In his Viatge al Purgatori (1397), Ramon de Perellós devotes almost as much attention to recounting his experiences of Ireland and the Irish he does to describing those he claims to have had within St Patrick’s Purgatory (on Lough Derg, Co. Donegal), which he entered in order to see whether or not the soul of the recently deceased king of Aragon, Joan I, was in the way of salvation. Perellós’s Viatge is acknowledged by historians as an important source of information about life in Ireland in the late 14th century, although its reliability on certain points has been questioned. In this paper, it is proposed to use other contemporary and near contemporary visitor accounts of Ireland not only to consider the issue of veracity but also to explore what Perellós’s observations may reveal about him and the world which shaped him.