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Hello Ü new NewryÜns inside ü, family , tribe, townland ,anystate, a nüw newry city Yarn, . a pipe bomb and my stupid curiosity on all things newry ..

About NewryUns.com

Wuth a background in image media , With over 25 Years expertise , NewRayPics Image Agency and our award winning team of photographers, specialising in PR., Features, News and Sports photography, was based in Newry, County Down, Northern Ireland. Newraypics experienced photographers have been awarded two numerous 1st & 2nd place awards in the highly regarded NIPPA Northern Ireland Press Photographers Association) as well as Photojournalism Awards in 2008/9, and 2011 plus a commendation in 2009. We regularly undertake assignments from the Broadsheet and Tabloid market including The Guardian, Daily Mail, Daily Mirror, The Sun, The Irish Examiner, Belfast Telegraph, The Irish News, The Newsletter, Irish Independent and Irish Times as well as features work for Periodic Magazines across the United Kingdom and Ireland additional to that we have a working relationship with local Press including The Newry Democrat,The Cross Examiner, Newry Reporter and Mourne Observer - more recently we have been suppling one of the largest photo agency's in the world - Alamy -

To a degree or soo . Newraypics overtime had the honor to also supply all Irish newspapers with live news events and our work has appeared in publications all over the world, Our archive (currently 400,000 images) is represented by some of the world's largest stock photography agencies - namely Getty Images, Zuma Press and Alamy Images. My photography has been licensed/commissioned by the following Corporations, Publications and Newswires: The Irish Examiner, The Irish Times, Sunday Business Post, Sunday Times,Red Bull, Bank of Ireland,Ulster Bank, RTE, BBC, UTV, Channel 4,CNN, The Guardian (UK),, The Times (UK), The Independent (UK)The Telegraph (UK). LA Times, New York Daily News and Daily Mail, and my work has been reproduced all over the world including Japan, South America, USA, Russia. I also have over 1,000 (that's correct one thousand) Pearson Publishing book covers that have been created with my images. I live 3kms outside Newry, County Down with my 4 chickens - distance no object! I am a fully insured, and have close links with the National Union of Journalists and the with Irish Press Photographers Association…

Once upon a time after I’d sampled all all of the above .. slowly I lost faith in myself and my natives .. how had I who sees everything .. not see the sorrow I was in … Due to a few forks in my life .. I lost my way . I shuttered up , I went to my safe place .. a dark room .. . , over time my batteries failed my camera old wore out , and me Getting 🤧 unhealthy was an added bonus ., sure I hadn’t two legs to stand on for the guts of a year . These and alas more ,,, Pausing my talented eye , lost and alone . and Sure I spent half the weeks daylight hours in a dark room printings as a young man .. where I was alone .. I think I always did .. ... anyhow .,. My photography yarn .. it’s starts when I was very young

But that’s for later exposure .. …..

26/10/2026

Wee yarn… Saint Patrick mysteries . Thread 9
The

Saint Patrick’s barn, a sideways church & the county boundary that wouldn’t behave. 🤟🏼

Right… back down the abbot hole.

I’ve been reading an old monastic book. & found one With an entry for “Saballum Abby” in Monasticon Hibernicum… & before we’ve even reached the bottom of the page, the author has discovered a geographical problem.

Which is reassuring. That I found a very interesting fact about the vanished treasure.

I was beginning to think it was just me.

The account identifies Sabhall , or Saballum, as Patrick’s famous foundation, placing it 2 miles from Co Armagh ? In what is now county Down Ulster ..

All very settled.

Then we get to the details… & somebody needs to bring the map back.

According to the story quoted from the Tripartite Life, Dichu believed Patrick, was baptised & offered him the field where they were standing.

A generous gesture.

Most of us would offer a visitor a cup of tea. Dichu handed over a building site.

But there was a wee condition.

He had not wanted the church running NORTH TO SOUTH.

Apparently the barn already stood that way, & Dichu wanted the House of God following the same arrangement.

His reasoning?

“The South is the Lord’s as well as the East.”

Fair enough.

Hard to argue over the compass when your landlord has brought the Almighty into the planning application.
But it’s a clue .. “the barn the church. faces North to South …
Patrick agreed, according to the account, & the first church followed the position of the barn.

Now… that’s a detail worth holding on to. *Remember that fact **

An actual direction.

