Dungloe - what's in a name

Roman Catholic Church of Dungloe

THE NEW ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH OF DUNGLOE, DIOCESE OF RAPHOE - This church, the first stone of which was laid on the 2nd of July, 1855, by Rev. John O'Donnell, P.P., of Lettermacaward and Upper Templecrone, is covered in, and was opened for divine service on Sunday, the 20th instant.  The church is cruciform and consists of nave and aisle, the former measuring 90 by 80 and the latter 48 by 80 feet, the height of side wall being 25 feet.  There is also attached, a beautiful two storied sacristy; fourteen magnificent windows, each standing sixteen feet high, together with three door lights, add considerably to the external appearance of the house, and afford ample light to every part of the interior.  It is in contemplation to erect a suitable altar with as little delay as possible.  Owing to the exertions and gratuitous aid of the parishioners who raised the stones, supplied the lime, and attended the masons, the cost of the building has been very moderate-namely 693£ 6s. 8d.  When it is borne in mind that there were only 350 families to contribute to the building of the church, and that no external aid was obtained, save 80£ from the inhabitants of Letterkenny, the pastor's native town, 20£ and 10£ from the town of Donegal, great credit is due to the poor but generous people of Upper Templecrone, who so largely assisted and contributed to the erection of such a beautiful structure in one of the wildest and most remote districts of Donegal.  The church is built on the site of the old house and commands a beautiful prospect of the Bay of Dungloe, and far-famed Island of Arranmore is seen  far away  in the distance.

An Clochán Liath – Cloghanlea - Dún Gleo - Dunglow - Dungloe

The name Dungloe comes from the Irish language name Dún Gleo one of the names for a castle or fort on a small island in the townland of Cloughglass to the north of Burtonport. The castle had another name Dún Na Cloiche Glaise sometimes shortened to Dún Na Cloiche. That name Dún Na Cloiche means ‘the fort of the grey stone’. Ordinary green is 'uaine' in Irish but bright green or grey is 'glas'. The castle was a rectangular tower fort approximately 33 feet square according to John O'Donovan who saw the remains of the castle in the summer of 1835 while surveying for the Ordnance Survey. A part of the building stood until about 1890s when local youths knocked it into the sea. They who remembered the building said that one of the things that were unusual about it is that it was not built of the same stone as the stone found in Cloghlass townland. Cloughglass is a red granite rock area. I would say that the stone was grey limestone a stone not found in the granite basin of the Lower Rosses and I would also surmise that the stone was taken in by sea. Limestone is easy to cut and more suitable than granite for building particularly if using primitive tools. Cloughglass the townland name comes from the name of the castle.

The castle belonged to the Sweeneys before the collapse of Gaelic Order in Ulster (1603) and to the Sweeney Chieftain of Doe Castle outside Creeslough in particular. Mac Suibhne Na dTuath sometimes called in English language McSwiney Ado owned the castle and the lands around it, the parish of Templecrone. The Sweeneys were the rulers of the Templecrone parish part of the Rosses until the Ulster plantation in 1609 as well as Doe. The Wards family ruled Lettermacaward parish and their lands made up the balance of the Rosses. The Rosses is made up of the two old parishes Templecrone and Lettermacaward. The Sweeneys lost all of their lands that made up the old parish of Templecrone in the plantation of Ulster (1609) and in the land grant documents (patents) associated with the plantation the land were referred to as the 'lands of Port Dunglo'. There was a landing place near Dun Gleo and it is still called Castleport an anglicisation of the old name Port A Chaisleain. So Castleport was also called Port Dunglo.

A pretty piece of jewellery was found near there and is now on display in the Ulster Museum in Belfast. It is referred to as the Castleport Brooch. It is from an earlier period and may not have had anything to do with the fort.

