* * * * * PATRICK'S PURGATORY. (Vol. vii., p. 552.) Dr. Lanigan, in his learned _Ecclesiastical History of Ireland_ (vol. i. p. 368.), states that the so-called Patrick's Purgatory is situated at Lough Derg (Donegal). It is never mentioned in any of the lives of the apostle, nor heard of till the eleventh century, the period at which the canons regular of St. Augustine first appeared, for it was to persons of that order, as the story goes, that St. Patrick confided the care of that cavern of wonders. Now there were no such persons in the island in which it is situated, nor in that of St. Davoc [Dabeoc?] in the same lake, until about the beginning of the twelfth century. This purgatory, or purging place, of Lough Derg, was set up against another Patrick's purgatory, viz. that of Croagh Patrick, mentioned by Jocelyn, which, however ill-founded the vulgar opinion concerning it, was less objectionable. Some writers have said that it got the name of Patrick's Purgatory from an Abbot Patrick, that lived in the ninth century; but neither were there canons regular of St. Augustine at that time, nor were such abridged modes of atoning to the Almighty for the sins of a whole life then thought of. It was demolished in the year 1497, by order of the Pope, although it has since been in some manner restored. The original Patrick's Purgatory then, it would appear, was at Croagh Patrick, in Mayo, near Westport; speaking of the pilgrimages made to which, the monk Jocelyn (in his _Life of St. Patrick_, written A.D. 1180, cap. 172.) says that-- "Some of those who spent a night there stated that they had been subjected to most fearful torments, which had the effect, as they supposed, of purging them from their sins, for which reason also certain of them gave to that place the name of St. Patrick's Purgatory."