At Maghera, in County Londonderry, the ruins of an old church and the remains of a round tower mark one of the ancient Gaelic places of worship of Ulster. Founded by St Lurach, this mother-church came through the late medieval period and the Renaissance, keeping its remarkable carved lintel.
A Gaelic mother-church
Maghera Old Church was founded in the sixth century by St Lurach. A former mother-church of the region, it was even an episcopal see from the twelfth century until 1245, before the bishopric was transferred. It then remained a parish church through the late Middle Ages and the Renaissance. Like Maghera Old Church, these old Gaelic places of worship, inherited from early-Christian Ireland, formed the ancient religious fabric of Ulster — the one the Plantation would reorganise for the benefit of the Protestant Church.
A witness of Gaelic religious art
Maghera's interest for our period is that of an ancient Gaelic place of worship kept in use at the moment when the Plantation was overturning the organisation of the Church in Ulster. Its treasure is the remarkable west lintel carved with a Crucifixion — a precious witness of pre-Plantation Irish religious art, in a style that perpetuated the Gaelic traditions. This lintel, like the round tower (typical of the old Irish monasteries), links Maghera to the Christian Ireland of the origins, the one the Protestant colonisation came to cover over. The church was damaged in the fighting of 1688, rebuilt, then abandoned in 1819. To see: the west lintel carved with a Crucifixion, the medieval nave, the setting and walled gardens of St Lurach, the ancient churchyard.
Did you know?
The west lintel of Maghera, carved with a Crucifixion, is one of the few examples of figurative religious art of Gaelic Ulster to have survived. In a region where the old Christian traditions were overturned by the Reformation then by the Protestant Plantation — hostile to images —, this carved stone is a survivor: a fragment of the Ireland of saints and monks, spared at the heart of an Ulster the colonisation was transforming from top to bottom.
Notes
Maghera Old Church lies at Maghera, County Londonderry; ruins and churchyard accessible (St Lurach's walled gardens). Mainly medieval interest. Hours to check.
Quiz
- Who founded Maghera Old Church?
- St Lurach (sixth century)
- James Hamilton
- Henry VIII
- Which carved treasure does the church keep?
- A west lintel with a Crucifixion
- An Armada stained-glass window
- A gold statue
- What is Maghera's link with our period?
- An ancient Gaelic worship kept up during the Plantation
- A naval battle
- A royal coronation