JOURNAL OF THE COUNTY DONEGAL HISTO~ICAL SOCIETY .. 1 • ~ . • Methodist Church fronting Street and built in 1896. the Maln the finder clipped a small piece out of one of the corners to see if the metal The first church near Ballintra goes were gold. ·The bell eventually came back to the days of the National Apostle. into the safe k~eping of the late Major Colgan's Tripartite Life of St. Patrick re- Hamilton, Brownhall. cords that when the saint was travelllng . About a quarter of a mile along an from Oonnacht to Tirconail he founded ancient lane~ which runs in a· westerly a church at Rathcunga, better known dir~ction past the site of IBallymagroarty locally as Racoo. The date is given as Abbey there is on a low hill a remark-. 440 A.D. able fort known as Ard Fothadh. It Situated on a hilltop a little to the .is muc~ larger than the other ringed south of Ballintra, on one of the greenest forts common to our hilltops. !Donnell, hills in the district, no trace of th 3 son of Hugh son of Ainmire, King of all church exists to-day, but there are many Ireland, had his residence here in the green mounds to show that it was us~d, seventh century and the Four Masters in early times, as a place of burial. give his death as occurring in A.D. 639. Nobody has been buried there within The Tripartite Life of St. Patrick ihe last hundred years, and there are states that the saint visitsd this spot and no stones bearing inscriptions. At the decided to build .a church there. instead northern base of the hill .there is a holy of on ~acoo; but it was miraculously well known as St. Patt"ick's Well, to which revealed to him that the place was despilgrimages are frEquently made, anj the tined for a royal residence; The tort · land is the prop2rty of Mr. Joseph Walls, has an outside circumference of 870 Ballintra. feet and an inside diameter of. 2:30 feet. Local tradition has it that a mothl~r Within the ring, but not exactly central, of seven bishops is buried at Racoo; but is a cone shaped mound with a circumthis is probably a confusion of the recJ~·ct ference of 190 feet. It is constructed whfoh gives it as the place of interment of stones and forms a chamber, the· of St. Assicus, Bishop of Elphin, and five entranc:; to which is now closed. Situatej other bishops. It is thought that it ·in the townland of GlassboUy, Mr. George was from Racoo that the saint went to Walsh is the owner of the farm whereon · Loch Derg, which lies about seven miles it stands. away in a direct line to the north-east. About a half-a-mile to the south The blue outline of Croaghbrack moun- is a hill, some six hundred feet above tain, overlooking the lake, can be seen ~ea level, known as Lurgan Cairn. A rising up in a depression among the pile of stones crowns the top and some nearer hiUs of many hues which lie caves run into the side of this great between. limestone pile on the northern Side. Th:: Not more than a thousand yards view from, the summit is one of th:; due west of Racoo, in the townland of finest in the parish-Donegal0 Bay with Ballymagroarty, stood an abbey, of lati3i. its numerous indentations-and islaridsdate, founded by St. Columba. Nothing Bell's Isle and St. .Ernan's, both thickly of the building can be seen there n~m. wooded at the eastern. end and in the but the site can be pointed ·out by peopl ~ far background the wild ·Barnesmore living around. An inquisition taken at Gap, so often the subject of legend and· BHllyshannon in 1621 stated that 3!. song. We follow the mountain chain as .· quarters of the land at Ballymagroarty it sweeps along .an. impressive blue bar1_420 Irish acres) were attached to the rier, to the north-west, until it terminates abbey. at Horn Head with the Atlantic surg.3 The famous Battle Book, known as breaking at its base. the +Cathach of Sit. Columba, was kept Following the circle from c.,u.r here in the custody of the Mac Roarty pivotal point on the cair~. the eye sweeps clan, from which the townland is said westward until we see a dark patch on to have takes its name. the sea which makes the historic island Over 100 years ago a man named of Inismurry, five miles off the Sligo Jack Kelly, who was working near the coast; and very faint on the outermost ruins, dug up a hand bell about 12 lbs. ring of the sea, a mountain in Mayo. in weight and in good preservation. It On the western slope of this Lurgan measured lO inches high by 6 across, but hill is a megalith of the p•re-history class, +See "Bibliograiphy of County Doneg.a,l'." believed to be of a type similar to 1hat excavated by the Harvard mission at 101
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