Analysis: How one man's drink-induced unconscious trip in 12th century Cork reshaped how the Western world imagines eternal damnation
When most of us picture Hell, we don't think about the sparse biblical descriptions of Sheol or the Lake of Fire. Instead, we see lakes of boiling pitch, shrieking demons with pitchforks and sinners roasted or chewed in monstrous mouths. But here’s the thing, much of that lurid imagery can be traced not to the Bible but to a 12th-century tale from…Cork.
The story begins with an Irish knight, Tnugdalus who later, is also referred to Tundalus deriving from the original Middle Irish Tnúdgal, meaning "desire-valour" or "fierce valour". Tundalus was hardly a model Christian. He was boastful, violent, greedy and, to put it bluntly, a bit of a disaster. One day in 1148, after an especially excessive bout of feasting and drinking in Cork, he collapsed into a death-like coma that lasted three days. To his friends and neighbours, he was as good as dead.
But inside that unconscious body, something extraordinary happened: his soul embarked on a guided tour of the afterlife. Led by an angel, Tundalus was dragged through terrifying hellscapes, purgatorial trials and heavenly visions. He was shown the torments awaiting liars, thieves, gluttons and the proud, complete with demons who tortured souls in creative, grotesque, and occasionally absurd ways. At the end of his vision, he glimpsed the peace of Paradise, then woke up, chastened and forever changed. It might be fair to say that poor old Tundalus went to Hell and back and lived to tell the tale.
The Getty Tondal, also known as Les visions du chevalier Tondal is an illuminated manuscript from 1475, and the French version of the Visio Tnugdali
Shortly after 1149, an Irish monk named Brother Marcus in the Scots monastery, Regensburg, Germany, hears Tnugdalus' account from the knight himself and writes down a translation from the Irish language in what is now known as the Visio Tnugdali (Vision of Tnugdalus). Marcus’s account of Tundalus’ vision was an instant hit and The Visio Tnugdali spread like wildfire across Europe.
For medieval audiences, this wasn’t just entertainment; it was spiritual instruction. Priests used Tundalus’ vision as a teaching tool, proof that sin had consequences and that repentance was possible, but it was also irresistible storytelling, full of vivid horror, grotesque humour, and imaginative detail.
Today, over 170 manuscripts survive of Tundalus’s vision, in Latin and vernacular languages including Irish, German and importantly Dutch. Why is this important? Well, because the manuscripts are often beautifully illustrated by monks, and some of the illuminations look uncannily like paintings painted three centuries later by the Dutch painter Hieronymus Bosch.
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From RTÉ Radio 1's Arena, Declan Long on the art of Hieronymus Bosch
In his monumental triptych, The Garden of Earthly Delights (c. 1490–1510), Bosch dedicates the painting's right-hand panel to Hell. It is one of the most famous depictions of eternal damnation in Western art: a nightmare of cities on fire in the background; war, torture chambers, infernal taverns, and demons in the midground, and mutated animals feeding on human flesh in the foreground.
Scholars have long debated Bosch’s sources. While he certainly drew on the Book of Revelation and on popular sermons, there’s strong evidence that visionary texts like the Visio Tnugdali were key inspirations. After all, Bosch lived in a culture saturated with these books, with many produced in monastic scriptoria near where Bosch would have lived and painted. When you compare the illuminations of Tundalus’ vision with Bosch’s panels, the family resemblance is undeniable. Which means that when you look at Bosch’s Hell, the one that shaped Western art forever, you’re really looking at Cork through a particularly twisted lens.
Here’s the fun irony, none of this detailed imagery that we associate with Hell is in the Bible. The Hebrew Bible speaks of Sheol, a shadowy underworld where all the dead go. The New Testament mentions Gehenna, a burning refuse pit outside Jerusalem, used as a metaphor for divine judgment. Revelation adds the Lake of Fire, but doesn’t elaborate on inventive punishments.
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From RTÉ Brainstorm, the story of a Co Roscommon cave's links to the Otherworld
But that’s it! No pitchforks, no grotesque demons, no ironic punishments (gluttons stuffed until they burst, adulterers roasted etc). The gory details, the ones that fueled sermons, plays, stained glass, and paintings for centuries, came from medieval vision literature: Visio Pauli, Visio Drythelm, Apocalypse of St. Peter and most of all, Visio Tnugdali
So is it fair to say that when you imagine Hell, you’re not picturing scripture but actually Cork? Now, let’s be fair. I am a proud Cork native and the Rebel County is a lovely place. But in the Middle Ages, Cork had another claim to fame, producing Europe’s most influential guided tour of Hell. If Dante's Inferno was Florence’s contribution to the afterlife, then Cork’s contribution was the raw material that gave Europe its most enduring nightmares.
At the heart of how we picture hell today is one Corkman's near-death vision
It’s tempting to joke that Cork is the original Hell, and some Dubliners might even agree. But in all seriousness, Cork gave the Western imagination something hugely powerful, the fire, the grotesque demons, the punishments tailored to sins, the imagery that fuelled our historical systems, that still colours our language, our jokes, our art, even our Halloween costumes. Without Cork, Hell might still look like a vague shadowland. With Cork, it became the vivid inferno we recognize today.
Hell as we picture it today isn’t straight from the Bible. It’s a patchwork of visions, sermons and art, but at the heart of it is one Corkman’s near-death vision. Next time you picture Hell, don’t think only of Bosch’s monsters or Dante’s circles. Think of the Rebel County, where one man’s drink-induced unconscious trip in the 12th century reshaped how the Western world imagines eternal damnation.
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The views expressed here are those of the author and do not represent or reflect the views of RTÉ
