Station Monuments, Drumacoo, Co. Galway

Co. Galway |

Holy Sites & Wells

Station Monuments, Drumacoo, Co. Galway

In a field in east Galway, roughly four hundred metres from the old monastic site at Drumacoo, two religious monuments were carefully recorded on the 1838 Ordnance Survey six-inch map, placed about twenty metres apart.

Today, neither can be found. No earthwork, no stone, no depression in the grass marks where they stood. The northern of the two is catalogued, located, and entirely absent.

The term "station monument" refers to a fixed point used during the rounds of a traditional Irish religious practice known as "stations" or "pattern" observances, in which devotees would walk a prescribed circuit, pausing to pray at particular markers, often associated with a local saint or sacred site. The Drumacoo monuments would have belonged to this kind of devotional landscape, tied to the monastic enclosure nearby. By the time the antiquarian McCaffrey conducted his survey in 1952 and published his findings, the northern monument had already vanished without trace, leaving only the cartographic evidence from over a century earlier to confirm it had ever existed.

Rated 0 out of 5

Visitor Notes

Review type for post source and places source type not found
Added by
Picture of Pete F
Pete F
IrishHistory.com is passionate about helping people discover and connect with the rich stories of their local communities.
Please use the form below to submit any photos you may have of Station Monuments, Drumacoo, Co. Galway. We're happy to take any suggested edits you may have too. Please be advised it will take us some time to get to these submissions. Thank you.
Name
Email
Message
Upload images/documents
Maximum file size: 100 MB
If you'd like to add an image or a PDF please do it here.

Advertisement