North to south.

Something yee might compare with a site, an old plan or surviving foundations… once the kettle’s boiled & somebody has found the compass.

The text gives the name “Zabhul Padrig,” explaining it as Patrick’s Barn.

Sabbul.
Zabul.
Zabhul.
Sabal.
Saballum.
Sabhall.
Saval.

By this stage the mystery barn has more spellings than a Newry surname taken down over the telephone.

Then the author brings in Usher.

According to the account attributed to him, Patrick returned from Rome after reporting on his mission & resided almost continually at Sabal, having appointed an abbot in his place.

There’s also a claim that Patrick died in that same house.

But the author immediately points out that other writers put his death elsewhere.

Even in the old books, everybody wasn’t singing from the same hymn sheet.

Some had apparently taken theirs to a different monastery.

Then comes the line that made me sit up.

Usher, we’re told, placed this abbey only TWO MILES from Down…

…yet in the COUNTY OF ARMAGH.

Now hold on.

The author himself spots the difficulty:

“If that were so, the County of Down would be much narrower than it has been hitherto reckon’d.”

There it is.

An old writer looking at an older account & effectively saying…

“Would somebody explain how we’ve got this monastery across the county boundary?”

I haven’t added Armagh to the page.

It’s sitting there in the print, causing trouble all by itself.

Now… that doesn’t settle where the original Sabhall stood. It gives us a claim attributed to Usher, followed by the author’s own objection.

But it certainly gives us something to investigate.

Which “Down” did the earlier source mean? How did the Armagh claim arise? Was the distance copied correctly? & how faithfully has this writer represented Usher?

Those questions need the earlier text opened beside this one.

Because when I’m looking again at Sabhall, Saval & the country around Newry, a passage like that deserves more than a quick glance before we turn the page.

We’ve a barn.
A north-to-south church.
A distance of two miles.
An Armagh reference.

& an author already scratching his head over the geography.

Saint Patrick may have agreed where the church should face…

…but the rest of us are still trying to agree where to put the pin.
But all this another clue as to the true burial site .. ??

25/10/2026

Wee yarn… did the monks of Newry lose their chisels, or have we lost track of their stones? 🤟🏼
** Saint Patrick mysteries thread 8 . **
Right… as Saint Patrick’s base was Sabhall .. he would have created the first monastic settlements. & all .. & the use of carvings in stone . & why ? Soo see I’ve been studying old illustrations of carved stones from across Ulster & Ireland.

Spirals. Interlace. Crosses. Animals. Figures holding books & croziers.

Some of the knotwork would leave yee needing a lie-down simply trying to follow it with your finger.

Somebody designed that.
Somebody measured it.
Somebody sat with a hammer & chisel, knowing one enthusiastic wallop could turn a month’s work into material for a boundary wall.
It was based on the teachings of Saint Patrick & Druidic rituals ..
these are a few examples to illustrate this thread ..
The monasteries supported remarkable old art & learning. Monks, patrons & skilled craftspeople helped create this world of carved stone. We shouldn’t assume every mason wore a habit… although I imagine a few prayers were offered when the chisel slipped.

From Fahan in Donegal to Monasterboice in Louth, Moone in Kildare & Dysert O’Dea in Clare, the surviving stones give us glimpses of that creative world.

Soo… what about the Abbeys & monasteries in & around the old lordship of Newry?

Where are their carved crosses?
Their decorated grave-slabs?
Their fragments with a face, a beast or a line of lettering? The Newry abbey was built at its base on stone ..

Did nobody here fancy a spiral?

Now, before I accuse the entire district of having misplaced its medieval arts department… there has been research.

Giles Dawkes published a study of Newry’s Cistercian abbey archaeology in 2009, following excavations beside Bagenal’s Castle. Foundations & burials were recorded.

& Newry and Mourne Museum displays a grave-slab associated with a pre-Norman monastic foundation, along with a stone carved with a human head & heraldic animal from Newry’s medieval abbey.

Soo the cupboard isn’t empty.

Perhaps I’ve been looking through the wrong drawers.

But finding a few pieces raises a bigger question: how much of this local story has been brought together where ordinary people can easily find it?

A journal article here.
A museum label there.
An excavation report requiring three searches & a small act of faith.

Before long, yee know the reference number better than the stone.

