WCP goes oop north.
- Thread starter West Cork Paul
- Start date
FRIDAY
Pilgrim’s Purgatory
We had a rendezvous with daughter no.2, although she didn’t know it, it was to be a surprise as it’s her adoption day. That’s right 18 years ago not long after she had turned 6 we adopted Trinny, and for Trinny her adoption day is as important as her birthday so we always try and do something to celebrate it with her. This year, for the first time in 18 years, we didn’t think we’d be able to as a) she was on a course in Dublin and b) we were supposed to be in GB. However, we surreptitiously found out when she would be back home from her course and when we realised we weren’t going to GB we worked it we could just arrive and surprise her, but that’s this evening. First we had a date with Lough Derg.
Legend has it Lough Derg (derg variously is Gaelic for red or blood) was where St Patrick, well he wasn’t a Saint then just a lowly snake bashing monk, went for his equivalent of 40 days in the wilderness so he could get closer to his God. This all happened in the 5thC. He ended up walking around a lake just south east of Donegal Town and God appeared to him and showed him a hole in the ground on an island in the lake which he said was the entrance to Purgatory. You can read about it in more detail if you wish here. As a consequence in the Middle Ages a group of monks built a massive monastery and if one were cynical, which of course I’m not when it comes to religion, they started putting up people on a B&B basis who wanted to see the hole God has shown Patrick which was the alleged entrance to Purgatory.
Now those of you who are Catholic will know the Catholic faith is based upon guilt. Guilt is how the Church and the priests keep the populace in line. As we are all naughty boys and girls whilst on this earth, according to the Catholic heirarchy, Catholic belief is when we die we have to pass through Purgatory where the flames extinguish our sins, or not, before we can go to heaven. The naughtier you’ve been the longer you will stay burning in incredible pain in Purgatory. So, we are taught to be as good as possible all the time so as to have to spend as little time as possible being burned. If you’ve been really bad then after you’ve finished burning in Purgatory the trap door will open and you will descend into Hell where you will burn for eternity. Or so I and others aged around 5-10 were taught by nuns at junior school and the priest at Sunday School. It’s a nice, welcoming, inclusive faith is the Catholic Church
.
Why did we visit? Well these days hundreds of thousands of pilgrims visit Lough Derg annually, to take part in an episode of sado-masochism and get themselves closer to God, we just wanted to see what it’s all about.
There’s the big arch welcoming you as you drive in.
There’s a statue of the man/saint himself.
There are signs telling you which way to go if you’re there to follow the Pilgrim’s Path.
There’s a jetty where boats depart from to the monastery built over the hole in the ground that ifs allegedly the entrance to Purgatory and where the really Catholic, guilt ridden, beat myself up, pilgrimages occur.
For a not insubstantial donation to the monastery you can spend 24 or 48 hours on the island, barefoot, no food or water, walking from prayer point to prayer point around the island, no shelter, kneeling at the prayer points to pray and doing it all incessantly, no sleep, no rest. Hmmmm
what fun. But hey, you’ll get an express ticket to Heaven and maybe even bypass purgatory.
At the end of the jetty is a large engraved stone.
Erected to ask forgiveness for all the teenage girls who got pregnant, thrown out by their own families and hidden in the local nunnery by the parish priest; all the little children that were killed in those Mother & Baby homes by the nuns; all the young girls forced into slavery in the Magdalen laundries run by nuns; all the young boys beaten and buggered in the Industrial Schools run by priests; all the paedophilia the Church has condoned and covered up. But it’s all ok now because we erected a stone by a godforsaken windswept lake in the North West of Ireland. Great
.
A quick 5k walk to stretch our legs and Mrs P and I decided to leave this miserable place and head south to warmer climes.
Except we couldn’t.
Must be God punishing us for being non-believers and blocking our escape route.
I almost forgot to say, we were the only people there that day, perhaps modern day pilgrims only go when the sun is out. At least now if anyone asks ‘have you been to Lough Derg?’, E can answer ‘yes’ and they can assume what they want.
We eventually clear the errant castle without causing a stampede or having them trample over the car and make our way south to Castlebar and surprise T by creeping up behind her
. She was delighted and so were we.
I think the Lough Derg experience has affected me for that evening I ordered a Guinness zero
and a lentil burger .