The Sweeneys were a warlike gallowglass or mercenary sept who came to Ireland from the Herbredies of Scotland in the early Middle Ages and in return for fighting for the Gaelic Chieftains were given lands in Ireland by different places from Cork to Donegal. They fought using an axe and shield but also had a short dagger strapped to their leg. The strapped dagger is probably the origin of the name ‘Mac Suibhne na Midog- the Sweeneys of the Dagger’. They also had the dagger in their coat of arms. They were a Viking sept who became Gaelic and Gaelic speaking after they settled in Scotland. In Donegal they served the O'Donnells and got/or took land at Doe, Fanad, Templecrone (Dún Gleo) and Bannagh (Dunkineely). I assume they built the castle at Dungloe using limestone they brought in by sea in a galley. There may have been an existing castle there that they took over or captured. Dún Gleo has often been translated as Happy Fort but that is probably not correct. ‘Gleo’ can mean a 'happy noise' but it can also mean a noise associated with war and combat. I think John O’Donovan used the translation ‘Fort of contention’ and although I do not think that was strictly accurate I can see what he was getting at. The locals may have associated their new rulers with war and noise of war rather than happiness. Dun Gleo probably mean The Noisy Fort (Of War). The Boyles were the rulers of Templecrone before the arrival of the Sweeneys but they were pushed further south to below the Gweebarra by the Sweeneys.

Mac Suibhne Na dTuath (McSwiney Ado) in 1600 was Maolmhuire An Bhata Buí (Myles or Mulmurry of the Yellow Stick). At a time when many Irish leaders often changed sides, for sometimes understandable reasons of fear or perhaps less laudable motivation of personal ambition, he made a habit of it. There was this titanic struggle between the Gaelic Irish and the English and in Mc Suibhne Na dTuaths view it was hard to know what side to back. One side was more dangerous than the other. He managed to cheat the Irish and betray the English in fairly quick succession. He was a great survivor and managed to get back on side with the English and keep some of his lands in the Plantation of Ulster. He built Dunfanaghy. He lost all of the Rosses land (Templecrone) but that was probably the least of his worries. He kept his head at a time when many did not. On the 1600 Lord Mountjoy map, the last map showing Ulster before the Gaelic collapse, the fort in the Rosses just opposite Arranmore Island is marked McSwiney Ado. It is definitely Dún Gleo. Dún Gleo Fort was occupied, after the Plantation of Ulster, at the time of the Pynaar Survey in 1620 by the English soldier Captain Thomas Dutton. He had about 20 other English persons with him although they probably included women and children as well as soldiers. He had fought for the English army at the Battle of Kinsale in 1601 almost twenty years earlier and was one of the few people who had taken part in the battle who wrote about it and put his name to what he wrote. There is a colourful propagandist English account of the battle written by a self styled ‘Soldier Of Good Fortune’ where the writer (or writers) was clearly of the view that God had won the battle for the English. It seems unlikely that it was written by Dutton. Dutton’s account of the battle was very short and matter of fact. He said that on that fateful night outside Kinsale town, the English horse engaged and routed the Irish horse and infantry without the help of their own infantry and he compared it to a battle in Europe where the same thing had occurred. He was a professional/career soldier and was considered a fair man by the people of the Rosses. He later built for himself a bawn fort at Drum near Carrigart, County Donegal. They named the place after him - Drumdutton. His daughter Anne Dutton lived there after him.

There was a fair at Dún Gleo or Dún Na Cloiche Glaise and it was referred to as the Dunglo Fair or in Irish Aonach Dún Gleo. The fair was held on the flat piece of land on the mainland just out from the island. In 1768 or thereabouts the fair was transferred to the village of An Clochan Liath or Cloghanlea as they were now calling it in English. There was no bridge at Cloghanlea until the County Donegal Grand Jury built one about 1762 but there was a ‘clochán’ or stepping stones to allow one to cross the river. And they were grey and the Irish for grey is 'glass' or 'liath' so that is how an Cloghanlea (An Clochan Liath) got its name. After Dunglo Fair was transferred to Cloghanlea it was still referred to as Dún Gleo or Dunglo Fair and so they started calling the place Dunglo/Dunglow/Dungleo. In maps in the 1770's the town was referred to by the same mapper Skinner as Cloghanlea and Dunglow. Cloghanlea might have survived had the name 'Dunglow' not got a big lift when John O' Donovan used that name in the Ordnance Survey. At that stage he felt Dunglow was an established name and that he should not change it back to Cloghanlea.  Cloghanlea was no more, on paper anyhow, although Irish speakers continue to use the old name of An Clochan Liath rather than Dunglow. Dungloe is a variation of Dunglow that never caught on locally. So Dungloe it is.

by Sean Boner.