It is a four-minute ferry ride to Station Island on Lough Derg, and four minutes back, but it is two very different journeys. There is a quietness among passengers going over, and a giddiness as they return.
Between late May and mid-August thousands of barefoot pilgrims come to St Patrick’s Purgatory on the Co Donegal island to undertake a three-day programme of prescribed prayer and reflection, including a 24-hour sleepless vigil.
This has been a place of penance since the fifth century, and pilgrims fast, with just one daily meal of oat biscuits or dry toast and tea or coffee.
“People come because something draws them, maybe there’s a search of some kind,” says the island’s prior, Monsignor La Flynn.
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Sisters Kathy Keighery and Mairéad Campbell, from Co Longford, are there for their father, Patrick Brady, who died in May. “He came every year and he used to make it sound so easy,” says Mairéad.
Francie and John Ward from Manchester, England, are here to pray for their brother, Anthony, who has cancer. Trevor Markham travelled home to Ennis, Co Clare, from Florida to bring his father, Ollie, to the island.
While there is a lot happening in this confined space – not much bigger than a football field – it feels calm. People are focused on their constant circuits of the outdoor stone “stations”, regardless of the weather and the midges.
Their eyes look downward in prayer, watching their footing on the cold, slippery stones. As the hours pass, you begin to recognise people by their feet.
A ban on electronic devices adds to the serenity, and participants are curious and open, with conversations starting and flowing easily between the silences.
“It’s always peaceful,” says Seamus from Co Tyrone, who is on his sixth pilgrimage. “It’s great to get away from your mobile phone.”
Pilgrims fast for a further 12 hours after leaving the island, but yet, as the ferry crosses, spirits are high. Their joy is contagious.
