Ed Mitchell Outdoors

Underground Room at the Church of St. Kilcatherine

What was down there? Hold onto your socks my friend. A small room with two cold, stone beds and a few flat rocks to kneel on. Click on the picture to the right to get a better view.

So who would sleep in a tomb? Good question, and one that haunted me even after my return to the States. Eventually I found an answer in a book on ancient Irish Mythology. On one page there was an old illustration showing man emerging from the ground behind a church. The text explained that when St.Patrick first came to the Emerald Isle, he noticed that pagan priest often spent time in caves as a means of reaching a higher state of consciousness. St.Patrick took this concept and located a special cave for a very special ceremony. The location was Saint’s Island in Lough Derg. and it would become a famous destination for pilgrims.

Now to undergo this ceremony, you first had to petition the bishop for permission. Permission would immediately be denied, as it was deemed too dangerous a request. So you petitioned again and again until the bishop gave in. At that point you were prepared by fasting, and a full day of pray in the church. Then exhausted, you were escorted- likely by candlelight- to the graveyard and placed in the ground. At which point the priest closed the entrance off with rock.

There you spent the night, buried in the graveyard, halfway between the living and the dead. And hey, that was exactly the intention. For that night, you were believed to be in purgatory, atoning for your sins.  In the morning the priest rolled back the stone and, if you were still alive, you walked out free of all sins. Amen….

I’ll venture that in later years this subterranean chamber had additional uses, perhaps as a retreat for monks. Who can tell? But that my friends ends my short, daytime, daylight, visit to purgatory……….(See recent post)

Crosses at the Church of St. Kilcatherine

Ok, our pilgrimage to purgatory continues….While wandering through the graveyard, I began to notice the variety of crosses used on the tombstones. As you would expect the Celtic Cross was evident in fair number; to my eye it is the most handsome of all. But there were many other styles, more than I had ever seen in one place. A few I recognized. The Canterbury, and the Maltese. Still, a large number of them were new to me. And I could only think that wide range of styles reflected the tremendous age of the graveyard, and the influence of many cultures. (Recent post)

Three Crosses

Way in the back of the church, there was one cross far older than the rest. It was a slab of stone that had been formed into a crude cross. I’m fairly certain the work had been by hand, using a hard rock to pound and chip away at the perimeter of the slab until the correct shape emerged. I’ll venture this cross was over a thousand years old.

Just beyond that there was a mound in the earth, roughly waist high. Covered with grass, I first thought it to be a buried boulder, but the more I studied the mound the more I became convinced it was man-made. For one thing I could see rocks peeking through the grass. And these rocks appeared to be stacked. But the most telling clue was right at my feet. There was hole dug the ground that looked like an entrance-way…… Now onward to part 3

Last year while on Ireland’s Beara peninsula, I took a side trip to purgatory. Now
I can hear you groaning from here; still listen to me, I have the photographs to prove it. But before I show you what purgatory looks like, I want to tell a story. And it might take a few posts to do it. But if you have ever wondered, my friend, what lies between heaven and hell, stick around.

The Church of St. Kilcatherine aka Cill Chaitighern

During my trip in 2010, I hiked approximately 70 miles of rural Ireland. With backpack, camera, water and a supply of dark chocolate, I set out each day to see the small towns, stark coastline, and backcountry of the Beara. I think about those days often. On one particular sojourn, I came to a church ruin. Now Ireland is loaded with ruins, some dating back to the Neolithic. Yet I found this one particularly intriguing. It was the church of Kilcatherine, or in Galelic – Cill Chaitighern.

Cat Goddess

Sitting on a knoll, the church overlooks the ocean, with the mountains of the Beara hanging in the distance. Its a humble stone structure, dating from the 7th century. Back then pagan and Catholic beliefs were fighting for hearts and souls of the Irish people. And this ruin holds a testament to that struggle. Over the south entrance to the church, there is a small gargoyle. It is said to represent the Cat Goddess, an ancient mythological diety. In order to replace such pagan beliefs, Catholic missionaries assimilated some dieties and simply renamed them. Clever,that. Hence it is believed that the Cat Goddess morphed into St. Kilcatherine. Alright, time for part 2.….

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