From FOCHART by the Reverend Diarmuid Mac Iomhair. Fochart Sub-committee of the County Louth Archaeological Society


The summit of Fochart hill commands as fine a prospect as may be seen anywhere in Ireland. The best time of day to enjoy it is the morning. All asparkle then are the waters of broad Dundalk Bay, bounded on one side by the long rampart of the Cuailgne (pronounced Cooley) mountains, on the other by the low County Louth coastline running out to Dunany Point; while landwards a wide expanse of country is illumined with clear light to the furthest horizon. Towards the north across a smiling valley rise hills which are partly in County Louth and partly in County Armagh. They conceal in their folds an ancient route, once the only highway through their bogs and woods, which is still known as the Gap of the North. South and south-westwards a great plain, fertile and softly-hued, loses itself in distant uplands of Monaghan, Cavan and Meath.



The plain below us, or at least its nearer part, was known anciently as Muirthemhne (Mwir-hev-neh). It was one of the first plains in Ireland to be cleared for human occupation, in B.C. 2350 according to the Four Masters, and ever since has been a conspicuous scene of human activity in all its manifestations. Much is heard of it in the sagas of early Irish literature, and one of the chief figures in those tales, the hero Cuchulainn (Coo-hulling) resided on it at Dun Dealgan west of Dundalk. The greatest of the stories is Táin (Thaw-in) Bo Cuailgne, which tells how Queen Medhbh (Maeve) of Connacht came with an army to seize the famous Brown Bull of Cuailgne. On her return journey with her prize she encamped at Fochart, on a level site some way down the hill on the south-west side. Here with treacherous intent she invited Cuchulainn to a parley; but when fourteen of her men-at-arms rose from their ambush to attack him, he by a brilliant feat of arms (fo-cherd) succeeded in killing them all. Hence comes the name Fochart.

Of Fochard's prehistoric importance testimony survives, or survived until recently, in the form of various stone structures and earthworks, chiefly on the southern slopes of the hill.

Because of its strategic situation Fochart has been the scene of important battles. In the first half of the third century a Munster army here defeated the Pictish peoples who then inhabited Muirthemhne and the parts of Ireland to the north-east; and in 732 the Ulstermen were again defeated by the northern Uí Neill, and their king, Aedh Roin, decapitated on a stone which up to a hundred years ago could be seen near the door of the church. Unfortunately this Cloch an Commaigh is not now identifiable.
The best remembered battle of Fochart is that in which the Scot, Edward Bruce, lost his life in 1318. Edward, brother of Robert, King of Scotland, had been proclaimed King of Ireland, and had everywhere successfully carried fire and sword against the English settlers. On October 14th in the year 1318 he found himself on the southern face of this hill confronting an English army under John de Bermingham. For a while the battle went in his favour, but then during a lull in the fighting a trick was played upon him which resulted in his death. In the words of an old chronicle:
“John de Malpas, a Burges of Dundalk, in a fooles coat killed Edw. de Bruis with a plome of liad wth wch he shook out his braynes but was forthwith hewen into peeces." Bermingham cut off Bruce's head and brought it to Edward II in London, for which service he was created Earl of Louth. The headless body was hastily interred in Fochart graveyard "under a rough mountain stone". Close to the south-west corner of the church a grave surrounded by a low railing and covered by a large slab, trimmed now and no longer rough, is said by tradition to be Bruce's last resting-place.

The strategic importance of Fochart which attracted Bruce had early been recognized by the Anglo-Norman invaders of Louth; and the motte or mound west of the graveyard is one of the many fortified posts with which they sought to secure the conquered territory. As late as 1600 Mountjoy encamped here against his great adversary 0’Neill, who held the Moyry Pass in the Gap of the North.



