Fenagh Churches

North-west of Ballinamore in south Leitrim, Fenagh was the monastery of St Caillín, founded in the sixth century, who is said to have turned the local druids into stones; his life is told in the Book of Fenagh, copied in 1516 and now in the Royal Irish Academy. Two medieval churches stand 130 metres apart, both probably of the 15th century, one the church of the old monastery and the other the parish church, within a large ecclesiastical enclosure whose earthworks, covering about sixty acres, are protected by a preservation order. The main church, in its walled graveyard, was accidentally burned in 1360 and rebuilt and passed to the Protestant bishop of Ardagh in 1585; against it is the small mausoleum of the O'Duignans of Castlefore, with a Latin plaque of 1671 carved with the Crucifixion. The second church, across the fields, has a barrel vault at its west end that probably carried a tower. A reviewer found it a beautiful, peaceful place.