JOURNAL OF THE cOtlNTY D6NEdAL HISTORICAL SOCIETY mound consisted of a chamber 10 feet long and 7! feet wide, the greater axis running along East and West. This chamber was lined on the North side by four large boulders, set on edge. The roadway to the southern side was cut so close to the mound as to undermine or dislodge the containing boulders on this side. Eighteen inches from the surface he came on a polished stone axe or celt, :five inches long and two and-a half inches wide at the cutting edge. At a depth of 2! feet he came upon a modern clay pipe, two and half inches long. At 4! feet he reached the natural, undisturbed stratum, below which digging was useless. The conclusion which Mr. Morris drew from the result of his work was that the grave was of remote antiquitypossibly 3000 IB.C.; ap,d that the twelfth century King of Tirconail is probably buried somewhere in the graveyard at the 'foot of the hill, where the bones of several saints .have also crumbled into dust. There are two graveyards at Mullinacross, Protestant and Catholic. A lane separates both but there is no record of when a separation was made in the places of burial among the people of the two religions. It is sixty years or more since the last burial took place in the Clatholic graveyard. :A.bout two miles to the east, in the townland of Tfummori West, there was also a burial ground at an old monastery there. J:t is marked on an Ordnance Survey Map dated 1835 Monastery in Ruins. Neither the ruins nor graveyard are to be seen at the present day. 'I'he graveyard was ploughed up more than half a century ago, and the ·walls were carted to build fences. Nothing ls known about the early Abbots and the name__,.Temple Mac Mealaghan is only preserved in tradition. From this spot, if we turn westwards, we can soon reach the quiet seaside v1llage of Mullinasole, now sadly depleted in houses and population wheri ·compared wlth a former day. It was once a busy :fishing place, with a quay to which ships with grain and coal could come and discharge their cargoes during Spring tides. They would only be r.·f slight tonnage. No ships come there now and the :fishing 'fleet is also gone. There 'was ·a salt-works at Mullinasole up tm about seventy yea·rs ago. During a. wlld storm which suddenly sprang up at day-break one morning in November, 1831, and only lasted half an hour, this salt works was almost completely destroyed. Twelve houses near the high water mark were also washed from their foundations, but there was no loss of life. The roof was thatch on the old Catholic Church at Ballintra before the present one was built in 1845, and t.his storm almost left it roofless. 'rhe Protestant Church at Ballintra had all the slates blown off on one side, and for a time afterwards It stood with one side thatched in place of the missing slates. Salmon fishing would appear to have been a ftourishing 1ridustry in the waters near Mullinasole over a century ago. As we look north from the quay we can see a wooded island about a mil~ down the harbour. Known as Bell's Isle, a Scottish Company built a house there about the beginning of the last century and engaged in salmon fishing in ,the surrounding waters. - We do not know exactly how many years this company carried on, but some time of the l830's the place came lrito the possession .of the Foster family from County Louth. -They were related to Vere Foster of copy book fame. At the ·time the Fosters came to Bell's Isle, the water ftoweci completely around it; at Spring tides. In 1847 Mrs. Foster constructed an embankment running from the eastern end of the_island for a furlong or more- to a high· ridge of sand out in the rabbit warren. This work left the island easy of access at all states_of the tide and gave useful employment in a time of great stress. Blankets and sand were used to keep the tides from washing away the mound of clay until it was faced with stones. . On the death of Mrs. Foster, her son, Mr. Arthur H. !Foster, took over at Bell's Isle. He married an aunt of the present Captain Hamilton, and in the early l860's he built a new front in the castellated style to his island residence. Up till then Bell's Isle •vas bare of trees. He planted all the slope3 mostly with hardwoods, as an almost complete absence of fir trees would ::>tern to indicate that those of the conifer class did not thrive there. In the winter of 1882 a fierce hurricane eaused the sea to make a bad breach in the Bell's Isle embankment, as it did with several others round these shores, and in no case has any of this 103
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