Croagh Patrick was known as Crochan Aigh, the mount of the eagle, before it became associated with Patrick. Patrick retired to the summit of the mountain for a period of contemplation, fasting and prayer. He remained there fasting forty days and forty nights. Patrick was tormented by demons who assumed the form of Black Birds. He rang his bell so loudly that it was heard all over Ireland; finally he threw the bell at the demons so hard that it broke and the Black Birds departed. Patrick wept and an angel came to console him. He argued with the angel to secure special dispensations for the Irish people.
Today, thousands of pilgrims follow Patrick's footsteps and climb Croagh Patrick on Garland Sunday, the last Sunday in July. Pilgrims attend mass, receive confession and pray at St Patrick's Bed on the summit. The summer after Pope John Paul II's 1979 visit to Ireland, 60,000 pilgrims climbed the mountain on Garland Sunday. Today, just under half that number make the pilgrimage.
Saint Patrick's Purgatory is on an island on Lough Derg in County Donegal. Patrick visited the island in 445 to spend time in solitude, fasting and praying. For centuries, pilgrims have referred to Lough Derg as Saint Patrick's Purgatory. Throughout medieval Europe it acquired fame as the place of the most testing trial for the faithful - a descent into a cave to suffer the horrors of purgatory. For the Irish, it continued to be a retreat for intensive prayer, abstinence and penance. Travellers and pilgrims from England, France, Italy, Hungary, Holland and Spain travelled to the remote lough in the north west to self-inflict the experience of purgatory. Many pilgrims devoted their lives to a life of fasting, abstinence and penance after their visit to Lough Derg.
After the Reformation, English monarchs and governments attempted to outlaw pilgrimages to the island, but the suppression was unsuccessful. Even when pilgrims could not physically travel to the island, they travelled to the shore's edge to fast and pray. The island is open today to pilgrims between 13 June and 15 August and attracts 30 000 people every year for the three day pilgrimage. Pilgrims no longer enter a cave, but the spiritual exercises and physical penance have changed very little since the seventeenth century. The barefoot pilgrims recite 280 prayers at each of the nine stations, say night prayer, benediction, renew their baptismal vows and receive confession. They eat one meal a day, which consists of dry bread or oatcakes and drink black tea or coffee.
