Irish: Gleann Cholm Cille
Glencolmcille
Glencolumbkille
District and civil parish
View of Glencolmcille
View of Glencolmcille
Irish: Gleann Cholm Cille is located in Ireland
Irish: Gleann Cholm Cille
Irish: Gleann Cholm Cille
Location in Ireland
Coordinates: 54°42′32″N 8°43′34″W / 54.709°N 8.726°W / 54.709; -8.726
CountryIreland
ProvinceUlster
CountyCounty Donegal
BaronyBanagh
Elevation
20 m (70 ft)
Population
 (2016)[1]
217
Irish Grid ReferenceG529846
Gleann Cholm Cille is the only official name. The anglicised spellings Glencolumbkille and Glencolmcille no longer have any official status.

Gleann Cholm Cille, anglicised as Glencolumbkille or Glencolmcille,[2] is a small district on the Atlantic coast of southwest County Donegal in Ulster, the northern province in Ireland. Named after Saint Colm Cille (Columba), it is also a civil parish in the historic barony of Banagh.[3] Glencolmcille is in the Gaeltacht, and while it remains an Irish-speaking community, English has been steadily replacing Irish as the main language, with only 34% of residents speaking Irish on a daily basis in 2002.[4] The village of Cashel is the main settlement in the district.

History

The earliest recorded names for the district were Glend (meaning simply 'Glen' or 'Valley') and Senglenn (meaning 'Old Glen' or 'Old Valley').[5][6][7] The district later became known as Gleann Cholm Cille, probably in the fifteenth-century. This later, and current, name means 'Valley of Colm Cille'. The district's current name was first fully recorded only in 1532, when it was written in Maghnas Ó Domhnaill's Betha Colaim Chille (Life of Colm Cille) as being: ag tSenglenda a crich Ceneoil Conill ris a raiter Glend Colaim Cilli aniug ('at the river of Seanghleann [Old Glen] in the territory of the Cenél Conaill, which is called Gleann Cholm Cille today').[5] Saint Colm Cille, or Columba, is one of Ireland's three patron saints (along with Saint Patrick and Saint Brigid). He and his followers supposedly lived in the valley for a time and the ruins of several of their churches can still be seen there.

The district was once famous as being the parish of The V. Rev. James Canon McDyer (1910–1987), who championed the rights of rural people and helped establish community-based industries in the area.[8] A parish council (Comhairle Paróiste Ghleann Cholm Cille) has been functioning in Glencolmcille since the 1930s, to look after the interests and needs of the residents. Members are elected to this body every four years by the residents of the Glencolmcille church area.[9]

Historic sites

Four sites make up National Monument #139:

St. Columba's Church

Culture

Glencolmcille was home to the Dublin-born artist Kenneth King, whose works depict naval and merchant shipping, coastline and lighthouses.[note 1]

British composer Sir Arnold Bax made many extended visits there between 1904 and the early 1930s. Apparently, Bax composed much of his music and wrote many of his poems and stories while staying there. He describes the district and its villages, and the life of its inhabitants, in his autobiography Farewell My Youth:

At one end of the little Glen Bay was a wilderness of tumbled black rocks, for some reason named Romantia (a particularly "gentle" – or fairy-haunted place, I was told in Dooey opposite), and upon this grim escarpment the breakers thundered and crashed, flinging up, as from a volcano, towering clouds of dazzling foam which would be hurled inland by the gale to put out the fires in the cottage hearths of Beefan and Garbhros. The savagery of the sea was at times nearly incredible. I have seen a continuous volume of foam sucked, as in a funnel, up the whole six-hundred-foot face of Glen Head, whilst with the wind north-west a like marvel would be visible on the opposite cliff.

There were days when you had to lean hard up against the wind to keep your feet at all... Yet in that unearthly valley there always seemed to be a core of peace in the heart of the most ravening tempest.

—Arnold Bax, Farewell My Youth

There are a number of natural sites nearby, such as the Slieve League (Sliabh Liag) cliffs, The Silver Strand (An Tráigh Bhán) at Malin Beg (Málainn Bhig), and Glen Head (Cionn Ghlinne) itself.

At the centre of one of the largest Gaeltacht areas, the district is known as the home of Oideas Gael, an Irish-language learning institute established in 1984 to promote the Irish language and culture. The district also has a petrol station, grocer, post office, folk village, woollen mill, hill walking and accommodation centre, restaurant, "village cafe" and two pubs (often with Irish fiddle music).

Films shot on location in Glencolmcille include The Railway Station Man, 1992, starring Julie Christie, Donald Sutherland and John Lynch.[13]

Notable people

Footnotes

  1. ↑ Some of Kenneth King's paintings are on display in the National Maritime Museum of Ireland in Dún Laoghaire

References

  1. ↑ "Census 2016 Sapmap Area: Settlements Gleann Cholm Cille". Central Statistics Office (Ireland). Archived from the original on 24 September 2021. Retrieved 4 June 2018.
  2. ↑ Placenames (Ceantair Ghaeltachta) Order 2004 Archived 27 March 2014 at the Wayback Machine, Commissioner.ie
  3. ↑ "Glencolumbkille". IreAtlas Townlands Database. Archived from the original on 28 June 2015. Retrieved 6 May 2015.
  4. ↑ Glencolmcille Parish Plan Archived 2007-11-18 at the Wayback Machine.
  5. 1 2 Dónall Mac Giolla Easpaig, 'Placenames and Early Settlement in County Donegal', in William Nolan, Liam Ronayne and Mairead Dunlevy (Editors), Donegal: History and Society, p. 165. Geography Publications, Dublin, 1995 (reprinted 2002).
  6. ↑ Tomás G. Ó Canann, 'Carraig an Dúnáin: Probable Ua Canannáin Inauguration Site', in Journal of the Royal Society of the Antiquaries of Ireland (J.R.S.A.I.) Volume 133, p. 41. Royal Society of the Antiquaries of Ireland (R.S.A.I.), Dublin, 2003.
  7. ↑ Brian Lacey, Saint Columba: His Life and Legacy, p. 28. The Columba Press, Blackrock, County Dublin, 2013.
  8. ↑ Champion of the Marginalised by Fr. Kevin Hegarty, Mayo News, 5 October 2010.
  9. ↑ "Failte go Lar Comhairle Paroiste Ghleann Cholm Cille". Lar Comhairle Paroiste Ghleann Cholm Cille. Retrieved 17 March 2022.
  10. ↑ "Glencolumbkille Station 1". Megalithicireland.com. Archived from the original on 27 July 2019. Retrieved 27 July 2019.
  11. ↑ "Historic Glencolmcille". Gleanncholmcille.ie. Archived from the original on 18 March 2018. Retrieved 27 July 2019.
  12. ↑ "Malin More Portal Tombs and Standing Stone". Megalithicireland.com. Archived from the original on 20 April 2019. Retrieved 27 July 2019.
  13. ↑ Glencolmcille at IMDb
  14. ↑ "Photograph of the inscription on the church tower, Glencolumbkille". Flickr.com. Archived from the original on 24 September 2021. Retrieved 27 July 2019.
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