Winter solstice at Beltony with the High Kings

Out today to the stone circle at Beltony, a couple of miles from Raphoe. It is, of course, the winter solstice. We got there just after half eight. We arrived just behind a teller of tales and just ahead of Kathryn Daily and Stephen. Kathryn has put pics up on Facebook.

On the path up, we passed the remains of a circular structure among the trees on the right. As a child I'd always imagined this to be a round tower. I was disappointed to see it marked on a map as a windmill. But then lo and behold! in the Donegal Annual Volume 1 (1947-1953) there's a note about it being a round tower after all. Still looking for that note - I think it said the tower was used as a scriptorium, a place for copying manuscripts. The tower might also have been useful for keeping an eye on the stone circle and who might be going there.

This little hill is where I grew up, in a house beside where you park your car now before taking the short but steep-ish lane to the circle. This townland is called The Tops. It's a good description of it as a place to spend your early years, but again I was a little disappointed that the townland name wasn't an ancient Irish one linked with the circle. Then a while back I opened the Irish Times and found The Tops mentioned in the 'Words We Use' column from Diarmuid Ó Muirthile. It seems the name comes from 'Tap tineadh', the place where the torches were lit before the procession to the circle. Perfect! Coincidentally, I see that Diarmuid's death in Vienna was reported in the Irish Times exactly a year ago today.

There are many fascinating aspects to the circle and indeed the landscape around it. For instance, what monastery is linked with the round tower? An obvious candidate is the monastery at Raphoe - the town name comes from 'Rath Bhoth', the fortification around the (monk's) huts, as we were taught at school. It's thought these huts were made by monks. But I remembered today that not far from the stone circle there is a townland called Ballymonaster, the land of the monastery. I see that in the same area, known locally as Cloughfin, there's also Kilmonaster Lower, Kilmonaster Middle and Churchminister. Jim Lynch, who taught me at Raphoe NS, is a former principal of St Colmcille NS Cloughfin and writes that the Cistercians had a monastery there with Cearnach as abbot.

Christian settlements were often established close to pagan ones, I suppose for the same reasons that Christian festivals were established to supplant pagan ones. The winter solstice rituals gave way to Christmas. This concentration of Christian settlement around Beltony stone circle suggests it was an important place. We all search for significance in our lives. Patrick Kavanagh poked fun at our fond imaginings in his poem 'Epic' -

I have lived in important places, times
When great events were decided : who owned
That half a rood of rock, a no-man's land
Surrounded by our pitchfork-armed claims

However the Tops and Beltony just keep delivering the goods. In his book published in 2006, 'Cenél Conaill and the Donegal Kingdoms AD 500 - 800', Brian Lacey persuasively argues that this part of East Donegal was the homeland of a powerful clan, the Cenél Conaill. This clan began to make a 'national' impact from their "small but economically rich territory in Mag nItha" in the sixth century. According to this analysis, the clan supplied at least five high kings of Tara. Two, and possibly three, of these Cenél Conaill kings of Tara "were the first to be described in the ancient sources with the rare title of 'King of Ireland', however exaggerated that was" (p322).

There was no sun to be seen at sunrise this morning. But when you were looking across in vain towards Croaghan Hill you were surveying the home ground of the Cenél Conaill and your feet were  firmly planted in historic Irish landscape.


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By coincidence last night I found myself at a 'Celtic Banquet' at the Grianan of Aileach Hotel in Burt. Brian Lacey reckons that the great hillfort Grianan of Aileach symbolises the transfer of power away from Cenél Conaill to the Cenél nÉogain after the battle of Clóiteach in 789. Brian suggests that Cenél nÉogain chief Áed may have celebrated his victory over Cenél Conaill by building the Grianan of Aileach - "as a visible reminder of who ruled, the monument could be seen from a great many parts of that kingdom". The Cenél nÉogain, who gave their name to Inishowen, then became big cheeses in Ireland. The Cenél Conaill was practically written out of the annals in what Brian likens to"a sort of Stalinization". History is written by the victors. But as recent resident of Fahan, that historic Inishowen spot, I also claim Cenél nÉogain connections!

