THE IRISH PENNY JOURNAL.
| Number 26. | SATURDAY, DECEMBER 26, 1840. | Volume I. |
THE CASTLE OF TERMON MAGRATH, COUNTY OF DONEGAL.
In a recent number of our journal we called the attention of our readers to the little-appreciated beauties of Lough Erne; and we now present them with another vista of that delightful locality in connection with the Castle of Termon Magrath, or Termon, as it is more usually called, which is situated at its northern extremity, in the county of Donegal. Considered as a sheet of water, the lower lake appears from this side to the greatest advantage; but its distant shores are but little improved by plantations, and consequently look comparatively bleak and barren. In the immediate vicinity of our subject, however, the scenery is of the rich character for which Lough Erne is so remarkable, the shores of the lake being fringed with the plantations of the glebe of Templecarn and those of Waterfoot, the beautiful seat of Colonel Barton.
The Castle of Termon is situated in the parish of Templecarn, about half a mile to the west of the pleasant and improving little town of Pettigoe, which, if it had a comfortable inn, would be a good station for pleasure tourists wishing to enjoy the scenery of the lower Lough Erne and that of Lough Derg, with its celebrated purgatory of St Patrick.
The foundation of this castle, according to popular tradition, is ascribed to the celebrated Malmurry, or, as he was usually called, Myler Magrath, the first Protestant Bishop of Clogher; and there is every reason to believe this tradition correct. The lands on which the castle is situated anciently constituted the Termon of St Daveog of Lough Derg, of which the Magraths were hereditarily the termoners or churchwardens; and of this family Myler Magrath was the head; so that these lands properly belonged to him anteriorly to any grant of them derived through his bishopric. He was originally a Franciscan friar, and being a man of distinguished abilities, was advanced by Pope Pius V. to the see of Down; but having afterwards embraced Protestantism, he was placed in the see of Clogher by letter of Queen Elizabeth, dated 18th May 1570, and by grant dated the 18th September, in the same year. He remained, however, but a short time in this see, in which he received but little or nothing of the revenues, and in which he was probably surrounded by enemies even among his own kindred, and was translated to the archbishopric of Cashel on the 3d of February, in the year following. He died at Cashel at the age of one hundred, in the year 1622, and was interred in the choir of that ancient cathedral, where a splendid monument to his memory still exists, with a Latin inscription penned by himself, of which the following quaint translation is given in Harris’s Ware:—
Patrick, the glory of our isle and gown,
First sat a bishop in the see of Down.