LOL, only kidding. I may have ordered the lentil burger but it was for Mrs P, I had the full fat bacon and cheese burger 
Mind you I did drink the Guinness zero though, it was surprisingly good actually, I may have it again
Pilgrim’s Purgatory
We had a rendezvous with daughter no.2, although she didn’t know it, it was to be a surprise as it’s her adoption day. That’s right 18 years ago not long after she had turned 6 we adopted Trinny, and for Trinny her adoption day is as important as her birthday so we always try and do something to celebrate it with her. This year, for the first time in 18 years, we didn’t think we’d be able to as a) she was on a course in Dublin and b) we were supposed to be in GB. However, we surreptitiously found out when she would be back home from her course and when we realised we weren’t going to GB we worked it we could just arrive and surprise her, but that’s this evening. First we had a date with Lough Derg.
Legend has it Lough Derg (derg variously is Gaelic for red or blood) was where St Patrick, well he wasn’t a Saint then just a lowly snake bashing monk, went for his equivalent of 40 days in the wilderness so he could get closer to his God. This all happened in the 5thC. He ended up walking around a lake just south east of Donegal Town and God appeared to him and showed him a hole in the ground on an island in the lake which he said was the entrance to Purgatory. You can read about it in more detail if you wish here. As a consequence in the Middle Ages a group of monks built a massive monastery and if one were cynical, which of course I’m not when it comes to religion, they started putting up people on a B&B basis who wanted to see the hole God has shown Patrick which was the alleged entrance to Purgatory.
Now those of you who are Catholic will know the Catholic faith is based upon guilt. Guilt is how the Church and the priests keep the populace in line. As we are all naughty boys and girls whilst on this earth, according to the Catholic heirarchy, Catholic belief is when we die we have to pass through Purgatory where the flames extinguish our sins, or not, before we can go to heaven. The naughtier you’ve been the longer you will stay burning in incredible pain in Purgatory. So, we are taught to be as good as possible all the time so as to have to spend as little time as possible being burned. If you’ve been really bad then after you’ve finished burning in Purgatory the trap door will open and you will descend into Hell where you will burn for eternity. Or so I and others aged around 5-10 were taught by nuns at junior school and the priest at Sunday School. It’s a nice, welcoming, inclusive faith is the Catholic Church
. Why did we visit? Well these days hundreds of thousands of pilgrims visit Lough Derg annually, to take part in an episode of sado-masochism and get themselves closer to God, we just wanted to see what it’s all about.
There’s the big arch welcoming you as you drive in.
There’s a statue of the man/saint himself.
There are signs telling you which way to go if you’re there to follow the Pilgrim’s Path.
There’s a jetty where boats depart from to the monastery built over the hole in the ground that ifs allegedly the entrance to Purgatory and where the really Catholic, guilt ridden, beat myself up, pilgrimages occur.
For a not insubstantial donation to the monastery you can spend 24 or 48 hours on the island, barefoot, no food or water, walking from prayer point to prayer point around the island, no shelter, kneeling at the prayer points to pray and doing it all incessantly, no sleep, no rest. Hmmmm
what fun. But hey, you’ll get an express ticket to Heaven and maybe even bypass purgatory. At the end of the jetty is a large engraved stone.
Erected to ask forgiveness for all the teenage girls who got pregnant, thrown out by their own families and hidden in the local nunnery by the parish priest; all the little children that were killed in those Mother & Baby homes by the nuns; all the young girls forced into slavery in the Magdalen laundries run by nuns; all the young boys beaten and buggered in the Industrial Schools run by priests; all the paedophilia the Church has condoned and covered up. But it’s all ok now because we erected a stone by a godforsaken windswept lake in the North West of Ireland. Great
. A quick 5k walk to stretch our legs and Mrs P and I decided to leave this miserable place and head south to warmer climes.
Except we couldn’t
. Must be God punishing us for being non-believers and blocking our escape route.
