In 1835, the antiquarian John O’Donovan documented a local tradition about a footprint stone that once lay beneath the north-east window of Cill Mhic Nenáin friary church. According to Manus O’Donnell, a local storyteller who had seen the stone as a boy, it bore the impression of a foot along with other decorative carvings. This wasn’t just any carved stone; it was believed to be the very spot where the Ó Domhnaill chiefs of Tír Chonaill stood during their inauguration ceremonies, marking their ascension to power in this ancient Gaelic kingdom.

The stone’s significance in Irish royal tradition cannot be overstated. Inauguration stones like this one were central to Gaelic kingship rituals, serving as physical links between rulers and their territories. The footprint impression would have symbolised the chief’s legitimate claim to the land and his duty to literally stand in the footsteps of his predecessors. These ceremonies were elaborate affairs that combined political authority with sacred tradition, and the Kilmacrenan stone would have witnessed generations of Ó Domhnaill chiefs taking their oaths of office.

Tragically, the stone met a deliberate end sometime after O’Donnell’s childhood sighting. According to the same source who described it to O’Donovan, a Mr Mac Swine, who had converted from Catholicism and developed what was described as a violent hatred of Irish culture, purposefully destroyed the monument. This act of cultural vandalism means the stone never made it into official archaeological surveys; it’s absent from both the Archaeological Survey of County Donegal compiled in 1983 and the Sites and Monuments Record of 1987. What remains is only the oral history preserved by O’Donovan’s careful documentation, a ghostly reminder of the many Irish cultural treasures lost to time and deliberate destruction.