ANCIENT CHURCHES OF INISHOWEN

"How beautiful they stand
Those old grey churches of our native land!
Amid the pasture fields and dark green woods,
Amid the mountain's cloudy solitudes;
Each in its little plot of holy ground."

by Landon

Though Inishowen's magnificent series of early crosses shows it to have been an important centre of Christianity, the remains of its ancient churches are on the whole disappointing. Many have been rebuilt in the 17th or 18th century; others have disappeared sometimes so completely that even the graveyards surrounding them are remembered only by tradition.

The wild mountains of Inishowen would never have borne much timber, so we should not expect these remains showing evidence of timber-construction, such as are found in other parts of Ireland. Even the earliest churches must have been of stone and it is surprising that more of them have not survived. We can however form some idea of them from two small buildings, the little chapel of Doon on the shore at Drumnakill (Malin Head) and the so-called Saint's Grave or Skull House at Cooley near Moville.

The former is a small building, ruined on the west, measuring internally 35ft x15¼ft. The quoins are of rough ashlar. The walls are faced with large stones packed into with chips and apparently without mortar. There were slit-windows on south and east, with widely splaying jambs, such as are common in Romanesque architecture in the west. The east window was about four feet high and probably surmounted by a round arch; its inner face had a rectangular lintel. Such primitive chapels are often found in the west of Ireland. They conform to a very archaic style of building, though some examples may in fact be of late date, after more advanced fashions had been introduced to other parts of the country.

The Saint's Grave at Cooley is a small stone-roofed building not unlike some of the primitive churches found in Leinster. The door is surmounted by a massive lintel, the roof has a steep pitch.

Extract from "'Twixt Foyle & Swilly"

Back