At the time when Saint Patrick preached the holy gospel in Hibernia, which we call Ireland, and reinforced his preaching by wondrous miracles of Our Lord, Saint Patrick found the people of that land as hard and wild as if they were beasts and used enormous labor and pains to indoctrinate them and teach them to convert to the faith of Our Lord God Jesus Christ; and often he spoke to them of the pains of hell and the glory of paradise in order to turn them from their wretchedness and sins and confirm them in the good life; but all this did nothing for them for they said that they would believe nothing of it unless some of them saw it, that is to say the glory of the good and the pain of the wicked, and they did not wish to abstain on the orders of Saint Patrick who had his intent in God.
And for this reason the good man began to make fasts and vigils and prayers most devoutly to God and many other good works for the salvation of the people's souls. And Our Lord appeared to him as he had done on other occasions and gave him the book of gospels and a staff, which they call the Staff of Jesus, as he gave it to his servant, and in his own life he testifies that that staff and that book are a sign that he is the apostle of Ireland. And afterwards Our Lord led him to a deserted place and showed him a very dark pit and Our Lord told him that he who would enter into it, confessed and penitent and pure of heart, would be free on that very day of all his sins and would see the torments of the wicked and the joys and glory of the good. This Our Lord said to Saint Patrick and then Our Lord departed from him and the good man was most joyous on account of what Our Lord had told him when he showed him the pit so that he could convert the people.
And afterwards he had a church begun very near that place and established in it a chapter of canons regular and set good doors on the pit. And the whole island is surrounded by the waters of a large, very deep lake around the pit. And he had a cemetery made there and had the door made and shut with a key, so that no one could enter without permission, and to the east he had good walls made and entrusted the key to the guardianship of the prior of the church. And many people entered the pit in the time of Saint Patrick to do penance for their sins and said, when they returned, that they had seen hell and had passed through great and painful torments and also had seen many great glories and many joys.
And Saint Patrick had the reports set down in writing inside the church and afterwards he recommended to the people and recounted to them all the things which they had seen — by the testimony of those who had entered there, all these wondrous things; and that is why it is called the pit of Saint Patrick and purgatory since there one purges one's sins. And because it was first shown to Saint Patrick by Our Lord it is also called the Saint Patrick's purgatory. And in the aforesaid land of Ireland there are various monasteries of this order, great and solemn and larger than that of the purgatory.