What is recorded here

Templemealaghan Graveyard vanished from County Donegal when a landowner demolished its church in the 1840s, erasing gothic doors, cut stone and buried people from good land. What remains is only a natural mound and a map label, yet the missing building still looms large because it was taken deliberately rather than lost to time. The graveyard may have held generations of local dead, their names never recorded, while the owner treated sacred stone as an obstacle to be removed.

Marked 'Templemealaghan site of' on the OS 6-inch maps. There is now no trace of the church (DG099-016-) or burial ground (DG099-016001-) marked here. In 1847, Fagan recorded that a church had been 'recently demolished' by the landowner and that it was said to have had 'doors and windows of the gothic order, cased with cut stone, and preserving some human heads and other devices' (Bk. 14, 14). A sketch of this ruin is preserved among the OS memoirs. The site, a natural mound known as 'the church mound', is situated in good land. The above description was derived from the 'Archaeological Survey of County Donegal. A description of the field antiquities of the County from the Mesolithic Period to the 17th century.' Compiled by: Brian Lacey with Eamon Cody, Claire Cotter, Judy Cuppage, Noel Dunne, Vincent Hurley, Celie O'Rahilly, Paul Walsh and Seán Ó Nualláin (Lifford: Donegal County Council, 1983). In certain instances the entries have been revised and updated. Date of upload: 22 September 2008

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