Inscriptions of the Eighteenth Century at Lough Derg— Votive Gifts to the Sanctuary-St. Patrick's Church- Boat Accidents on Lough Derg-Melancholy Boat The Pilgrim Tax-The Ferrymen-The Most Rev. Dr. Murphy's Regulations for the Pilgrimage-Rescript from Rome-St. Mary's Church-The Presbytery- Hostile Notices of the Pilgrimage-Priors since the Routes to Lough Derg-Road from Pettigo-Thoughts on nearing the Lake--Lithographic Views of the Island-The Station Season-The Authorized Reli gious Exercises of the Pilgrimage-Explanatory Ob- servations on the Exercises-Most Rev. Dr. Donnelly The Healthful Climate of Lough Derg-Peculiar Effi- cacy of the Exercises of this Station-The Joy and Peace Experienced in this Pilgrimage-Benefactors of ... 203-203 PILGRIMAGE OF LOUGH DERG. CHAPTER I. PRELIMINARY NOTICE. N this age of scepticism and unbelief, it is refreshing, indeed, to turn aside from the busy ways of the world, in order to contemplate the sanctuaries of religionthose bright green spots round which are encircled the sweetest associations and the most venerable traditions. To rescue them from the withering effects of neglect, or from the contemptuous scoff of the unbeliever, and to place before an admiring public their former glory, should be deemed a labour truly meritorious. Every country in Europe can point out the mouldering ruins of church and cloister, overthrown and laid desolate by the destroying hand of war, or the no less relentless. onslaught of heresy. But in no other country has so great destruction befallen the sacred edifices of religion as in Ireland-firstly, from the inroads of the Danish pirates; B and, lastly, from the law-established religion of England in the sixteenth century, which visited the holy places of religion with such fell destruction as neither Goth, Vandal, nor Dane had ever paralleled. Hence it comes that almost every parish in Ireland presents ruins of either church or conventual establishment, which, in many instances, exhibit features of architectural design and grandeur in vain to be found in the modern structures, which supply their places. Nor did the ancient and extensive diocese of Clogher, in point of ecclesiastical ruins, escape the general tide of destruction which swept over the religious foundations of Ireland. The ruins of the ecclesiastical city of Clogher, of the foundations of St. Dagaeus MacCarroll at Inniskeen (in the County Monaghan), of St. Fanchea at Rossory, and of St. Molaisre at Devenish, are striking examples. Of the Franciscan convents at Monaghan and Lisgoole, not a stone remains upon a stone to mark their sites. The ecclesiastical ruins at Clones even yet abundantly attest the magnificence of its great abbey of SS. Peter and Paul. Though these were the principal religious houses within the diocese of Clogher (according to its modern boundaries), yet there were others of less note, not to speak of the parochial churches, most of which shared the same sad fate at the hands of the Protestant iconoclasts. And how eloquently do not these desolate cloisters and churches and places of pilgrimage and penance preach to us, even in their ruins, of the prayer, piety and penance of saint, monk and pilgrim! The monumental ivy itself, which is swathed round their walls, as if to preserve them from the mouldering influence of time, waves mournfully in the sobbing wind over their ruins, seeming still to reecho the solemn strains of the pious inmates who used to chaunt within those hallowed precincts the never-ending hymn of praise and thanksgiving. Cold, indeed, must the spectator be whose heart is not moved at beholding those sanctuaries of religion, on which time has left the deep traces of its action-whose heart is not carried back by the spirit that breathes of these holy places to the time when prayer and sacrifice were being offered up to heaven from within those walls! And, as there is nothing so consoling to the human heart as the sweetening influences of religion-those purifying delights of the senses and of the soul-so there is no other reflection or study more refreshing to the mind than the consideration of the holy places of religion, with the records of the virtue and piety of their saintly inmates. Of all the ecclesiastical institutions of our country, none can lay such claim to the homage of our veneration as the holy places of pilgrimage--those places purified by the prayer and penances of saints, blessed by their labours, sanctified by the sweet odour of their virtues, and consecrated anew to that original purity which the world enjoyed before the Fall. But of the many places of pilgrimage which have flourished throughout Ireland since the introduction of Christianity, the sanctuary of Lough Derg, in Donegal, generally entitled "St. Patrick's Purgatory," has always occupied the most prominent place, |