The early religious communities & the later Cistercian abbey also belong to different periods. Their remains need sorting carefully. A carved fragment cannot tell us its whole life story simply because we’d dearly like it to.

Yet it deserves to be asked.

Could more material survive beneath later buildings? Could worked stones have been reused in walls? Could fragments already recorded in collections become more meaningful when studied together?

Questions… not discoveries announced from the kitchen table.

What I’d love to see is an accessible illustrated account of the known monastic stones across the old lordship: photographs, measurements, locations, dates where possible & an honest explanation of what remains uncertain.

& if somebody has already produced it… point me towards it. I’ll happily exchange a grand theory for a good bibliography.

Because “I haven’t found it published” is a starting point for research.

It would be a terrible shame if the monks left us something in stone… & we lost the conversation in the paperwork.

Back down the abbot hole.

Bring a torch, a camera & somebody who knows which wall we’re looking at.

24/10/2026

Wee yarn… Kilbroney’s ancient cross… no ring, plenty of detail & a woman behind the place name.

Right… number six on that old map of County Down crosses brought me to Kilbroney, just outside Rostrevor.

The account describes a granite cross, eight feet six inches high, with its west side covered in a fine geometrical pattern.

Then two words.

“No ring.”

The stonecarver evidently completed the job without waiting for somebody to insist that every Irish cross required a circle.

No consultation.
No revised drawings.
No chap arriving halfway through saying, “Lovely work… but where’s the round bit?”

Soo… down the abbot hole we go.

Kilbroney — Cill Bhronaigh — Bronagh’s Church.

The place remembers Saint Bronagh, traditionally associated with a religious community here. The local heritage account dates the carved cross to the late eighth century, while an archaeological report places it around the late eighth or early ninth century.

That would make it roughly twelve hundred years old. 1200….

Considerably older than the photograph… & several centuries later than the early saint whose name the place carries.

Which is a useful distinction.

An ancient religious site could keep developing long after its founder had gone. The cross needn’t have arrived with Bronagh’s luggage.

Now… look at the carving.

The old description draws attention to the west face. The archaeological account describes interlace & fretwork: intricate ornament worked into stone.

Lines turning.
Patterns repeating.
Somebody patiently working out a design while the rest of us struggle to untangle a charging cable.

& somebody had to carve it.

Into granite.

I’d be requesting a tea break after marking the first corner.

But what did every turn & shape mean?

That’s where my curiosity gets going… & where we need to keep our feet on the ground.

A pattern can be carefully planned without us possessing the carver’s explanation. I can admire it, compare it & ask questions.
Was it ??
Decoding the whole thing before dinner might be ambitious.

Then I discovered there’s another cross.

An older history of Kilbroney describes both the tall decorated granite cross & a much smaller cross bearing a carved human face.

Two different monuments.

Which is worth remembering when photographs, descriptions & dates start wandering around the internet wearing one another’s coats.

& the religious history here extends beyond the stonework.

That same account records an appointment in 1427 to the office of keeper of Saint Bronagh’s staff.

An actual responsibility attached to the parish.

Imagine being asked your occupation.

“I keep Saint Bronagh’s staff.”

“Is that permanent?”

“The paperwork appears fairly established.”

The staff has since disappeared, according to that history. It also records the survival of her bell & its transfer to the Catholic church in Rostrevor.

Soo… a place named after a woman, an early religious community, a tall patterned cross, another cross with a face, church ruins, a bell & a missing staff.

I went looking for number six on a map.

I appear to have opened the parish’s ancient lost-property department.

But that tall cross deserves a wee moment of its own.

Weathered.
Ringless.
Still carrying the marks somebody took the trouble to cut into it centuries ago.

The old account gave it a few lines in a table.

The person who carved it gave it rather more time.

Next time 🤟🏼 are near Kilbroney… have a look at the west face.

There’s a lot of patient work standing there.

& nobody needed a circle to make it worth noticing.

24/10/2026

Wee yarn .. The Saint Patrick mysteries..
a view of DONAGHMORE CROSS . with Carvings which contain souls & stories of our ancestors . To go with the previous post .

24/10/2026

Wee yarn… Saint Patrick mysteries thread 7

See when .. Saint Patrick died & the argument was only getting started. 🤟🏼

An introduction to a few threads ..

