What is recorded here

Drumsnat’s mass-rock has watched the lough from its knoll since 1800, standing beside the graveyard gate where coffins once rested on bare stone. The small alcove holds a flat rock no larger than a table, yet it has outlasted every hand that placed a dead body beneath it. Water still moves across the lough below, carrying the shapes of men and women who stopped to pray before crossing into the dark earth.

Located on the NE-facing slope of a knoll overlooking Drumsnat Lough (max. dims c. 220m NE-SW; c. 150m NW-SE), which is c. 60m to the NE. A mass-rock under its canopy or bothóg has been established to one side of the entrance gate of Drumsnat graveyard (MO013-002004-) since c. 1800, and an area of exposed bedrock beside it is where coffins were rested before entering the graveyard (Ó Dubhthaigh 1966, 94-5). The mass-rock is a stone (dims 1.1m x 0.36m; T 0.1m) on a masonry pier (H 0.7m) in an arched alcove (dims 1.12m x 1.1m; H 1.6m) with a small recess (Wth 0.3m; H 0.42m; D 0.21m) in the back wall of the alcove. (Ó Gallachoir 1957, 120-1) See (MO013-002004-) for views of the mass-rock Compiled by: Michael Moore Date of upload; 30 November, 2016

A mass-rock used for clandestine Catholic worship, likely during periods of religious persecution in Ireland. Such sites were often associated with local saints or traditions of spiritual resistance.

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