Stradbally Oughaval Church SE 2010 09 02

Oughaval (), sometimes called Oakvale, is a

townland A townland ( ga, baile fearainn; Ulster-Scots: ''toonlann'') is a small geographical division of land, historically and currently used in Ireland and in the Western Isles in Scotland, typically covering . The townland system is of Gaelic origi ...

in the civil parish of

Stradbally Stradbally () is a town in County Laois, Republic of Ireland, Ireland, located in the midlands of Ireland along the N80 road, a National Secondary Route, about from Portlaoise. It is a townland, a Civil parishes in Ireland, civil parish an ...

County Laois County Laois ( ; gle, Contae Laoise) is a county in Ireland. It is part of the Eastern and Midland Region and in the province of Leinster. It was known as Queen's County from 1556 to 1922. The modern county takes its name from Loígis, a medie ...

, in Ireland. It is the site of a sixth-century monastic settlement.

Monastery

A monastery was founded at Oughaval in the late sixth century by St Colman mac Ua Laoighse, otherwise St Colman of Oughaval. He was a disciple of

St Columba Columba or Colmcille; gd, Calum Cille; gv, Colum Keeilley; non, Kolban or at least partly reinterpreted as (7 December 521 – 9 June 597 AD) was an Irish abbot and missionary evangelist credited with spreading Christianity in what is toda ...

Iona Iona (; gd, Ì Chaluim Chille (IPA: �iːˈxaɫ̪ɯimˈçiʎə, sometimes simply ''Ì''; sco, Iona) is a small island in the Inner Hebrides, off the Ross of Mull on the western coast of Scotland. It is mainly known for Iona Abbey, though there ...

and of St Fintan, abbot of Clonenagh,"Saint of the Day, May 15: ''Colman McO'Laoighse''"
at ''SaintPatrickDC.org''. Retrieved 2012-03-04. and in the ''

Martyrology of Tallaght The ''Martyrology of Tallaght'', which is closely related to the '' Félire Óengusso'' or ''Martyrology of Óengus the Culdee'', is an eighth- or ninth-century martyrology, a list of saints and their feast days assembled by Máel Ruain and/o ...

'' he appears as Colman mac h Laighsi, with a feast day on 15 May. After several years as a novice at

, Colman returned to Ireland and chose Oughaval as the site of a new monastic settlement. Exactly when this was founded is unknown, but it was a little before the repose of St Fintan in about 595. The foundation had ceased to function long before the Dissolution of the Monasteries under

Henry VIII Henry VIII (28 June 149128 January 1547) was King of England from 22 April 1509 until his death in 1547. Henry is best known for his six marriages, and for his efforts to have his first marriage (to Catherine of Aragon) annulled. His disa ...

. The

Book of Leinster The Book of Leinster ( mga, Lebor Laignech , LL) is a medieval Irish manuscript compiled c. 1160 and now kept in Trinity College, Dublin, under the shelfmark MS H 2.18 (cat. 1339). It was formerly known as the ''Lebor na Nuachongbála'' "Book ...

was kept at Oughaval for many generations and was then known as ''Lebor na Nuachongbála'', or the Book of Oughaval. In the early 18th century a 12th-century stone roofed church survived, and the Cosbys of Stradbally Hall added a mortuary-chancel to it. The site of the monastery can still be identified, and a burial ground there is still in use. However, there are now no remains of the original church or monastic building, as the stone from them was robbed out in the 18th century to build a mausoleum. In about 1994, the

Russian Orthodox Church , native_name_lang = ru , image = Moscow July 2011-7a.jpg , imagewidth = , alt = , caption = Cathedral of Christ the Saviour in Moscow, Russia , abbreviation = ROC , type ...

built a new church nearby, in the demesne of Stradbally Hall, dedicated to St Colman of Oughaval.

Oughaval Wood

Oughaval Wood, about 1.5 kilometres out of Stradbally on the Carlow road, is a mixed woodland of some one hundred and fifty

hectare The hectare (; SI symbol: ha) is a non-SI metric unit of area equal to a square with 100-metre sides (1 hm2), or 10,000 m2, and is primarily used in the measurement of land. There are 100 hectares in one square kilometre. An acre is a ...

s of broadleaved trees, with more than twenty kilometres of paths to walk. About half of the trees are

beech Beech (''Fagus'') is a genus of deciduous trees in the family Fagaceae, native to temperate Europe, Asia, and North America. Recent classifications recognize 10 to 13 species in two distinct subgenera, ''Engleriana'' and ''Fagus''. The ''Engle ...

planted in 1938-1941, and other species include

ash Ash or ashes are the solid remnants of fires. Specifically, ''ash'' refers to all non-aqueous, non- gaseous residues that remain after something burns. In analytical chemistry, to analyse the mineral and metal content of chemical samples, ash ...

oak An oak is a tree or shrub in the genus ''Quercus'' (; Latin "oak tree") of the beech family, Fagaceae. There are approximately 500 extant species of oaks. The common name "oak" also appears in the names of species in related genera, notably ''L ...

and

Scots pine ''Pinus sylvestris'', the Scots pine (UK), Scotch pine (US) or Baltic pine, is a species of tree in the pine family Pinaceae that is native to Eurasia. It can readily be identified by its combination of fairly short, blue-green leaves and orang ...

