What is recorded here

Ancient Thorn still stands at the edge of the Rathborney valley, its roots gripping the earth beside a stone marked by two shallow hollows. People call the hawthorn Saint Brigid’s tree and return to touch the rough bark or kneel near the stone, believing the dents record her own joints. The valley has changed around the tree, but the woman’s shadow remains woven through its branches, inviting visitors to imagine her breath still moving in the leaves.

At the foot of a mature hawthorn tree (CL005-168001-) in reclaimed pasture on the W side of an old road leading N into the Rathborney valley. The associated tree is indicated and named ‘Ancient Thorn’ on the 1839 and 1916 OS 6-inch maps. Houlihan (2016, 44) noted that the associated tree is known locally as ‘Saint Brigid’s tree’ and that it is still visited by pilgrims, ‘having gained a reputation for holiness from a stone at its base thought by locals to hold the prints of a kneeling Saint Brigid’. The stone was not found on inspection in 1998 but a stone with a pair of hollows at the base of the tree is published and photographed by Houlihan (ibid). Compiled by: Mary Tunney and Eve Campbell Date of upload: 8 October 2025

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