal protection and support for those making the journey. This has never been reversed by any document from the Vatican, but it didn’t have much of an impact on Lough Derg. Pilgrims continue to flock here, with the Catholic Church’s full support.

 © Ciaran Parker