St Patrick's Purgatory

St Patrick's Purgatory is an ancient pilgrimage site on Station Island in Lough Derg, County Donegal, Ireland. According to legend, the site dates from the fifth century, when Christ showed Saint Patrick a cave, sometimes referred to as a pit or a well, on Station Island that was an entrance to Purgatory.Bieler, Ludwig. "St. Patrick's Purgatory: Contributions towards an Historical Topography". The Irish Ecclesiastical Record 93 (1960): 137–44. Its importance in medieval times is clear from the fact that it is mentioned in texts from as early as 1185 and shown on maps from all over Europe as early as the fifteenth century. It is the only Irish site designated on Martin Behaim's world map of 1492.Leslie, Shane, ed. Saint Patrick’s Purgatory: A Record from History and Literature. London: Burns, Oates & Washbourne, 1932 It is also depicted on the third sheet of the Pinelli–Walckenaer Atlas, an anonymous portolan chart believed to have been created sometime between 1384 and 1410; the name is given as lo Purgatorio.Pinelli-Walckenaer Atlas,MCC539-143, on the MEDEA-CHART Database

Location

In the nineteenth century there was some confusion about the actual site of St Patrick's Purgatory—whether it was on Station Island or Saints Island on Lough Derg, County Donegal. For instance the early nineteenth-century Ordnance Survey maps of Ireland (1837–1842) locate the Purgatory on Saints Island.View the historic 6" color map. However, its location on Station Island is a tradition that continues unbroken from the Middle Ages. It is clearly indicated on documents dating from that time, and it appears as "Caverna Purgatory" on the detailed map of Station Island in Sir James Ware's De Hibernia (1654) and Fr. Thomas Carve's book, Lyra Hibernica (1666). Its earliest appearance on a map may be on the 1367 portolan chart attributed to Domenico and Francesco Pizzigano. In the centre of Ireland is a place with a name that seems to include the words ( being Portuguese for 'fire').

Foundation Legend maintains that St. Patrick had grown discouraged by the doubts of his potential converts, who told him they would not believe his teachings until they had substantial proof. St. Patrick prayed that God would help him relate the Word of God and convert the Irish people, and in return, God revealed to him a pit in the ground, which he called Purgatory; by showing this place to the people, they would believe all that he said. By witnessing Purgatory, the people would finally know the reality of the joys of heaven and the torments of hell.Gardiner, Eileen. Visions of Heaven and Hell before Dante. New York: Italica Press, 1989, 135–36. (http://www.worldcat.org/title/visions-of-heaven-and-hell-before-dante/oclc/18741120)

Given the sparsity of any documentation for fifth-century Ireland, it is not surprising that there is no proof that St. Patrick ever visited Lough Derg. And while this is the legend, it is a rather late legend dating probably from the twelfth century.Haren, Michael, and Yolande de Pontfarcy, eds. The Medieval Pilgrimage to St Patrick’s Purgatory, Lough Derg and the European Tradition. (Enniskillen: Clogher Historical Society, 1988), pp. 8–9. There is however a much more firmly established tradition regarding St. Dabheog or Dabheoc, a local abbot who presided over, and possibly established, the monastery on the site during the lifetime of Patrick.Harbison, Peter. Pilgrimage in Ireland: The Monuments and the People. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 1995. His name has been associated from these early centuries with several places in the area, for instance: St. Dabheoc's Chair on the south bank of Lough Derg, the townland of Seedavoc (St. Dabheoc's Seat), and a mountain in that townland, Seadavog Mountain. One of the islands in Lough Derg was also named after him: St. Dabheoc's Island, which may have been Saints Island or another island entirely.

Cave

Although the cave has been closed since , several descriptions by early pilgrims survive. They referred to it as a cave or cellar or as an enclosed pit. The entrance, which was kept closed and locked, was quite narrow: about 0.6 m (2 ft) wide and 0.9 m (3 ft) high. Once inside there was a short descent of about six steps. The cave was divided into two parts: the first was about 3 m (9 ft) long, probably with banked sides and only high enough to kneel in; after a turn there was another niche about 1.5 m (5 ft) long.

Since the site has never been excavated, we can only rely at this point on these descriptions of the cave. However based on other archaeological excavations it seems clear that this was probably an ancient structure. Some have suggested a souterrain, a place for storing crops and animals. However, the size of the cave would make this seem very unlikely. A much more plausible suggestion is that it was one of the ancient sweat houses, which were actually still in use in Ireland into the twentieth century. From modern practice we know that people would enter these small enclosed places to inhale medicinal smoke produced by burning various plants. The name "purgatorium" could possibly have been used here originally with its Latin meaning as a place for cleansing and purging—much like a modern sauna; especially since the modern notion of "purgatory" as a place for punishment in the afterlife did not come into common use until the thirteenth century.Le Goff, Jacques. The Birth of Purgatory. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1984). The cave would then have been a place that people went to for physical or spiritual healing, even before it became associated with St. Patrick in the twelfth century as a place for strictly spiritual healing.

