Saint Patrick Cleaning - and other legends of medieval Ireland

In the Middle Ages, it was believed that it was on Lake Loch Derg, located in the north of Ireland, in the County of the Donetol, there is an entrance to the purgatory - a place where souls are too sinful for paradise, but too righteous for hell. According to legend, Patrick, the first and great Holy Ireland, opened the passage there, especially for the conviction of the unauthorized, so that they could go into purgatory and come out alive. Now there is no more entry, but every year Loch Derg visits from 8 to 10 thousand pilgrims-and this despite the fact that the stay on it includes a mandatory three-day post and a 24-hour wakefulness. Who and why made long and dangerous pilgrimages and dared to go down to the afterlife? What are they looking for the island of Pilgrim today? How did the medieval Europeans imagine the device of hell, purge and paradise? Do they believe in purgatory today? Finally, as in the legends of St. Patrick, Irish myths with Christian faith have intertwined?
Dilshat Harman - candidate of art history, senior researcher at the Center for Visual Research of the Middle Ages and New Age (RSU), Co -author of Besseller, “Painting Middle Ages, answers these questions . The paradoxes of Christian iconography.