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Eyewitness account of the fire at Raphoe Castle 1838

Came across a curious little book in the library in Letterkenny, 'Reminiscences of a Long Life', by W. D. Killen, D.D., LL.D., President of Belfast Presbyterian College. It's a little A6 size one (the pages a quarter of an A4 page) and it's number 145 of an edition of just 200 copies produced by Braid Books and Moyola Books in 1995.
The great treat for a Raphoe man in this book is the eyewitness description of the fire which destroyed Raphoe Castle in 1838. William Doole lived through almost all of the 19th century, and he was serving as Presbyterian Minister in Raphoe at the time of the fire. And there's much more of interest in the book, including more about life in Raphoe during his ministry there, a description of Belfast in 1820, when it was still a relatively small place of 30,000 people, and the entertainment of W.D.'s often forthright opinions.
William Doole Killen was born in Ballymena on Easter Saturday, 5th April, 1806, and died on 19th January, 1902, the year after these reminiscences first appeared in print.
As time is short this morning, we'll focus on the fire for the moment.
W. D. had good time for the last Church of Ireland Bishop to live in the castle, the Right Rev. Dr. Bissett, "a most respectable country gentleman". The Bishop was well off, a Scottish man with an estate in Aberdeenshire, and the income from the diocese of Raphoe seems to have been substantial - W.D. says "from his see he had an income of upwards of five thousand a year", maybe around £400k in today's money.

W. D. continues:

About this time Parliament passed an Act for the suppression of the see. I had occasion to call on the Bishop shortly afterwards, and found him walking along in his demesne. He was somewhat dejected. "I have now, Mr. Killen," he said to me mournfully, "no great pleasure in going through these grounds. I care not to plant a tree here, for I know not who is to sit under the shadow of it. It may be a Romish bishop." [ . . ]

He did not long survive the passing of the Act for the suppression of the bishopric. In accordance with it the see was extinguished on his demise, and the castle became vacant. It had been built 200 years before by Bishop Leslie. It was a beautiful and spacious edifice, surrounded by an extensive park, and no cost had been spared on its construction. It was now offered for sale; but as no purchaser willing to give the required price was forthcoming, it remained untenanted. Fires had been kept up in some of the apartments, but no fenders had been provided to surround the fireplaces ; and it was said that a live coal, falling out of the grate in one of the rooms, had ignited the flooring ; and as the caretaker happened to be absent, the fire spread unnoticed until it was found impossible to arrest its progress. I well remember the night of the burning. I was sitting in my house at the other extremity of the village when the deep-toned bell of the cathedral began to ring violently, and immediately afterwards I received intelligence that the castle was on fire. In company with some others, I set out for the scene of the disaster. I found a crowd already assembled there in front of the main building, watching the progress of the devouring element. The fire roared and glared as it burst through the edifice. The inner partitions of the castle were composed of dry peat or turf, overspread with mortar, and had apparently been chosen to diminish the weight of the pressure on the ceilings of the apartments underneath. As these partitions, one after another, tumbled into the mass of fire, the flame was prodigious. The conflagration increased, and the whole country was illuminated."

W. D. adds -

At this time the Established Church of Ireland at Raphoe was overtaken by a whole series of calamities. The cathedral took fire ; the bishop died ; the dean, overwhelmed in debt, fled from the country ; the see was suppressed ; the castle was reduced to a mass of ruins ; and one of the curates, who became insane, for a time created a great sensation by his strange utterances in the pulpit and elsewhere.

At the death of the bishop the little town contained 1,500 inhabitants. The population has since much declined, and is now somewhere between 900 and 1,000.

It seems that Lord George Hill could have been Raphoe Castle's saviour, as I heard Sophia Hillen, author of Mary, Lou and Cass: Jane Austen's nieces in Ireland  say he was thinking of buying it before opting instead for Ballyarr House in Ramelton in 1842.