The visit at Templedouglas Church was afflicted by a heavy rain that started when we were inside the ruins.
Templedouglas is said to be the place where Colmcille was baptized in 521. The church was rebuilt in the 16th century by Manus O'Donnell, the same Manus who built the small chapel at the Gartan Monastic Site, on the site of an earlier religious building.
It's a long church, aligned to the east-northeast (80°). The east gable is at its full height. The west wall is only as tall as the side walls. There's a round-headed doorway halfway in the south wall, and a square window at the east end of the same wall. In the north wall, near the northeast corner, at the ground level, there's a niche, I doubt, though, it was an ambry or a piscina or any other recess with some important purpose. What is interesting in this church is the east window, a tall and narrow two-light window, with a horizontal mullion and a circular plate at the top, all of these making the window unique in county Donegal.
Other items in the same graveyard are the ruins of the Abbot's House (older than the church) to the northeast of the church, a Tulach or burial mound to the east of the Abbot's House, and a Mausoleum marking the grave of a Bishop to the east of the church.
|