Errigal Truagh old church

Situated on an E-W rise in a low-lying position, and in the loop of a small stream that runs W-E outside the graveyard at S and returns SE-NE on the NE side of a subrectangular graveyard (dims c. 80m N-S; c. 40-45m E-W) defined by masonry walls. The medieval parish church of Errigal Trough was dedicated to St Meallán, an associate of St Fursa, a seventh century county saint from Co. Down, However, little is known of Meallán except that his pattern is recorded as October 26 (Ó Riain 2011, 451-2). The names of some of the clergy are known from 1441 and in Spottiswold’s Visitation of 1622 the church is described as ruinous (Leslie 1929, 195-7). It was rebuilt and continued in use for Protestant worship until 1824 when the new Church of Ireland church of St Muadain was opened c. 150m to the SE (Shirley 1879, 290-3; McKenna 1920, 1, 207-35).

The remains of the medieval parish church consist of the W gable (L 8.3m; T 1.3m) with a central doorway (Wth 1.05m), but its round arch and the wall above it are rebuilt. The E gable (surviving L 7.85m; T 0.7m) has a large pointed opening (Wth 1.6m) but the dressed stones are robbed. The church has an external length of 22m. Most of the headstones in the graveyard, dating almost exclusively to the 18th century and dominated by those of McKenna, have been recorded (Taylor 1892-1900; Mulligan et al. 1987), while a more recent survey by Irish Graveyard Surveys is displayed at the entrance on the W side. The graveslab of Prior Tullius Kena, dated 1698, which was noted by John O’Donovan in 1835 (Herity 2012, 169) is no longer visible. Two corbels decorated with carved heads were moved to Favor Royal, Co. Tyrone, and there is a record of what might be a sheela-na-gig from the graveyard that was moved to the Ulster Museum (ITA Survey 1943), but this cannot be confirmed (Freitag 2004).

St Meallán’s well is across the road to the NE of the graveyard and is accessible by a path down from the road to a rock outcrop platform on the SW side of the stream. The well (D 0.3m) is in a D-shaped recess (dims 0.8m WNW-ESE; 0.5m NNE-SSW; H 0.5m) at the bottom of a NE-facing rock-face (H c. 2m) and it overflows across the platform to the stream. There is no evidence of veneration now but in the folk memory there was a two day pattern held at the well around August 30 until the well was closed in 1836 (see this web-page accessed on 28/10/2016: http://www.duchas.ie/en/cbes/4742067/4732198