Cross in Cooly

The early ecclesiastical site here consists of a sub-rectangular shaped graveyard inside of which are a number of earlier features. The monastery is located on excellent land sloping to Lough Foyle to the E and is traditionally claimed to have been founded by St. Patrick (Gwynn and Hadcock 1970, 399; Lacy et. al. 1983, 261). A magnetometer survey carried out by the Bernician Studies Group in 2014 in the fields surrounding the churches (DG021-008002-/003-) and graveyard (DG021-008001-) at Cooly revealed the outline of the ecclesiastical enclosure (DG021-008----) of the Early Christian monastery of Cooly (O'Brien and Adams 2014, 4). The graveyard was subject to a clean-up scheme in 2010 which resulted in the discovery of several unrecorded cross-slabs. The Bernician Studies Group carried out a survey inside the graveyard and recorded twenty cross slabs, 10 of which were ringed cross-inscribed slabs. One of these stones consists of the possible head (diam. 0.58m) of an unfinished high cross lying on the surface of the graveyard in the N quadrant close to the N boundary wall of the graveyard and immediately S of a cross-slab (DG021-008008-). The roughly circular shaped stone has a slightly domed shaped surface with hollowed out quadrants Compiled by: Caimin O'Brien Date of upload: 27 October 2015