Category: Local history & archaeology

Donegal Democrat In 1951, the new curate in Glencolmcille, Fr James McDyer arranged a meeting the parish council and Gaeltarra Eireann representatives, hoping to get a better deal for local weavers. At the meeting, McDyer listed what he considered to be ‘the five curses’ of rural Ireland’: no industry, no electricity, no public water supply,…

Donegal Democrat An expert has confirmed that a stone circle on the southern side of the Gleann Cholm Cille valley most likely dates to the Bronze Age, ending a riddle that has puzzled archaeologists for decades. The structure, a “ring cairn” made up of “two concentric stone circles, with cairn material between them, the outer…

Donegal Democrat Archaeologists nowadays talk about the House Of The Ancestors, project manager Seamus McGinley explains while outlining the survey work being done at the complex of stone age dolmens in Málainn Mór in the parish of Gleann Cholm Cille. ‘Just like an altar stone in a church might made of be marble taken from…

Donegal Democrat ‘I don’t like the word Geofizz, please don’t call it Geofizz,’ archaeologist Kevin Barton tells me. ‘Geophysics is what we are doing.’ He’s worked on archaeological sites all over the country, including the Rathcroghan complex in Co Roscommon, reputed to be the seat of Queen Maeve of Connacht, the world heritage site at…

Donegal Democrat One in five men in Donegal are descendants of Niall of the Nine Hostages, the Irish High King who according to legend brought St Patrick to Ireland as a slave, a genetic study has found. The study, by scientists in Trinity College Dublin, discovered that as many as one in twelve Irish men…

Donegal Democrat Today marks a remarkable anniversary, the 1400th anniversary of a Donegal man who wrote one of the world’s first “Geneva conventions”, a law governing the conduct of armies in war. St. Adomnán (or Eunan* in modern Irish) was born around the year 627 in Drumhome in Donegal. He was of noble blood, a…

Donegal Democrat ‘Bill Graves, Republican of Oklahoma City, has introduced House Bill HB 1504 that would require an anti-evolution disclaimer on school textbooks.’ – News item Once upon a time, in the wild, barren, mist covered boglands of west Donegal, there was born a man called Thomas Colin McGinley. In 1830 to be precise, in…

Donegal Democrat A thousand years ago, a group of warriors set out by sea and land on a series of voyages that would change the world forever. During the Viking era, the Scandinavians were by far among the more advanced and worldly of European societies. Vikings were often multilingual; many had travelled the world from…

Donegal Democrat According to the Census figures, the combined population of Glencolmcille, Kilgoly and Malinbeg electoral areas on a Sunday last April is 1,498 people. In the six years since the last census, the population has slipped slightly from 1,562, a dip of about four percent. The emigration patterns are a bit different these days,…

Donegal Democrat From Ballyshannon to Buncrana, fires will burn this weekend. But not all of them will burn to welcome home victorious footballers and government ministers. This Sunday, 23 June, is Oiche Fheile Eoin, the Feast of St John, traditionally the longest day of the year, and in many rural areas of the country, bonfires…