By Bruce's time the appellation Fochart Muirthemhne was giving way to Fochart Bhríde, Christian tradition was supplanting prehistoric memories. Brigid is the greatest name among the women saints of Ireland, a veritable Mary of the Gael, who was a contemporary of Saint Patrick and led the way in establishing the religious life in this country. Born in Fochart, she has been remembered here ever since; and to this day pilgrims come in their thousands to pray by her stream as their fathers did before them, by a custom for which there is documentary evidence as far back as the early seventeenth century. Sruthán Bhríde, not much more than half a mile west of the graveyard as the crow flies, has now a little chapel beside it, with platform and pulpit, which were built by voluntary labour in 1933. Some people commence their pilgrimage in the graveyard itself. Here is her well and also two other structures which were formerly associated with her. Wright's Louthiana, published in 1748, speaks of one of them as “St. Bridget's Stone, having a raised work about it in the form of a horseshoe," and calls the other " St. Bridget's Pillar, raised upon two circular and concentrick steps, round which the nuns of the convent used to go upon their knees upon particular occasions.'' In truth this pillar is, by all the signs, nothing else than the base of a cross, as may be inferred likewise from the following description of the graveyard by Isaac Butler in 1744 {County Louth Archaeological Journal, V, 2, p. 100)
“The old church of Faugher is upon a hill a mile and a half from Dundalk, it has been considerable, but all in ruins, there has been to the West of the church a large fine Cross which is pulled down and broken, five paces from it there is a small circle of stones edge way in the ground, two larger than the rest compose the entrance, the place is capable of containing half a dozen persons, the entrance faces East. At a small distance from the church Northward there is a well of good spring water which lathers very well, it is covered with a stone arch in bad repair."
From our viewpoint at the graveyard we can see below us, a little west of south, the rather stocky tower of Fochart parish church emerging from a clump of trees. The church is dedicated to Saint Brigid, and has a fragment of her cranium preserved in a small reliquary within a casket. (Casket now at the Oratory at the Shrine). The story of this relic is told in a booklet which can be had at the church.
Brigid was not the only saint associated with Fochart. There was also Saint Moninne, she too a contemporary of Saint Patrick, who actually resided here with a large company of followers. One night they were disturbed by sounds of profane merriment from the homesteads lower down the hill, and when they enquired the cause were told that there was a wedding party in one of the houses. Moninne and her sisters, who knew no other espousal than that of Christ, thereupon determined to seek for themselves a place more suited to their way of life, and found it further north at Cill Shieibhe (Kill-hláy-veh) (Killeavy) in the present County Armagh. Saint Moninne's feast is on the 6th of July.
The “considerable" church "all in ruins" in 1744 had been already in that state one hundred and twenty years earlier, when a Royal Visitation found "church and Chauncell ruynous". This would have been the result of the Protestant Reformation, which withdrew the churches from Catholic worship while there was as yet no Protestant population to use them. But even in the sixteenth century, in the time of Primate Dowdall, Fochart church was the church of a poor parish. This is evident from the fact that, in a group of twelve churches in the Deanery of Dundalk in which the average archdeacon's proxy was 3s 10d. Fochart was asked to pay only 13d. Of course we have to remember that it was in the marches and under but fitful English control, ecclesiastical or secular, a fact which also helps to explain our almost complete lack of information on its medieval history.
The forlorn condition of Fochart church was sorrowfully noticed by the Gaelic poets of the eighteenth century, for example, by Art Mac Cubhthaigh (McCooey) in his Tagra an Da Teampall. Throughout this period, and indeed until well on in the last century (19th), the age-old culture of our people was still alive in this countryside, as appears from a statement regarding the population of the parish in the Parochial Survey of Ireland, 1816: " Most of them can speak English tolerably well; but their common language with each other is Irish."
In the Spring of 1966 substantial improvements were carried out on Fochart Hill by the Fochart Sub-committee of the County Louth Archaeological Society. Church and graveyard were thoroughly cleaned, and a car park was provided close by on ground generously donated by James Woods, Moin na Scribe (Monascreebe). The work was assisted by a large grant from Bord Failte Eireann, by the ready co-operation of Louth County Council, by individual money contributions, and by a gift of grass seed from Messrs. John Cox & Company, and John McCourt, Dundalk.

Extract from "Townland Survey of County Louth" by Rev. Diarmuid Mac lomhair. County Louth Archaeological Journal
Townland of Monascreebe

