And the whole time I thought her name was Joan, and this is not the narrative we taught in school...along with some other stuff from the Nye Manuscript...

... Although nominally Christianised, there is little doubt that the early mediaeval Irish retained many relics of their former condition of paganism, especially those which possessed a magical tendency. This is made clear by the writings of Giraldus Cambrensis, the first account we have of Irish manners and customs after the invasion of the country by the Anglo - Normans. His description, for example, of the Purgatory of St. Patrick in Lough Derg, Co. Donegal, proves that the demonology of the Catholic Church had already fused with the animism of Irish native heathenesse. He says:

" There is a lake in Ulster containing an island divided into two parts. In one of these stands a church of especial sanctity, and it is most agreeable and delightful, as well as beyond measure glorious for the visitations of angels and the multitude of the saints who visibly frequent it. The other part, being covered with rugged crags, is reported to be the resort of devils only, and to be almost always the theatre on which crowds of evil spirits visibly perform their rites. This part of the island contains nine pits, and should any one perchance venture to spend the night in one of them (which has been done, we know, at times, by some rash men), he is immediately seized by the malignant spirits, who so severely torture him during the whole night, inflicting on him such unutterable sufferings by fire and water, and other torments of various kinds, that when morning comes scarcely any spark of life is found left in his wretched body. It is said that any one who has once submitted to these torments as a penance imposed upon him,will not afterwards undergo the pains of hell, unless he commit some sin of a deeper dye.

" This place is called by the natives the Purgatory of St. Patrick. For he, having to argue with a heathen race concerning the torments of hell, reserved for the reprobate, and the real nature and eternal duration of the future life, in order to impress on the rude minds of the unbelievers a mysterious faith in doctrines so new, so strange, so opposed to their prejudices, procured by the efficacy of his prayers an exemplification of both states even on earth, as a salutary lesson to the stubborn minds of the people."
https://exploringrealhistory.blogspot.com/2021/02/part-8-encyclopedia-of-ancient-and.html