Right… I went looking for his burial place & discovered a saint apparently needed an executor, a solicitor & somebody keeping an eye on the oxen.

Saul claimed him.
Down claimed him.
Glastonbury shouted across the water.

& Ard Macha sat there with the bell, the book & the expression of a man who brought receipts.

Down the abbot hole we go…

This yarn follows the Rev. T. Olden’s paper, read in February 1893. He examined the competing stories & argued that Patrick was buried at Armagh. That’s his case we’re following here.

First, the old traditions.

One account has rival parties , following his passing, following his wake he was unturned each believing they possessed Patrick’s body.

Everybody went home convinced they’d won.

A solution to an Ulster dispute so effective we appear never to have tried it again.

Another story has a wee boy reaching into Patrick’s grave to retrieve his hoop… & getting his hand stuck.

A bishop had to be summoned.

Imagine answering that call.

“Is somebody dying?”

“No, Your Reverence… we need yee to ask the saint to let go.” But this was where ?

Then comes the funeral transport.

According to the tradition, two untamed oxen were to carry Patrick’s body dressed in hand woven white robes made by Saint Bridget . on a cart . Wherever they stopped would become his burial place. I know from where & how far they trodded & stopped .. I just can’t pin point where . The method of entombing was to be entombed deep within a mound covered & marked with three stones .

Soo… a question scholars would argue over for centuries was initially referred to cattle.

No map. No minutes. No chap at the crossroads shouting, “Yee were meant to turn at the chapel.”

The stories include angels, flames, a sea rising to prevent a fight & oxen and wagon disappearing during an attempted removal.

Olden noticed echoes of biblical narratives.

I noticed nobody took the registration.

Then John de Courcy arrives in the account, alongside the promotion of Patrick at Down & the reported discovery of holy remains.

Olden suspected political advantage.
Who ever owned the relics was the ruler of the land .
Conquer a district & suddenly become deeply interested in its patron saints golden relics. ?

All that was missing was a photographer & somebody saying, “Could yee hold the relic a wee bit higher?”

Meanwhile, Glastonbury had its own claim.

Patrick could scarcely get a quiet resting place without another monastery entering the competition.

But Olden’s attention turns to Armagh.

He gathers references to relics, a shrine & earlier testimony. Then he gets stuck into a small Irish word connected with the Ferta.

His argument? A disputed reading meant “the grave” rather than “two graves.”

One wee word… generations of learned men heading in different directions.

Anybody who has followed a townland through four spellings will understand.

He also distinguishes Patrick’s early settlement below the hill from the later foundation above it. In the story, Patrick asks Daire for the high ground & is initially offered a strong rath below.

Even the patron saint couldn’t get his preferred site on the first application.

Olden connects that earlier settlement with Patrick’s eventual burial. He also favours the idea that Sen Patrick—the Elder Patrick—& Patrick the Apostle were the same person, their stories tangled over time.

His conclusion is firmly Armagh. For all to see . Not ardmacha

That remains Olden’s historical argument. We haven’t found a nameplate on a coffin.

& the tradition explaining why the grave was unknown?

Some say .. The mourners fell asleep while angels buried Patrick during the night.

A whole funeral party asleep & nobody able to say where the burial happened.

There have been confusing wakes in Ulster… but that would take some explaining over the tea.

Soo I went looking for one grave & came back with rival monasteries, disputed translations & two oxen who were never brought in for questioning.

Back down the abbot hole.

Bring a dictionary. The cattle have already given their directions. But where did they stop ?
Yet this yarn adds up .. he passed at Sabhall . Waked & was buried where the two oxen stopped & following that he was claimed by all sides . & perhaps his close followers hid the true truth of his burial to all until the truth could be revealed. . Perhaps in plain site .. ? Can 🤟🏼 see ??

24/10/2026

Wee yarn… The Saint Patrick Mysteries — Thread 6.

Another twist in this re-woven stone yarn… & this time somebody has built the evidence into a school. 🤔

Right… those following the page will know I’ve been questioning the word “Sabhall.” A place a townland a lost truth ..

Its meaning. Its origins. Its location… & what it might tell us about Saint Patrick in this corner of Ulster.

I’ve been exploring whether the story of Patrick’s Sabhall could have connections to our own Saval, near Newry… & whether later accounts have tangled together places, traditions & names. Which is a hard to prove as it is to disprove .