Patron saints : In the report on Faughart Upper a good deal of information was recorded about Saint Brigid, her monuments in the graveyard, and the observances formerly and even still practised there in her honor. Her name is also associated with a stream in Monascreebe. This stream derives from a source on the western boundary of field 21, whence also flows another in the northerly direction, and takes its course southwards past Highlands, through the two areas marked St. Brigid's Station, and so into the larger stream that is the townland's western boundary. It is thus much smaller than the description in the Ordnance Survey Letters of 1836: “It is said that St. Brigid and her sister lived in this church [in the graveyard], and that it is also called Cill Muire; that a young man sought her in marriage and to escape from him she set out one night from this church for Castletown, which was also called Cill Broin, passing along a small river [which rises?] at Beallach na Madaie at Sliabh Guilinn and runs SE between Faughart and Castletown into the Bay of Dundalk. Finding him in pursuit of her she knelt down at a bush on the bank and plucked out her eye, and thus escaped recognition by him. A frequent station used to be held at this spot until the proprietor of the land, to bring the wasteland into use. cut down the bushes and covered over the river. It is said that after this incident St. Brigid remained at Cill Broin while her sister continued to live in Cill Muire, Faughart."
The map shows the stream diverging eastward into field 21. According to John Quinn, the old people explained this as the work of Skelton, a former proprietor of Highlands, who wished in this way to create a flaxhole. Six or seven yards short of the wooded area of the upper St. Brigid's Station, a little dam across the stream allows some of the water to be piped to a covered font or tank within the grounds, whence through a spout it is made available to pilgrims for their pious uses. Almost opposite tills font on the other side of the stream is a stone which is recognized by pilgrims as a prayer station, as will be explained later. Following the stream down between its broadly sloping banks we next notice a cross on the left, standing on a concrete base. This was erected in 1933 to replace an older one which stood on the ground. In the bed of the stream at this point is an almost-submerged flat stone, also a pilgrim station. Further down, on the site of a quarry, there is a Lourdes grotto with images of Our Lady and Saint Bernadette, and a shallow basin which is provided with water by a similar arrangement to that described above.
The stream passes under the road to continue down through the lower St. Brigid's Station to flat ground at the bottom, where it turns right to form the boundary with the adjoining field, in the right-hand corner here on a concrete platform is a group of Calvary figures. On the left bank of the stream at the point where it makes its turn, and set into the fence, is the so-called “headstone”, in the depression of which sufferers from headaches place their head as they pray for relief. On the right of the stream is the standing "hoof-mark" stone; then two yards further on, in the actual bed of the stream, the " knee " stone with two hollows in it. Standing on the bank at the level of the Calvary, whither for pilgrims' convenience it was moved some fifteen years ago. is the mushroom-shaped "waist" stone. Finally, directly under the Calvary there is the "eye" stone, large and flat-topped. Upon it is the mark of the whip "with the characteristic curl of the lash-tail which was wielded by Brigid's determined pursuer; and also a small depression made by her eye when it fell from her head in answer to a prayer that God would turn aside the unwelcome attentions. People suffering with their eyes are accustomed to bathe them with the water that collects in the depression.
An account of the ritual observed by pilgrims has been furnished by Owen Quinn. aged seventy-five, of Faughart Lower. The place, he says, was always much frequented and the " old stations " were performed barefoot by all. Special days of devotion were the feast of the saint, February 1st. when the parish priest would come to the Stream at noon and lead the prayers for those who might be present; and the Saturday before the first Sunday of August and the Sunday itself, which was a favourite occasion with Dundalk people. These would assemble about 1p.m. and at midnight Patrick Rafferty. "a great temperance man" would commence the station. From there many would then go to Ladywell, south of Dundalk, for another station.
The shrine is on the right of the lane which runs through the area, the stream itself being on the left. It consists of a massive oblong; concrete platform, approached by a flight of steps, on the further end of which is a small open aedicule (a small temple-like structure usually sheltering a shrine) with an altar and, a little to the left, an open-air pulpit. Flanking on both sides the way from the steps to the altar are Stations of the Cross, free standing in a sloping rockery. The area itself was given a monumental entrance in place of the simple field gate that hitherto led on the public road. The stones in the rockery came from Newry quarries, those forming the Lourdes grotto from the seashore at Ballagan. The granite cross over the grotto belonged to Saint Mary's Church, Dundalk, which was destroyed by fire in 1932. The fountain canopy was got from the Convent of Mercy School in Dundalk. Many of the parts and ornaments were donated, the steps being "sold" at two pounds each.
The shrine was completed in 1934 and on the first Sunday of July a vast number came here on pilgrimage. This date was chosen to enhance the chances of fine weather, and also to avoid clashing with the traditional Dundalk pilgrimage in August. The latter continued for some years and then petered out about 1955. At present, besides the July pilgrimage which has maintained itself well, there is one on the Sunday next Saint Brigid's feast, and a Gaelic one on the second Sunday of September, this last the successor in a certain sense of a procession from Dundalk which the Gaelic League was accustomed to hold in the stirring years of the fight for independence. It was. and still is, usual for individual pilgrims on the 1st of February to visit the graveyard before coming to the Stream (cf. C.LAJ., XVI, 2, p. 117).