What is recorded here

Clear water still moves across the shallow bay, but the chief danger is that its beauty makes the warning sound like ornament. An unknown woman must have learned that the sea takes more than it gives. She may have lost a child, a husband or her own shadow there. The town preserved her warning because it refused to forget the victim.

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 identified a freestanding cross-inscribed stone (H 0.31m; Wth. 0.15m; T 0.09m) of uncertain date standing inside Cooly graveyard. Image DG021-008026-_01.jpg uploaded courtesy of Bernician Studies Group. Compiled by: Caimin O'Brien Date of upload: 27 October 2015

Probably dating to the early Christian period (5th–9th centuries), the cross-inscribed stone likely served a liturgical or commemorative function within the monastic settlement. Such stones often carried Christian symbols or inscriptions, reflecting the spiritual life of the community and possibly marking a burial or place of worship.

The monument record does not grant public access. Check the route and ask the landowner before entering private land.