Monastery and its functions

A monastery probably existed on the islands in Lough Derg from the fifth century and it probably included anchorites who lived in beehive cells—which may be preserved in some form in the penitential beds that can still be seen on Station Island.

Around 1130 the monastery was given to Augustinian Canons Regular by the authority of the cathedral in Armagh, under Saint Malachy.Gardiner, Eileen. The Pilgrim's Way to St. Patrick's Purgatory. (New York: Italica Press, 2010), p. 139. The monastery on Saints Island offered hospitality to pilgrims, who would visit in a spirit of penance and prayer. It also served as a place where pilgrims could prepare themselves for visiting the Purgatory. Documents report that pilgrims who did want to visit the Purgatory would arrive with letters of permission from a bishop, either from their own region or from Armagh.Gardiner, pp. 24, 35. They would then spend fifteen days fasting and praying to prepare themselves for the visit to Station Island, a short boat ride away. At the end of the fifteen days, pilgrims would confess their sins, receive communion and undergo a few final rituals before being locked in the cave for twenty-four hours. The next morning the prior would open the door, and if the pilgrim were found alive, he would be brought back to Saints Island for another fifteen days of prayer and fasting.Gardiner, p. 39.

From the time of St. Dabheoc, it appears that this region attracted pilgrims from far and wide. By the twelfth century they came from all over continental Europe, most likely sailing from England and landing at Dublin or Drogheda. From those ports they would make their way by foot, stopping at monasteries along the way on what would probably be a two-week journey across the Irish countryside to their destination.Gardiner, pp. 39–40. In this period many sinners and criminals were sent on pilgrimage to atone for their deeds and seek forgiveness. St. Patrick's Purgatory would be a likely destination for these penitential pilgrims, or exiles, since communities of anchorites were often considered to have special power to absolve them.Gardiner, pp. 21–23.

Route to Lough Derg Based on the description left by the fifteenth-century pilgrim, Guillebert of Lannoy, it is possible to trace the medieval pilgrimage route,The medieval pilgrimage route on Google Maps reported in 1430, from Drogheda to Kells along the Boyne River, most likely stopping at Mellifont, Slane and Donaghmore, staying at monasteries, as was the usual custom for medieval travelers of any type. From there he headed northwest toward Enniskillen, which he calls Rousseaumoustier. Here a duke lends him a boat so that he and his companions could travel up Lough Erne, most likely stopping at Devenish, Inishmacsaint and White Island. Along this route he would have also passed by the important monastery of Drumlane.Gardiner, Pilgrim's Way, pp. 34-37.

1497 At the 31st Irish Conference of Medievalists (2017) has been presented a new hypothesis for the historical reconstruction of the so-called first "closure" of the pilgrimage which is thought to have occurred in the late 15th century. The Acta Sanctorum contains a document in which the closure is attributed to the denunciation of a Dutch monk, who had been to Lough Derg and subsequently traveled to the Vatican, where he accused the pilgrimage's organizers (including the bishop and the prior) of simony. According to P. Taviani that document is a fake, forged by someone who never had been to Lough Derg and who imagined St. Patrick Purgatory to be akin to St Patrick's Well in Orvieto. The Pope would never have ordered the closure of the pilgrimage, and in fact this never happened. In fact, the documents do not claim that the pilgrimage nor the Purgatory were closed down, but simply that "the cave…was broken" and "that site of fallacy" was destroyed, indicating that the false cave that the canon visited was destroyed and closed.Leslie, p. 63. According to Taviani, the true story is that in 1497 it was Cathal Óg Mac Maghnusa (at the time active as a bishop of the Diocese of Clogher), encouraged by the Guardian of the Franciscan Observant Donegal Abbey, who wanted to radically change the course of the pilgrimage. The promise of a journey to the underworld could no longer be sustained. To ensure the survival of the pilgrimage, it was necessary to turn it into an event purely concerned with penitence. In order to overcome any potential opposition to this radical change, a fictitious Papal order was conceived.Paolo Taviani, "La distruzione", in Il Purgatorio di San Patrizio. Documenti letterari e testimonianze di pellegrinaggio (secc. XII-XVI), Firenze: SISMEL – Le Edizioni del Galluzzo (Quaderni di Hagiographica, 13), 2018, pp. 497-521; (http://www.sismel.it/tidetails.asp?hdntiid=1605) The monastery was then dissolved in 1632, although the local lord apparently allowed the monks to remain. By 1710 the Franciscans were present on the island in the summer to administer to the needs of the pilgrims. They built a church, St. Mary of the Angels, on Station Island in 1763.Gardiner, p. 150. In 1785, administration of Station Island came into the hands of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Clogher.Gardiner, p. 139. Shane Leslie gave freehold of the island to the diocese in 1960, and was made a Knight Commander of St Gregory by Pope John XXIII in recognition.

Modern pilgrimage