Church

The National Monuments Service's description

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

The above description is derived from the published 'Archaeological Inventory of County Monaghan' (Dublin: Stationery Office, 1986). In certain instances the entries have been revised and updated in the light of recent research.

Revised by: Michael Moore

Date of revision: 07 November, 2016

References

Irish Tourist Association. Surveys undertaken in the 1940s for the Irish Tourist Association (now Fáilte Ireland) relating to ‘Natural features, antiquities, historic associations etc.' Extracts from these surveys were copied into the Topographical files of the Office of Public Works and these have been incorporated into the Sites and Monuments Record files (National Monuments Service).

Ó Riain, P. 2011 A dictionary of Irish Saints. Dublin. Four Courts Press.

Leslie, J.B. 1929 Clogher clergy and parishes. Enniskillen.

Shirley, E.P. 1879 (Reprint 1988) The history of the county of Monaghan. London. Pickering.

Freitag, B. 2004 Sheela-na-gigs: unravelling an enigma. London. Routledge.

Herity, M. (ed.) 2012 Ordnance Survey Letters: Londonderry, Fermanagh, Armagh-Monaghan, Louth, Cavan-Leitrim. Dublin, Fourmasters Press

Mulligan, Rev. P., McEntee, Rev. P., and T. McMahon 1987 Memorials in Old Errigal Cemetery, County Monaghan. Clogher Record vol. 12, No. 3, 371-87.

Taylor, Rev. J. Wallace 1892-1900 Errigal Trough. Journal of the Association for the Preservation of the Memorials of the Dead in Ireland 2, 185-91; vol. 3, 3, 123-28; vol. 4, 112-13, 289-93.

McKenna, Rev. J. E. 1920 Parochial History of the Diocese of Clogher. 2 vols, Enniskillen, Author