Coronavirus: Pilgrims urged to 'do Lough Derg from wherever'

Father La Flynn has maintained the tradition of prayer on the island

One of Ireland’s holiest sites, Lough Derg in County Donegal, has cancelled its traditional three-day pilgrimage, writes Julian Fowler, South West Reporter, BBC News NI

Thousands of pilgrims visit St Patrick’s Purgatory near Pettigo each summer.

The island has been a place of Christian worship for more than 1,500 years.

In the absence of normal crowds, the prior Fr La Flynn has maintained a solitary vigil on the island, keeping the tradition of prayer alive.

Fr La had hoped that once coronavirus restrictions began to be lifted Lough Derg could reopen to limited numbers of pilgrims, but that has now been ruled out.

Instead, people are being invited to undertake the three-day pilgrimage ritual and do “Lough Derg from wherever you are” from 27 to 29 June.

Fr La said it would not be a “virtual pilgrimage” and people who register on the Lough Derg website in advance were expected to carry out the full exercises of prayer and fasting over the three days.

“People will take off their shoes, they will make their stations in their bare feet, they will observe the three-day fast, they will keep the vigil, so it will be the full pilgrimage but they’ll do it wherever they are,” he explained.

St Patrick’s Purgatory usually welcomes thousands of visitors each summer

“Obviously we’re not going to be policing it, but they’re on pilgrims’ honour, if they sign up for it and do it all, let us know and we’re going to offer some little kind of acknowledgement of that.”
‘Running a shebeen’

Fr La said there was an historical precedent for the prior of Lough Derg to grant permission to do the pilgrimage from afar in exceptional circumstances.

In 1921, about 250 republican prisoners asked for permission to perform the pilgrimage exercise while they were detained at a prison camp in Ballykinlar in County Down.

In 1923, the same request was made by 194 republican internees on board the prison ship Argenta, moored in Belfast Lough.

He said it was a way for people, some of whom come to Lough Derg every year, to continue the tradition.

It is only the second time in two centuries that the pilgrimage has not taken place.

F La recalled the previous occasion was in 1828 in response to a very different type of crisis.

“The pilgrims that came were being overcharged and were being badly treated by the boatmen.

“A colourful side of the story is that the enterprising boatmen were running a shebeen and making Poitín and selling it to pilgrims, would you believe.

“So the prior, having been put to the end of his tether, decided that he was going to close the pilgrimage for that particular year, 1828, and it had the desired effect.”

Father La told BBC News NI his isolation on the island since 1 June had been a time of reflection.

“Nobody forced me to come here or to isolate myself here, I’m probably one of the safest people in the country in terms of isolation,” he said.

He said he had chosen to be on the island and he felt a “prayerful solidarity with so many people who had no choice about that, and who therefore had to endure being isolated and find the resources to see themselves through”.
Memorial book

Fr La said hundreds of people had sent prayer requests to Lough Derg during the crisis “many of them in relation to the coronavirus”.

“Some for people who are sick, some coping with the loss of a loved one to corona.

“More of them about people just wanting the Lord’s help to be able to endure and to be able to get through, and to let go of the anxieties that this time has raised for so very many people.”

A Covid-19 memorial book will also be placed in Saint Mary’s Church on Station Island for those who have lost their lives.

“I feel that apart from those who have lost somebody that there maybe will be a bit of grieving to be done about all of this and the cost that has been,” said Fr La.

“We are trying to respond to this totally unique time and respond to it, please God, in a way that would be in keeping with the man from Nazareth and the values that he modelled for us and that we try to live by.”

Lough Derg is intending to open in a limited way on the lakeshore from 6 July and may offer day retreats on the island later in the year.

Courtesy BBC NI News
Published on line 23 June 1010

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Coronavirus: Pilgrims urged to ‘do Lough Derg from wherever’