A Study on the Literature of St Patrick's Purgatory in Lough Derg

点击翻译按钮获取中文摘要

The pilgrimage to St. Patrick's purgatory on Station Island of Lough Derg has an extraordinary magnetism that attracts many Irish writers. Lough Derg has been an arena of Irish literature over eight hundred years. In this study, the transformation of Irish society is examined through Lough Derg literature from the mid-nineteenth century to 1980s. This research consists of three parts : (1) Analysis of Lough Derg Literature : William Carleton's 'Lough Derg Pilgrim' (1843), Patrick Kavanagh's poem, 'Lough Derg', written in 1940s, and Seamus Heaney's sequence of poems, 'The Station Island' (1984) are the works mainly dealt with and examined. Each writer's concerns are focused on the sources of artistic creativity, artistic freedom or the lack of it, and the preoccupation with the past through place. Certainly, each work is the writer's challenge of redefining himself and his society. (2) Lough Derg and the sociological analysis of contemporary Irish society. In contrast to the drastic decline in numbers of church attendance, Lough Derg pilgrimage continues to thrive. This aspect is examined through the fieldwork at Lough Derg and interviewing of the pilgrims (2002), and the analysis of popular literature and newspaper articles. Lough Derg literature, especially Heaney' s, attracts a new type of 'tourists' and this can make an assumption of alternative tourism there. (3) Comparative study of pilgrimage and pilgrim literature between Ireland and Japan. In order to highlight the characteristics of Lough Derg pilgrimage, the fieldwork of pilgrimage to 88 temples at Shikoku (in part) was done with Dr McCartney from University of Ulster.