I almost forgot to say, we were the only people there that day, perhaps modern day pilgrims only go when the sun is out
. At least now if anyone asks ‘have you been to Lough Derg?’, E can answer ‘yes’ and they can assume what they want. We eventually clear the errant castle without causing a stampede or having them trample over the car and make our way south to Castlebar and surprise T by creeping up behind her
. She was delighted and so were we. I think the Lough Derg experience has affected me for that evening I ordered a Guinness zero
and a lentil burger . LOL, only kidding. I may have ordered the lentil burger but it was for Mrs P
, I had the full fat bacon and cheese burger Mind you I did drink the Guinness zero though, it was surprisingly good actually, I may have it again
Guinness zero WTAFFRIDAY
Pilgrim’s Purgatory
We had a rendezvous with daughter no.2, although she didn’t know it, it was to be a surprise as it’s her adoption day. That’s right 18 years ago not long after she had turned 6 we adopted Trinny, and for Trinny her adoption day is as important as her birthday so we always try and do something to celebrate it with her. This year, for the first time in 18 years, we didn’t think we’d be able to as a) she was on a course in Dublin and b) we were supposed to be in GB. However, we surreptitiously found out when she would be back home from her course and when we realised we weren’t going to GB we worked it we could just arrive and surprise her, but that’s this evening. First we had a date with Lough Derg.
Legend has it Lough Derg (derg variously is Gaelic for red or blood) was where St Patrick, well he wasn’t a Saint then just a lowly snake bashing monk, went for his equivalent of 40 days in the wilderness so he could get closer to his God. This all happened in the 5thC. He ended up walking around a lake just south east of Donegal Town and God appeared to him and showed him a hole in the ground on an island in the lake which he said was the entrance to Purgatory. You can read about it in more detail if you wish here. As a consequence in the Middle Ages a group of monks built a massive monastery and if one were cynical, which of course I’m not when it comes to religion, they started putting up people on a B&B basis who wanted to see the hole God has shown Patrick which was the alleged entrance to Purgatory.
Now those of you who are Catholic will know the Catholic faith is based upon guilt. Guilt is how the Church and the priests keep the populace in line. As we are all naughty boys and girls whilst on this earth, according to the Catholic heirarchy, Catholic belief is when we die we have to pass through Purgatory where the flames extinguish our sins, or not, before we can go to heaven. The naughtier you’ve been the longer you will stay burning in incredible pain in Purgatory. So, we are taught to be as good as possible all the time so as to have to spend as little time as possible being burned. If you’ve been really bad then after you’ve finished burning in Purgatory the trap door will open and you will descend into Hell where you will burn for eternity. Or so I and others aged around 5-10 were taught by nuns at junior school and the priest at Sunday School. It’s a nice, welcoming, inclusive faith is the Catholic Church
Why did we visit? Well these days hundreds of thousands of pilgrims visit Lough Derg annually, to take part in an episode of sado-masochism and get themselves closer to God, we just wanted to see what it’s all about.
There’s the big arch welcoming you as you drive in.
View attachment 31274
There’s a statue of the man/saint himself.
View attachment 31271
There are signs telling you which way to go if you’re there to follow the Pilgrim’s Path.
View attachment 31290
View attachment 31270
There’s a jetty where boats depart from to the monastery built over the hole in the ground that ifs allegedly the entrance to Purgatory and where the really Catholic, guilt ridden, beat myself up, pilgrimages occur.
View attachment 31273
For a not insubstantial donation to the monastery you can spend 24 or 48 hours on the island, barefoot, no food or water, walking from prayer point to prayer point around the island, no shelter, kneeling at the prayer points to pray and doing it all incessantly, no sleep, no rest. Hmmmm
At the end of the jetty is a large engraved stone.
View attachment 31272
Erected to ask forgiveness for all the teenage girls who got pregnant, thrown out by their own families and hidden in the local nunnery by the parish priest; all the little children that were killed in those Mother & Baby homes by the nuns; all the young girls forced into slavery in the Magdalen laundries run by nuns; all the young boys beaten and buggered in the Industrial Schools run by priests; all the paedophilia the Church has condoned and covered up. But it’s all ok now because we erected a stone by a godforsaken windswept lake in the North West of Ireland. Great
A quick 5k walk to stretch our legs and Mrs P and I decided to leave this miserable place and head south to warmer climes.
Except we couldn’t
Must be God punishing us for being non-believers and blocking our escape route.
View attachment 31269
I almost forgot to say, we were the only people there that day, perhaps modern day pilgrims only go when the sun is out
We eventually clear the errant castle without causing a stampede or having them trample over the car and make our way south to Castlebar and surprise T by creeping up behind her
View attachment 31268
I think the Lough Derg experience has affected me for that evening I ordered a Guinness zero
View attachment 31275
View attachment 31276
LOL, only kidding. I may have ordered the lentil burger but it was for Mrs P
View attachment 31277
Mind you I did drink the Guinness zero though, it was surprisingly good actually, I may have it again
I'nt Donegal brilliant