Lilies for Mourning
In a tale of two ecclesiastical offerings with very different endings, the Anglican Chapel of Ease and the Catholic Church of the Sacred Heart, both in the depths of the Poisoned Glen, appear hewn out of the landscape, as dramatic in sculpted form as the powerful backdrop of Mount Errigal. Poet Cathal Ó Searcaigh calls Mount Errigal “A sacred mountain”. The Anglican chapel was erected in 1844 by Jane Russell as a memorial to her late husband James Russell, landlord of the Dunlewey Estate. It is built of local white marble and blue quartzite. The entrance is via a centrally positioned square tower. Lord George Augustus Hill, another County Donegal landlord, was a travel writer and recorded, “In addition to the romantic scenery in the neighbourhood, of which the conical Mountain of Arigle [sic] is the leading feature. The new Church at Dunlewey – built of white and grey marble, from quarries in the immediate vicinity – forms an object of much interest and attractions.” A later landlord William Augustine Ross erected the Catholic church in 1877. Designed by Belfast architect Timothy Hevey, it is built of rock faced basalt rubble trimmed with bands of grey stone and the same local white marble as the chapel. An offset round tower is redolent of ancient Hibernian tradition. The architect died the following year aged 33.
Tinged with tragedy, the Poisoned Glen is nonetheless as romantic as its name. John Conal Boyd, a local history enthusiast campaigned to have the remains of the Chapel of Ease stabilised after it was abandoned in the 1950s. He considered at least with the roof off everyone could enter the space open to the heavens above. When John died in 2006 aged 53, he was one of the first people to be buried in the reopened graveyard. His tombstone of rough stone is laid horizontally to respect the setting of the chapel. It points towards Dunlewey Lough, and, lifting up on the wings of an eagle, onwards to Bunbeg Harbour where he lived.
