Archaeology 360: Clonca Church & High Cross, Co. Donegal



Swing round this shot and you're in the graveyard at Clonca, on the Inishowen peninsula near Culdaff - a monastic site with roots back to the 6th century. According to tradition, founded by St Baudan, though what's actually standing is a much later Church of Ireland building, raised in the 17th century and left to the weather after 1827. Head for the west doorway: the lintel carved with worn figures of clergy wasn't made for this church at all but lifted from an even older building on the same ground, a bit of medieval recycling hiding in plain sight. Duck inside and look for the grave slab of Magnus MacOrristin in the north-east corner - probably a Scottish gallowglass, one of the mercenary soldiers Gaelic lords imported from the Hebrides - carved on one side with a sword and, more unexpectedly, a hurl or camán on the other, which makes this one of the earliest bits of evidence for hurling (or something close to it) in Ireland; there's a cast of the stone in the GAA museum at Croke Park today. Back outside, the high cross itself stands close to four metres and dates to somewhere in the 10th or 11th century: one face carries interlace panels framing two seated saints with a pair of lions above them - Paul and Anthony on some readings, Peter and Paul on others - while the opposite face is given over to a single scene worked in relief, the miracle of the loaves and fishes. A second, rougher cross lies fallen in the field just to the west, its head crudely rebuilt around 1980 - worth a look once you've taken in the one still standing. In the interests of full transparency, I only found out this last detail after having visited the site, which is why I haven't included it in the tour!


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