St. Patrick's Purgatory was an Irish sacred site associated with the legendary St. Patrick himself although its use may well have preceded the Christian conversion of Ireland. The “Purgatory” was a small underground cave in which pilgrims could spend the night. The idea was that they were undergoing a symbolic death and rebirth, in which they could expect to be haunted by the demons of Hell and have visions of the dead in Purgatory.

Some scholars believe this to have originally been a pagan site, because the ritual bears a strong resemblance to a practice known as “incubation.” Incubation, the practice of going underground to commune with the dead and experience death and rebirth, was common in the mystery religions of the ancient world.

Even though the incubation ritual was performed in a Christian context in medieval Ireland, its similarity with pagan rituals suggests that the site may originally have been a Druidic oracle before Christianity came to the island. Whether this is the case or not cannot be proven at this point, but either way the institutional church eventually decided that the “Purgatory” was not an appropriate practice for the faithful to engage in, and the cave was closed up in the 17^th century. No one has seen it since, but the island where the cave is located is still a popular pilgrimage site for Irish Catholics, who walk a demanding circuit of prayer stations around the island. As spiritually meaningful as this pilgrimage must be, I can't help but wish that access to the original cave was still a possibility.