. There is a car park and picnic site. The wood's

flora Flora is all the plant life present in a particular region or time, generally the naturally occurring (indigenous) native plants. Sometimes bacteria and fungi are also referred to as flora, as in the terms '' gut flora'' or '' skin flora''. E ...

include bluebells and primroses, and its fauna

badger Badgers are short-legged omnivores in the family Mustelidae (which also includes the otters, wolverines, martens, minks, polecats, weasels, and ferrets). Badgers are a polyphyletic rather than a natural taxonomic grouping, being united b ...

fox Foxes are small to medium-sized, omnivorous mammals belonging to several genera of the family Canidae. They have a flattened skull, upright, triangular ears, a pointed, slightly upturned snout, and a long bushy tail (or ''brush''). Twelve sp ...

es,

rabbit Rabbits, also known as bunnies or bunny rabbits, are small mammals in the family Leporidae (which also contains the hares) of the order Lagomorpha (which also contains the pikas). ''Oryctolagus cuniculus'' includes the European rabbit speci ...

squirrel Squirrels are members of the family Sciuridae, a family that includes small or medium-size rodents. The squirrel family includes tree squirrels, ground squirrels (including chipmunks and prairie dogs, among others), and flying squirrels. Squ ...

s, and all kinds of native birds, including

game A game is a structured form of play (activity), play, usually undertaken for enjoyment, entertainment or fun, and sometimes used as an educational tool. Many games are also considered to be work (such as professional players of spectator s ...

. Deep in the wood is the Mass Rock, where in the penal years between 1691 and 1727 local people gathered for

Mass Mass is an intrinsic property of a body. It was traditionally believed to be related to the quantity of matter in a physical body, until the discovery of the atom and particle physics. It was found that different atoms and different elementar ...

, and there is also a

folly In architecture, a folly is a building constructed primarily for decoration, but suggesting through its appearance some other purpose, or of such extravagant appearance that it transcends the range of usual garden buildings. Eighteenth-cent ...

in the wood called Cobbler's Castle.

Township history

Griffith's valuation Griffith's Valuation was a boundary and land valuation survey of Ireland completed in 1868. Griffith's background Richard John Griffith started to value land in Scotland, where he spent two years in 1806-1807 valuing terrain through the examinati ...

, which was completed in 1864, shows twenty-two tenements in Oughaval, one of them in the occupation of the Rev. Cornelius Dowlin. The other names which appear in the valuation for the township were Byrne, Cosby, Dowling, Empey, Finch, Greene, Hodgens, Keeffe, Large, Manser, Murray, Power, Shortall, Smyth, Tarleton, Walsh, and Whelan.

Druim an Tochair

Hogan's Onomasticon Goedelicum states: ''Druim Toga, alias Druim Togaidhe, Senach and Colmán of Tulach mac nDomnaill and of D. T., Lec. 106, Ll. 349, Bb. 121 a, Fir. 731; ¶ now Navan, C. 354; ¶ in Laigis Laigen, Lec. 274, Md. 128, 212, Lec. 216, Lb. 17; ¶ in Hui Condmaill, Bb. 121 b; ¶ Colman and Senach in Tilaig mic Comgaill, and in D. Thogae, i.e., isinduachongbail, Ll. 350; ¶ it is in Leix, al. Queen's c., and is al. Nuachongbail, miswritten nDuachongabail, now Nohaval or Ohaval cemetery, which I have seen on a ridge nr Stradbally, Queen's county''. Modern scholars translate this as Druim an Tochair meaning "The Hill-Ridge of the Causeway", but the earliest sources such as the genealogies of the saints and the

Martyrology of Donegal A martyrology is a catalogue or list of martyrs and other saints and beati arranged in the calendar order of their anniversaries or feasts. Local martyrologies record exclusively the custom of a particular Church. Local lists were enriched by n ...

treat it as a personal name, i.e. Druim Toga, meaning 'The Hill-Ridge of Toga'. Toga may refer to the mythological figure mentioned in the

Middle Irish Middle Irish, sometimes called Middle Gaelic ( ga, An Mheán-Ghaeilge, gd, Meadhan-Ghàidhlig), is the Goidelic language which was spoken in Ireland, most of Scotland and the Isle of Man from AD; it is therefore a contemporary of late Old Engli ...

text c.1400 from The

Yellow Book of Lecan The Yellow Book of Lecan (YBL; Irish: ''Leabhar Buidhe Leacáin''), or TCD MS 1318 (''olim'' H 2.16), is a late medieval Irish manuscript. It contains much of the Ulster Cycle of Irish mythology, besides other material. It is held in the Library ...

entitled ''The Settling of the Manor of Tara'', in which verse 34 states- ''daughter of Toga of the grey stormy sea,'' ''at that time ’twas a woman,'' ''she from whom Sliabh Raisen is named''.

References

External links