Glencolmcille

Glencolmcille Irish: Gleann Cholm Cille
County Donegal
View of Glencolmcille
Location
Grid reference:	G529846
Location:	54°42’32"N, 8°43’34"W
Data
Population:	217  (2016)
Local Government

Glencolumbkille or Glencolmcille is a small settlement and district on the Atlantic coast of south-western County Donegal. It is named after Saint Columba (Colm Cille).

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.

Name

The name means Gleann Cholm Cille means "valley of Colm Cille" after St Colm Cille, or Columba, one of Ireland's three patron saints (along with St Patrick and St Brigid). He and his followers lived in the valley for a time and the ruins of several of their churches can still be seen there.

Historic sites

St Columba's Church

Four sites make up a listed National Monument:

• Glencolumbkille Cashel (54°42’32"N, 8°43’20"W) — A penitential station, also called Glencolumbkille Turas (Irish for "journey"). Every 9 June the local people go through 15 "stations." It begins at a court cairn, constructed 3000 BC. The pilgrim circles the cairn three times praying, places his/her back to the stone, then renounce the World, the Flesh, and the Devil.
• Glencolumbkille Church (54°43’6"N, 8°44’12"W) — A holy well is located in Beefan townland.
• Malin Beg (54°39’54"N, 8°46’14"W) — Church of St Kevin and ringfort.
• Malin More (54°40’57"N, 8°43’15"W) — A portal tomb dated to c. 2000 BC.

Culture

Glencolmcille was home to the Dublin-born artist Kenneth King, whose works depict naval and merchant shipping, coastline and lighthouses. Some of Kenneth King's paintings are on display in the National Maritime Museum of Ireland in Dún Laoghaire</ref>

The 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).

On film

Films shot on location in Glencolmcille include:

• The Railway Station Man (1992)

Pictures

• 
  Typical local cottage at the Folk Village Museum.
• 
  Folk Village Museum historical cottages.
• 
  Trabane Strand.
• 
  Kenneth King, outside Straid Studio-Gallery
• 
  Church of Ireland church

Outside links

• Glencolmcille
• Glencolmcille Folk Village