FIGURES ARE up once again for the number of pilgrims to St Patrick’s Purgatory at Lough Derg, Co Donegal, following the beginning of this season’s one- day retreats there at the weekend.Overall figures for last year showed that there was between a 10 per cent and 15 per cent increase on numbers there over 2008.
Deborah Maxwell, manager at Lough Derg, said pilgrimages had gone “extremely well” over the weekend, with up to 300 pilgrims there yesterday, for instance. Overall figures for the weekend indicated an increase on last year, she added.
The one-day retreats were first introduced at Lough Derg in 1992. They continue until May 30th every week on Mondays, Tuesdays, Saturdays and Sundays. They resume again on August 18th, continuing until September 21st.
The three-day retreats begin on June 1st and continue until August 13th. The figures for these more traditional retreats were up very significantly last year also.
As Lough Derg prior Msgr Richard Mohan has said, it was in the traditional three-day pilgrimage, “the very heart of Lough Derg”, that saw the biggest increase last year.
Ms Maxwell said that by far the greatest number of pilgrims come from Dublin. This did not surprise her when population was taken into account. However, what did surprise her were the large numbers who came from Cork, as it was so far from Donegal.
Less surprising were pilgrim numbers from neighbouring counties Tyrone, Fermanagh and Derry, as well as Donegal itself.
St Patrick’s Purgatory is believed to be among the oldest centres of Christian pilgrimage in western Europe, supposedly dating back to the 6th century.
On Monday, May 17th, Church of Ireland Bishop Ken Clarke will speak there on “The Jesus I know”.
Others scheduled to be there include Fr Gerry Reynolds of the Redemptorists Clonard monastery in Belfast and Rev Dr Ken Newell, former Moderator of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland, both of whom will speak on August 31st.
- Further details at www.loughderg.org