Would your ancestors have gone barefoot for three days?

Céad Míle Fáilte, and you are very welcome to this week’s Letter from Ireland. We’ve come to the end of a long dry spell across much of Ireland and the farmers are hurriedly harvesting the barley, leaving a lovely patchwork of gold and green across the fields. How are things in your part of the world today?

Let me start today by asking if you have any traditions in your family that go back a long time? Maybe it’s all getting together on a particular holiday, or always visiting a special place once a year – and you can’t remember quite how it started.

But imagine if there were a tradition in your neighbourhood that went back a thousand years or more. A tradition that went back so far that it had been mentioned in the history books and tied up with events that still occupy the national psyche. It is such an Irish tradition that I want to chat about today – the pilgrimage to Lough Derg in Donegal, which has been going on in one form or another for well over a thousand years.

So, I’m having a cup of Barry’s tea as I write and hope you will join me now with a cup of whatever you fancy yourself as we start into today’s letter.

Would Your Irish Ancestors Have Gone Barefoot for Three Days?

“Well, how did you get on at Lough Derg?”

I was asking my friend Mary, who goes on pilgrimage to Lough Derg every other July.

“Sure grand, it was the same grand experience as usual.”

Mary knows that those of us who have never done Lough Derg can never really know what it feels like. She gave up trying to entice Carina and me to join her some time ago.

Maybe next year?

But our conversation got me wondering. Would your Irish ancestors have gone on pilgrimage to Lough Derg?

There is an old story that in the year 1152 Tiernan O’Rourke, king of Breifne, went on pilgrimage to a place called Lough Derg in what is now County Donegal. While there, he received word that his wife Dervorgilla was abducted by another Irish king, Diarmait Mac Murchada of Leinster.

This is a story that has been told for centuries: O’Rourke was away doing penance while his great rival carried off his wife. There is some history behind it, but we need to be a little careful with the details.

You see, in 1152, several Irish kings had combined against O’Rourke and driven him from part of his territory. During that conflict, Dervorgilla was taken away by Diarmait Mac Murchada along with her cattle and possessions. She was returned to O’Rourke the following year.

So, did Tiernan O’Rourke first hear the news while on pilgrimage at Lough Derg? Possibly. It is certainly an old tradition, and I like the sound of it! What we do know is that O’Rourke never forgot how he had been betrayed while at a place of prayer. Fourteen years later, in 1166, he was among those who finally drove Diarmait Mac Murchada from Ireland, taking revenge for what had happened to his wife. Diarmait sailed over to Britain and looked for help from Henry II, king of England. Henry then gave permission to recruit among his lords, and Diarmait found willing supporters among the Norman lords settled in south Wales.

And so, he returned to Ireland in 1167 with a small force, and in 1169 a much larger Cambro-Norman force landed on the Wexford coast. Strongbow followed in 1170, and Henry II himself arrived in Ireland the following year. From those events grew the Anglo-Norman conquest of Ireland and the long involvement of the English Crown in Irish affairs.

But this story became attached to Lough Derg, and shows that by the twelfth century Lough Derg was already a well-known place.

A Pilgrimage Known Across Europe

The Lough Derg that I am talking about lies near the modern village of Pettigo in County Donegal, close to the border with County Fermanagh.

Christian pilgrimage in the area goes back to the early centuries of the Church in Ireland. An early monastery was established there and, over time, the lake became associated with St Patrick himself. According to tradition, Patrick spent time fasting and praying in a cave there and was shown a vision of what lay beyond death. The cave, located on the island, became known as St Patrick’s Purgatory.

By the later Middle Ages, people were travelling to Lough Derg from far beyond Ireland. We know of medieval pilgrims travelling to Lough Derg from places such as France, Italy and Hungary, and its fame became so great that it appeared on European maps at a time when very few places in Ireland made an appearance on any maps.

The authorities tried more than once to stop the pilgrimage. The famous cave was ordered closed in 1497, and there were further attempts at suppression during the 17th and 18th centuries. But people continued to make the journey, and over time the main pilgrimage moved from Saints Island to nearby Station Island.

That is the island that my friend Mary travels to every second July.

Would Your Own People Have Gone?

So, would any of your Irish ancestors have taken a pilgrimage to Lough Derg? Quite possibly, but the problem is that your great-great-grandmother and her family may have walked for days to reach Lough Derg, spent three days on the island, and then walked home again without leaving a single record of their presence there.

Isn’t that true of so much of the ordinary lives of our ancestors? We can often easily discover where somebody lived, who they married, how much land they had and where their children were baptised, but we rarely know where they went when they were living through the cycle of their days and years. And pilgrimage belonged to that cycle of life.

There were old pilgrim roads leading towards Lough Derg, and groups travelled there from parishes and dioceses around Ireland. For families in Ulster and north Connacht in particular, Lough Derg would have been a well-known part of their world. There may well have been someone in your own family who made the journey with other family members.

What Mary Does Every Other July

What surprises me the most is how demanding the pilgrimage still is. When you arrive at the mainland centre near Pettigo, you begin your fast at midnight and take the short boat journey across to Station Island. Once there, your shoes come off and remain off for the duration of your stay.

Over the three days you complete nine Stations, each involving a sequence of prayers around the basilica, the old penitential beds and the crosses on the island. At St Brigid’s Cross you face the lake and renounce “the World, the Flesh and the Devil”, and at the penitential beds you walk around the old stone circles and kneel to pray.

There is one simple meal each day of toast or oatcakes, along with tea or coffee, but without milk. You may also hear pilgrims talking about “Lough Derg soup”, meaning hot water with salt and pepper added. I’m sure that when you are hungry enough it tastes surprisingly good. But then comes the part that has always made Carina and me hesitate.

On the first night, the vigil begins and you remain awake through the night and through the following day, completing more prayers and Stations. You finally sleep on the second night and leave the island the following morning, but continue fasting until midnight.

So that’s three days of walking barefoot and fasting, with nine Stations and without a full night’s sleep. Yet people like Mary come back and do it again.

Whenever I see Mary at this time of year, she brings to mind all the people who must have crossed that short stretch of water over the centuries. They went because they had something to pray for, or something to give thanks for. But I suspect plenty of them went for another reason too – because their parents and grandparents had gone before them.

So, let me leave you with a question for this week.

Did your parents or grandparents ever talk about going somewhere special every year – to Lough Derg, a holy well, a shrine, a pattern day or some other place that mattered to the family? Maybe it was in Ireland, or maybe it was a tradition they carried with them after they emigrated.

Do leave your answer in the comments section below, I’d love to hear of any rituals or traditions in your ancestral family.

Slán for now,

Mike.