What is recorded here

Kilgobban still carries the name of St Gobban, yet the stone he supposedly shaped for the Killala tower has vanished from the field. Tradition claims he cut a circular cavity into its top and prepared it to crown a distant structure, but no one now knows where that clumsy round block rests. The townland preserves his ambition while losing his proof, turning a forgotten architectural fragment into an open wound in local memory.

This record is based on a reference in the 1838 OS Letters to a stone, which according to tradition was associated with St Gobban, whose church (MA015-057001-) gave the townland its name. According to the tradition, St. Gobban made the stone and intended it to form the top of the round tower (MA022-017001-) at Killala. The stone was recorded as being ‘two feet high [0.6m], nearly round in form, but of uneven breadth, being much broader at bottom than at top, where it measures no more than twenty inches [0.5m] across in the broadest part. There is a circular cavity of an inch [0.03m] in depth and a foot [0.3m] in diameter, artificially cut on the top.’ (O’Flanagan 1927, 224 (127-8)). The exact nature of the stone is uncertain, and its location is unknown. Compiled by: Jane O'Shaughnessy Date of upload: 14 November 2017

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