Stradbally Oughaval Church SE 2010 09 02

Oughaval (), sometimes called Oakvale, is a

townland A townland (; Ulster-Scots: ''toonlann'') is a traditional small land division used in Ireland and in the Western Isles of Scotland, typically covering . The townland system is of medieval Gaelic origin, predating the Norman invasion, and mo ...

in the civil parish of

Stradbally Stradbally () is a town in County Laois, Ireland. Overview It is located in the midlands of Ireland along the N80 road, about from Portlaoise and from Dublin. It is a townland, a civil parish, and historic barony. It is known for its annu ...

County Laois County Laois ( ; ) 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 medieval kingdom. Hist ...

, 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 (7 December 521 – 9 June 597 AD) was an Irish abbot and missionary evangelist credited with spreading Christianity in what is today Scotland at the start of the Hiberno-Scottish mission. He founded the important abbey ...

Iona Iona (; , sometimes simply ''Ì'') is an 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 are other buildings on the island. Iona Abbey was a centre of Gaeli ...

and of

St Fintan Fintan of Clonenagh (c. 526 – 603) was an Irish hermit and monk. He was an abbot and disciple of Columba of Terryglass. Life Fintan was born in about 526, the son of Christians Gabhren and Findlath. The monastery at Clonenagh was founded i ...

, 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 Irish-language martyrology, a list of saints and their feast days assembled by Mael ...

'' 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 known for his Wives of Henry VIII, six marriages and his efforts to have his first marriage (to Catherine of Aragon) annulled. ...

. The

Book of Leinster The Book of Leinster ( , LL) is a medieval Irish manuscript compiled and now kept in Trinity College Dublin. It was formerly known as the ''Lebor na Nuachongbála'' ("Book of Nuachongbáil"), a monastic site known today as Oughaval. In 2023 ...

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 in the 18th century to build a mausoleum. In about 1994, the

Russian Orthodox Church The Russian Orthodox Church (ROC; ;), also officially known as the Moscow Patriarchate (), is an autocephaly, autocephalous Eastern Orthodox Church, Eastern Orthodox Christian church. It has 194 dioceses inside Russia. The Primate (bishop), p ...

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 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), that is, square metres (), and is primarily used in the measurement of land. There are 100 hectares in one square kilometre. ...

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

beech Beech (genus ''Fagus'') is a genus of deciduous trees in the family Fagaceae, native to subtropical (accessory forest element) and temperate (as dominant element of Mesophyte, mesophytic forests) Eurasia and North America. There are 14 accepted ...

planted in 1938-1941, and other species include ash,

oak An oak is a hardwood tree or shrub in the genus ''Quercus'' of the beech family. They have spirally arranged leaves, often with lobed edges, and a nut called an acorn, borne within a cup. The genus is widely distributed in the Northern Hemisp ...

and

Scots pine ''Pinus sylvestris'', the Scots pine (UK), Scotch pine (US), Baltic pine, or European red 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-gr ...

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

flora Flora (: floras or florae) is all the plant life present in a particular region or time, generally the naturally occurring (indigenous (ecology), indigenous) native plant, native plants. The corresponding term for animals is ''fauna'', and for f ...

includes bluebells and primroses, and its fauna

badger Badgers are medium-sized short-legged omnivores in the superfamily Musteloidea. Badgers are a polyphyletic rather than a natural taxonomic grouping, being united by their squat bodies and adaptions for fossorial activity rather than by the ...

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 ("brush"). Twelve species ...

es,

rabbit Rabbits are small mammals in the family Leporidae (which also includes the hares), which is in the order Lagomorpha (which also includes pikas). They are familiar throughout the world as a small herbivore, a prey animal, a domesticated ...

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

s, and all kinds of native birds, including

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

. 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 and extrinsic properties, intrinsic property of a physical body, body. It was traditionally believed to be related to the physical quantity, quantity of matter in a body, until the discovery of the atom and particle physi ...

, 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 examin ...

, 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 na ...

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, also called Middle Gaelic (, , ), 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 English and Early Middle English. The modern Goideli ...

text c.1400 from The

Yellow Book of Lecan The Yellow Book of Lecan (YBL; Irish language, Irish: ''Leabhar Buidhe Leacáin''), or TCD MS 1318 (''olim'' H 2.16), is a History of Ireland (1169–1536), late medieval Irish manuscript. It contains much of the Ulster Cycle of Irish mythology ...

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