My suspicion is that a much older local story has been overlooked, perhaps displaced in the telling towards Saul near Downpatrick. . See in the 12h century de courcy & his band of invades stole the books & rewrote our history to suit there needs . Claiming old customs as their legacy. . That being the case .. I’m trying to decide decode the clues ..

That’s the theory I’m following. Proving it will take considerably more than me pointing at a map & saying, “Would yee look at that!” But it all depends on …

Though obviously I’ve started nowhere near there.

Soo… what clues might survive fifteen hundred years?

Stone, I thought.

Perhaps carved stone.

Something a wee bit harder to edit than a manuscript.

& down the old abbot hole I fell.

I came across a map in an old publication dated 1907, marking crosses across Ulster, county by county.

Naturally, I zoomed into County Down.

Six numbered sites.

None marked at Newry or Saval on this particular map… but there was Donaghmore, just north of Newry.

Now… an absent symbol does not prove there was never a cross. This is a record of particular surviving remains, rather than a complete inventory of everything the monks ever erected.

Still… Donaghmore caught my eye.

But first, the six stops on our stone inspection.

1. Clandeboy — Bangor’s cross, partly accommodated

The account records a piece of the shaft of the Bangor cross built into the wall of a private chapel at Clandeboy.

Twenty-eight inches long, with remains of interlaced carving.

Twenty-eight inches.

Enough to recognise somebody’s craftsmanship… & wonder where the rest went.

The cross had apparently acquired an address in somebody else’s wall.

2. Dromore — much injured & restored

A fifteen-foot cross in the town’s churchyard, with a solid recessed ring.

“Much injured and restored,” says the account.

Which, after a certain age, could go on several of our passports.

The writer carefully identifies the base, circle & part of the shaft as old.

Fair play. Even in an old account, somebody was checking which bits were original.

3. Drumadonnell — history was part of the building

Near M‘Bride’s crossroads, a thirteen-foot granite cross was recorded as built into the north end of Drumadonnell National School.

A solid recessed ring. Interlaced carving in low relief.

Imagine the homework.

“What did yee discover at school today?”

“A cross.”

“In your religious studies?”

“No… in the wall.”

There’s teaching children about their heritage… & then there’s making them sit inside the evidence.

4. Downpatrick — mind the pieces

At the east end of the cathedral stood an eleven-foot granite cross, with a solid ring, carved figures & interlaced designs.

“Greatly injured.”

Inside the cathedral, the account separately records several cross fragments, with a plain recessed central panel & no ring.

It doesn’t say those fragments belong to the cross outside.

Soo we’ll leave the assembly instructions alone.

There’s enough confusion in Irish history without me arriving with imaginary stone glue.

5. Donaghmore — now hold on a wee minute

Six miles north of Newry, in the churchyard, the account records a ten-foot granite cross.

A pierced ring… figures… geometrical designs arranged in panels.

“Carved all over.”

Somebody had a chisel, a purpose & a considerable amount of patience.

But here’s the name that stopped me.

Donaghmore — Domhnach Mór.

The great church.

Domhnach is an old word for a church, preserved in place names. Mór means great or large.

Yes, Domhnach also means Sunday… but “great church” is the usual interpretation of this place name.

We’re not simply discussing an exceptionally good weekend.

Plus Donaghmore is close to the see of Armagh which an angel told Saint patrick
To build .. Donaghmore was also sanctions by pa
Our Donaghmore was also known as Domhnach Mór Maighe Cobha — the great church of the plain of Cobha.

Soo… a richly carved cross, at a place whose very name remembers a great church, close to the countryside I’ve been studying. Plus it’s a short distance from Sabhall ? What’s the odds ..

That gives me a reason to look more closely.

It doesn’t establish a connection to Sabhall… but next to it it is .. but it certainly earns another page in the NewryÜns notebook.

6. Kilbroney — no ring, plenty of detail

A mile north of Rostrevor, in the graveyard, an eight-foot-six granite cross.

No ring.

Its west side covered with a fine geometrical pattern.

The stonecarver evidently completed the job without waiting for somebody to insist that every Irish cross required a circle.

Soo… six numbered sites in this old County Down record.

Standing crosses. Restored crosses. Broken crosses.

A piece in a chapel wall… & a cross incorporated into a school.

Which brings me back to the question that started this particular tumble down the abbot hole.

