LOUGH DERG PILGRIMAGE.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume IX, Issue 442, 30 September 1881, Page 9

LOUGH DERG PILGRIMAGE.

(Prom a corespondent of the Dublin Freeman.) The litigation about the title to the Station Island of Lough Derg bow amicably settled, as will appear by our assizes report, had its, immediate and ostensible origin in the erection on the island, by the Lord Bishop of Clogher, the Moat Rev. Dr. Donnelly, of a hospice for the better accommodation of the pilgrims. The hospice projects out a little way into the water upon the rock forming the island. Sir •John Leslie complained of this, but the bishop asserted his right to do it, and has proceeded with the erection of the hospice. It was commenced about a year ago and is now nearly finished. Sir John Leslie, by his proceedings, laid claim to the whole of the island, and the bishop was naturally alarmed that the right accruing from Elizabethan confiscations and enforced at the point of the bayonet two hundred years ago, but which in the mean time had not been acted on, should be seriously put forward in the latter part of the 19th century. Accordingly the bishop was forced, however unwillingly, to defend, on behalf of the Catholics of Ireland, their right to the ancient shrine. For this his lordship had been obliged to undergo all the disagreeabilities of a harassing litigation, and, what is more, find the money to prepare for the trial. This involved not alone feeing lawyers but the investigation and copying of ancient records, aad the employment of scientific men to enlighten the jury on the question at issue. It was a surpries agreeable to find on Saturday as the hour of trial approached that his Lordship and Sir John Leslie had found means to terminate to their mutual satisfaction what must have been — had it gone on — a very unpleasant contest. Tbe terms of settlement are that Sir John gives a lease for ever of that portion of the hospica which projects into the water, and, according to his contention, has encroached upon the bed of the lough which he claims as his property. He withdraws all pretension to the Station Island itself, and by this formal act the bishop's possession of it is quited for ever. The island in Lough Derg known as Station Island, and also by the name of St. Patrick's Purgatory, consists of a barren rock, over three roods in extent. The lough itself is a lonely sheet of water in south-western Donegal, of a superficial area of 2,200 acres, and about six miles in length. There are in all 46 islands in the Lough. According to tradition Station Island was the place to which St. Patrick retired for meditation and prayer. St. Babheve, one of St. Patrick's contemporaries, and a Welshman, established a religious community on the adjacent island, and now known as Saints Island. St. Patrick's Purgatory was throughout the middle ages one of the most remarkable shrines in Christendom. It was here that O'Rorke, Prince of Breffney, was making his devotion when his absence gave opportunity foi the tragic incident that forms the subject of Moore's melody, " The Valley lay smiling before |me." We have Calderon's "" Purgatorio de San Patricio," in which he sings here — " With footsteps strong and bosom brave, Looking for that mysterious cave Where the pitying Heaven will show How my salvation I may gain By bearing in this life the purgatorial pain." The Library of the British Museum has two metrical versions of the pilgrimage of the Knight Owen to Lough Derg. Notabilities from remote parts of Europe mixed with the people of the country in performing the pilgrimage. But, like so many other places of the same sort in Ireland, unhapply days were in store for it. The monastery on Saint's Island, the shrine on Station Island, with the neighbouring lands, the endowment of pious generations were confiscated in the general plundering that took place. In 1632 Sir William Stewart, by order of the Lord Justice (Boyle), expelled the abbot and forty monks from Saints' Island, and destroyed the buildings thereon, and the stone upon which tradition had it that St. Patrick knelt, and other relics, were thrown into the lake, and security was given by recognisance from the said James Magrath, the owner of the island, that he would not permit friars or nuns to enter thereon. In 1661 Dr. John Leslie, a Scotchman, was appointed by Charies 11. Bishop of Clogher. He had previously been Bishop of the Isles, but the episcopal office net being a profitable or popular one in Scotland, he contrived to get translated to Clsgher, and founded the family now represented by the present plaintiff, Sir John Leslie. 2nd Queen Anne, chapter 6, reciting that the superstitions of Popery are greatly increased by the pretended sanctity of places, espectally of a place called St. Patrick's Purgatory, in the county Donegal, to which pilgrimages are made by vast numbers at certain seasons, enacts, that all such meetings shall be deemed riots and unlawful assemblies, and punishable as euch ; and all offenders are subjected, in default of payment of pecuniary penalties, to be publicly whipped ; and persons erecting booths or cabins for the sale of victuals, are also subject to penalties ; and all magistrates were requred to demolish all crosses, pictures, arid inscriptions that were anywhere publiciy set up and were the occasion of Popish superstitions From the expulsion of the Agustinians down to about the year 1782 the sprkual wants of the pilgrims were ministered to by the Franciscan friars. About 1782, in consequence of the penal laws, the number of Franciscans in Ireland had become so reduced that they were no longer able to supply the pilgrimage with the priest, and the then Catholic Bishop of Clogher appointed the Rev. — Murray, P.P., Errigle- Trough, Prior. Since then the pilgrimage has been under the care of priests of the diocese of Clogher, specially deputed by the Catholic Bishop of Clogher, who has uniformly entrusted it to a "prioi" and assistant priest, and notwithstanding every effort made by Government, the clergy and people kept almost continuous possession, and the present proceedings were the first serious effort for at least 100 years made to disturb them. The small island in a lonely lough, situate amid bleak but impressive mountain scenery, is exactly suitable to be the shrine of an earnest and faithful people. There is nothing to dusturb the pious object of the pilgrims, who go there to relieve their

consciences by fasting and prayer, and right well does it illustrate by its past history and present conditon the undying faith of the Irish people. Tbe faith that Patrick planted in this country, the Mine that ha professed and practised in Lough Derg, is as active aad living to-day as it was in hits own time. Confiscation and coercion, fire and sword, have been employed in vain. Every year sees the whole of the Irish race represented by thosands of pilgrims from every part of the country joined by the representatives of our people from those far-off lands to which persecution drove them or adventure impelled them, all making public profession of the faith that Partrick taught our forefathers. Right well must the Most Key, Dr. Donnelly rejoice that he should in his own person have reversed " confiscation." He has in a simple but effective manner vindicated the rights of the people. He is to be congratulated on his peaceful triumph, and his name as Bishop of Clogher will be long remembered in connection with his formal recovery of St Patrick's Purgatory.