Page "St Patrick's Purgatory" Paragraph 15

There is no evidence that the pilgrimage to St. Patrick ’ s Purgatory was ever interrupted for any period of time.

It continues even today, after almost fifteen-hundred years.

Every year the main pilgrimage season begins in late May / early June and ends mid-August, on the 15th, the feast of the Assumption of Mary.

It is a three-day pilgrimage open to pilgrims of all religions, or none, who must be at least fifteen years of age, in good health and able to walk and kneel unaided.

Pilgrims, who should begin fasting at the previous midnight, assemble at the Visitor Centre on the shore of Lough Derg early in the day ( between about 10 am and 1 pm ).

From there a boat ferries them on the brief trip out to Station Island.

Once on the island they are assigned a dormitory room, and barefoot they begin a specified and almost continuous cycle of prayer and liturgies.