But we’re looking for the remains of forgotten religious sites… where should we be looking?

The churchyard?

The field?

The hedge?

Or the wall everybody walks past because it has always been there?

Donaghmore remembers a great church in its name. & the surrounding townlands confirm that there was once a great settlement on that spot ..

I’d like to understand more about the church behind that name… & the hands that carved its cross.

Anyhow… that’s thread six.

I went looking for Sabhall… & now I’m suspicious of the masonry.

24/10/2026

Wee yarn… I went looking under stone slabs… & came back with a lost cross, four holy wells & a question about Saint Agnes. In Bessbrook .
Who hung around with Saint Patrick .
Right… nobody warned me the Newry abbot hole had running water.
**The Saint Patrick mysteries thread 5**

There I was, studying old carved stones, trying to understand the crosses & the hands that shaped them, when I stumbled across the Armagh account of a broken holy cross at Maghernahely, near Bessbrook.

A shaft standing near an old bawn… the rest lying in a ditch.

Then, looking a wee bit closer at the surrounding history, up came another great surprise a church a convent & the area surrounded with possible monastic buildings.. &. FOUR holy wells.

The Eye Well.
The Ear Well.
The Knee Well.

To help 🤟🏼 see better hear better & kneel with ease..

& a fourth where children were washed bathed as part of an old spiritual healing tradition that was once the foundation of Ulster Christianity , those who challenged there own family honour. The gifted .

See it’s written .. All four were said to be under the patronage of Saint Agnes.

Now… that stopped me.

Who was Saint Agnes ?

One well might catch your attention. Four, gathered around a place whose archaeological record includes a church, graveyard, bawn & convent, deserve a wee moment of consideration. Which was which .. sacred wells where pilgrims followed their ancestors to pray. She was more than possibly guided enlightened by Saint Patrick as they were alive in the same time period in Ulster.

See the wells? According to T. G. F. Paterson’s account, thousands once gathered on the first three Sundays of May & August, performing devotional “stations”—prayers & observances around the sacred place.

Those stations were still being performed as late as 1886. Then ??? The pilgrimage fell apart.. shame that ..

Imagine the generations who came before them. For centuries .

People arriving with sore eyes, troubled hearing, painful knees… parents bringing children, carrying worries that no old calendar could properly record.

Many came in faith, hoping for relief. The waters were credited with cures in local tradition, although the surviving account cannot tell us how many recovered or why. Once as revered as Lourdes says me..

But the hope was real enough.

More importantly Somebody walked there.
More importantly Somebody knelt.
More importantly Somebody brought a child & asked for help.
More importantly miracles happened.. that’s faith ..
Then comes the line that carries the story into another age…
The pilgrimage ended & apparently a school was built over three wells &’the fourth was redirected & The water was subsequently piped to Bessbrook.

Water once approached with prayers became water carried towards the new village.

From the pilgrim’s hands to the household kettle.

Still serving people… while the old devotional purpose gradually slipped from everyday memory.

& Saint Agnes?

Well… I went looking for her & discovered not one but two Ulster saints named Aghna, a name sometimes linked with Agnes.

One is remembered on 18 May & identified as a daughter of Eoghan. Another is commemorated on 22 May with Luighsech & Caissin, three religious women associated with Druim Dá Dhart.

Two names in May… beside a local tradition of May pilgrimages.

An interesting thread to follow. We have yet to find the document that ties either woman to these particular wells. Apart from the Name.

History does enjoy leaving yee a door with the key missing.

So I began with stone slabs.

Then found a lost cross. That’s still lost..

Then discovered a record of four holy wells whose sacred purpose has faded from view.

I cannot yet say what survives of all four on the ground. But their place in the story survives on the page.

The Eye. The Ear. The Knee. & the children’s well.
Cures of all ..
Four places where people once brought the things that hurt… & the people they loved.

Perhaps that is what we lose when an old holy place becomes only a name in a record.

We remember where the water went… why did we stop believing in local history to get the cures ?

& forget why people came. For miracles when faith was beginning to slip .. ..

Anyhow .. the Saint Patrick connection..
he knew Agnes..

24/10/2026

Wee yarn… soo next to the invisible cross stitch in time were they all forts, or has somebody put up some concern? 🤔

Saint Patrick’s early forts .

