Church, Drumdutton, Co. Donegal
In the rolling countryside of County Donegal stands the remnant of Drumdutton Church, a modest 17th-century structure that tells the story of Captain Thomas Dutton's ambitions to establish a settlement in this corner of Ulster.
Church, Drumdutton, Co. Donegal
Dutton, who built both a house and village here in the early 1600s, likely commissioned this church as the spiritual centre of his new community. Today, only the lower courses of its rubble stone walls remain visible beneath their covering of grass, with the southeast corner standing about a metre high and portions of the western gable incorporated into a later field wall.
The church’s rectangular footprint measured approximately 15.8 metres by 3.9 metres internally, with a cross-wall that once divided off the western 3.5 metres, possibly creating a separate chamber or vestry. Among the fallen masonry at the eastern end lie carved stone fragments that hint at the building’s former character; moulded window pieces suggest the typical 17th-century style of the period, whilst chamfered stones likely came from a wall press that once held sacred vessels. Earlier surveys from the 1940s recorded more substantial remains, including a blocked three-light window in the east wall and the remnants of a doorway in the south wall, though these features have since deteriorated or disappeared.
Just over 13 metres north of the church sits an intriguing granite block, nearly square in shape and measuring about half a metre across. A circular depression, 32 centimetres wide and 20 deep, has been carefully carved into its top surface, possibly serving as a base for a cross or perhaps a baptismal font. Whilst Ordnance Survey maps from the 19th and early 20th centuries marked a burial ground here, no visible traces of graves remain today, leaving only the church ruins and this mysterious stone block as witnesses to centuries of worship and community life at Drumdutton.





