Dromiskin Monastic Site

In the graveyard at the centre of Dromiskin village, between Dundalk and Castlebellingham, stand the remains of a monastery said to have been founded by Lugaidh, a King of Munster's son and disciple of St Patrick, or in the seventh century by St Ronan, whose relics were enshrined here in gold and silver in 801. Burned and pillaged repeatedly between 833 and 1043, it lasted into the 12th century. The ninth-century round tower, just over fifteen metres tall, has a Romanesque doorway nearly four metres above the ground and served as a belfry into the 19th century; its conical cap and square windows date from OPW's restoration of 1879. Only the east gable of the medieval church survives, a 15th-century window set within the outline of a taller earlier one, and nearby the head of a tenth-century granite high cross carved with coiling dragons stands on a shaft of 1918. Reviewers find it compact, peaceful and quieter than Monasterboice, in a graveyard still in use.