I’ve been studying these old 1830’s maps around Maghernahely, near Bessbrook, following the trail of the lost cross.

And everywhere 🤟🏼 look… “Fort.”

Round enclosure? Fort.
Oval enclosure? Fort.
Wee bank with trees growing through it? Fort.

You’d think the whole countryside had been waiting on planning permission for an invasion.
But the spacing between was just too much to not be aware.
Now, to be fair to the old surveyors, they recorded features we might otherwise have lost altogether. But a label on a map can survive considerably longer than the explanation behind it. They looked at the data available to them & assummed more than they should have.

And “fort” puts a particular picture into your head.

A square space .. how old .

Spears. Shields. A fierce-looking chap at the gate demanding to know whose cattle yee have.

Yet most Ulster ringforts are understood as enclosed farmsteads. Families, livestock, cooking, crafts & the ordinary business of keeping everybody fed & sheltered

A bank around your home did not necessarily mean yee were preparing to conquer Ulster. Sometimes yee simply wanted the neighbour’s cow to respect a boundary.

But here’s the wee question…

The Romans were known to built such structures. At the same distance apart . Just saying .

Early religious communities used enclosures too.

Churches, burial grounds, homes, workshops & places of prayer could sit within banks or walls. Once the buildings disappeared, what remained might look rather similar on a small map.

A circle does not come with an address label saying:

“Brother Colmán, third hut past the hens.”

So, could some of these places marked “Fort” preserve early church communities—or settlements connected with them?

Their spacing close to. Stone cross has caught my eye too. Could there have been relationships between these places: shared routes, resources, work & worship?

That needs measuring & comparing properly. A pleasing pattern on a map can start a theory; it cannot finish the investigation.

One extract places “R.C. Chapel” within an enclosure beside the word “Fort.” .. see it’s a real clue .. was the fort a forgotten temple .

The chapel could be a much later arrival. But it deserves a question before we march everybody inside into the local militia.

Then there’s Maghernahely itself.

Not only have I discovered an old stone cross ..I learned. A recorded church & graveyard. Four holy wells. Not one but 4 . Celtic Pictish ritual Pilgrimage traditions. The later convent. On the same land .. And our lost cross near Caulfield’s Bawn, its shaft standing while the rest lay in a ditch.

There is a religious history here to investigate.

And this is where my own reconstruction begins—an idea, rather than an excavated building plan.

I wonder how much practical knowledge those communities shared: managing land, growing food, working timber & stone, sheltering livestock & making the best use of water, fuel & the seasons.

How did inherited local customs meet Christianity? Which skills continued, which changed & which were given a new religious meaning?

I’m interested in possible Pictish connections too, but those need their own evidence. We cannot identify a community’s traditions from the shape of its enclosure alone.

In my mind, I’ve been exploring a substantial communal building: earth shelter around the edges, timber floors, stonework storing warmth, cooking areas below & livestock sheltered through winter.

A place where work, food, warmth & prayer might share the same roof.

I’ve visited abandoned stone buildings later used to shelter cattle. That gets me thinking about how buildings change their purpose—and how the remains can outlive everybody who understood them.

Could people have used warmth from livestock, as it still happens in Belarus or heat retained in stone, to help make winter living more comfortable?

Those are questions worth exploring. But the particular arrangement I’ve imagined—large chambers, heated passages, several floors & enormous supporting timbers—would need archaeological evidence & a serious structural assessment.

A drawing in my head hasn’t yet passed building control.

And Brother Colmán cannot be expected to hold the roof up while I revise the measurements.

Likewise, I’m not claiming every monk carried a master book containing identical blueprints for society. But im
Suggesting the concept I’m wondering how religious teaching, books & practical knowledge travelled between communities—and what local builders made of them.

I’m not announcing seven newly discovered monasteries before breakfast.

Nor is my cross painting a photograph from the year 837. Its design is an artistic interpretation.

Even my camera wasn’t about then.

I’m asking whether the word “Fort” has sometimes finished a conversation that ought to be starting. A Miss translation

Because once the roof has gone, the timber has rotted & the last person who knew the yarn has been buried, a bank of earth can keep its shape while losing its meaning. To protect the fabric of life.

Perhaps some of those circles held cattle.

Perhaps some held prayer.

And perhaps a few managed both— & more because even a lost cross is still protected by a heap of forts ..

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