The last religious house of the City of Derry to which I shall refer, is the Augustinian Church. Docwra demolished all the religious houses in Derry in 1600, as I have already stated, with the exception of the Church of St. Augustine, which was intended for Protestant worship. In 1608, Sir Cahir O'Doherty, with a few raw recruits, hurriedly collected from the hardy mountaineers of Ennishowen, captured the fort of Culmore and its English garrison, and then proceeded to Derry, captured the city and reduced it to ashes. This church belonged to the Augustinians, or Canons Regular, and, strictly speaking, should be designated Dubh Regles, as well as the Church of St. Columba; for, according to the authority of O'Flaherty, in Ogygia, "every Abbey Church of Canons Regular is designated Dubh Regles." In this he differs from O'Donovan.

In bringing these hurried remarks of mine to an end, I wish to observe that few cities in Ireland, of the same limited extent, can produce such a noble record of religious houses and such a brilliant galaxy of distinguished ecclesiastics. The only relic of all its religious foundations is a solitary stone in an obscure portion of Derry. The relic is "St. Columba's Stone," and the street is designated "St. Columba's Wells," which is chiefly occupied by quay porters. Such is English domination and Scottish Vandalism.

THE FRANCISCAN

MONASTERY OF

KILL-O'DONNELL.

THE Franciscan Monastery of Kill-O'Donnell is the most perfect monastic ruin in Ulster, and "is regarded by competent judges as the purest specimen of early ecclesiastical architecture to be found among the numerous old abbeys of Ireland."*

*Monasticon.

All that remains of the great Franciscan Monastery of Donegal are the foundations and a few pieces of walls. The celebrated Monastery of Killmacrenan, to which the Monastery of Kill-O'Donnell is said to have been affiliated, contains nothing except the sculptured head of an abbot, inserted over the doorway of what is now a Protestant Church. All these three Monasteries belonged to the Franciscans. KillO'Donnell stands on the left bank of the Swilly, in a field of rich pasture land, comprising twenty-six acres, and from this to the shore is another field of tillage land, containing nineteen acres. These fields form a portion of the Abbey lands of Kill-O'Donnell, granted to the Franciscan Fathers by O'Donnell and his tributary chieftain, MacSwiney Fanad, "The Friars of this Order lived in community, observed strict discipline, discharged pastoral duties, and devoted themselves to the education of the youth of the adjoining districts.” *

About 150 yards from the ruin of Kill-O'Donnell there is a small rocky eminence, from the crevices of which there grows a stunted hawthorn. This rock and this hawthorn had their history, for tradition says this rock was the Friars' seat. Although this rock is not more than at an elevation of 350 feet above the Swilly, it commands the best view to be found anywhere in Ulster. To the west, the majestic mountains of Errigal and Muckish are perceptible with all their grand and majestic outlines. The deep blue waters of the Swilly lie at your feet, and are perceptible, from Letterkenny to Rathmullen. At the distance of a few miles, you can see, on Castle Hill, the ruins of the old Castle of O'Dogherty. At the distance of a few miles further north, you can see the ruins of another old castle of the O'Dogherty, at the southern extremity of the Island of Inch. This castle has its history. When Sir Cahir O'Dogherty, at the head of his raw recruits, marched from Buncrana, in 1608, captured Calmore, burnt.

* Meehan.

Derry, and then proceeded to Glen Veigh, to fight against the English troops, Mary Preston, who was of the noble house of Gormanstown, and the wife of Sir Cahir, was concealed in this castle. It was a secure retreat, for before the reclamation of the slob lands, Inch was a perfect island. Lady O'Dogherty had for her companion in this castle Lady O'Hanlon, who was the sister of Sir Cahir, and the wife of Sir Oggie (Oag) O'Hanlon, of Armagh. From the Friars' Rock you can see clearly "Aileach of the Kings," which is only a few miles distant from Derry. On the opposite side of the lough are the fertile fields and comfortable farmhouses of the descendants of the Scottish Planters. At the time of the Plantation, in 1610, the old Celtic race was banished from these lands to the mountain fastnesses of Gweedore and Cloghaneely. The Undertakers who were engaged in this hellish work were-Sir William Stewart, the forefathers of the Abercorn family, the Cunninghams, Wilsons, and a host of others, who all came from Scotland. In 1619, when Captain Pynnar made a survey of the lands of the Undertakers, there was not even one Catholic remaining of the old Celtic race, in this district designated the Luggan.*

The hatred and bigotry of those Scottish Undertakers and Planters was directed chiefly against Religious Houses and their inmates. Besides, the greedy eye of the Planter coveted the well-cultivated lands of the Third Order of St. Francis, scattered through Tyrconnell and Tyrone.

You will naturally ask what Undertaker got the rich abbey lands of Kill-O'Donnell. I shall tell you. Sir Basil Brooke got those lands, and also the lands adjoining Lough Veigh, with the water fishing weirs attached to the same.†

Glenveigh has its history, for it adjoins the birthplace of the great St. Columba; and for its scenery it is surpassed by few places in all Tyrconnell.

*Pynnar's Survey.

+ Patent Rolls of James I.

Kill-O'Donnell, or Killy-O'Donnell, as it is called in the Ulster Inquisitions, was granted by Patent, dated the 5th of March, 1610, to Sir Basil Brooke, and was called the Manor of Brooke. The rent was £8 English, to be held in common soccage from the Castle of Dublin.* It was this Vandal who unroofed the Church of Kill-O'Donnell, destroyed all the cells of the poor monks, except one, which remains as perfect at the present day as it was when the poor Franciscan Father occupied it. On the eastern elevation there was a magnificent Gothic window, about twenty feet high. Brooke carried away the tracery stones, and the mullions, and sculptured stones, to assist in the erection of his castle and bawn,† which stood on the spot where Fort Stewart House, the residence of the Stewart family for more than 270 years, now stands. I shall refer to this more in detail hereafter. Brooke had a demesne of 300 acres, the patrimony of the Third Order of St. Francis. This is the well-wooded demesne of the late Sir Augustus Stewart. Brooke sold these lands to Sir William Stewart, and settled in Brookborough, in the Co. Fermanagh, where his descendants still reside.

Sir Brasil Brooke died on the 25th July, 1633, his son and heir being Sir Henry Brooke of Brookborough. Except the expulsion of the poor Franciscans of the Third Order from their convent, and the Vandalism perpetrated on the convent, the church, and cells of the monks, I find no other record against this Undertaker. I now come to another Undertaker, who had no parallel for cruelty in all Ulster-I might add in all Ireland-if we except Oliver Cromwell; I mean Sir William Stewart, a Scotchman, and a native of Ayrshire.

The history of Sir William Stewart during the first half of the seventeenth century was identified with the robbery, persecutions and murder of the Franciscans in Tyrconnell and

* Patent Rolls and Ulster Inquisitions.

†Bawn, an enclosure of stone around the castle.