Church, Drumnanangle, Co. Mayo

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Churches & Chapels

Church, Drumnanangle, Co. Mayo

In the pasture land of Drumnanangle, a low rise in an east-facing slope is all that remains of what local tradition insists was once a church.

No building has been visible here within living memory, and the raised platform itself, roughly rectangular and measuring somewhere between twenty-five and thirty metres east to west and fifteen to twenty metres north to south, is so thoroughly engulfed in blackthorn and brambles that a proper examination is close to impossible. What survives is mostly topographic: a low scarp along the northern edge, a steeper and broader slope to the east, and an almost vertically cut face to the south. The western side, where the platform merges gradually back into the surrounding field, has been further disturbed by a modern quarry pit cut roughly a metre and a half deep into the ground.

Despite the overgrowth, there are traces of something structural. Around five metres east of the quarry pit, the barely visible footings of a curving rough stone wall, just eighty centimetres wide and about ten centimetres above ground level, suggest the outline of a building or enclosure, though the density of the vegetation at the time of survey prevented any clear interpretation. More legible is what sits at the base of the eastern slope: a bullaun stone, a large boulder with one or more cup-shaped hollows ground or worn into its surface. Bullaun stones are found throughout Ireland and are frequently associated with early ecclesiastical sites, where they may have been used for grinding, ritual, or both. Their presence is often one of the more durable indicators that a site once held religious significance, long after any structure above ground has collapsed or been reclaimed by the landscape.

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Pete F
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