Alt na tSagairt

The Penal Laws were introduced in Ireland during the 1690s to repress Catholic worship and practice. Catholic clergy were banished and public celebration of Mass was prohibited, leading to secret outdoor Masses at hidden and secluded Mass Rocks.

In the townland of Leitrim in the Parish of Clonduff, close to the boundary with Rostrevor Parish, stands a Mass Rock—Carrig an Aifrinn—high on the slopes of Alt na tSagairt, the Hill of the Priest.

This was the site of a massacre during Penal times. Fr Eoghan O’Hagan and members of his congregation were murdered by Colonel Whitechurch and his soldiers. Their bodies were later retrieved and washed in the nearby river before burial in Old Clonduff graveyard. For many years afterwards, the stream was known as Aibheann na gCorpa, the River of Corpses.

Records describe a pilgrimage to the site in the summer of 1915, attended by four thousand people and led by Dr O’Neill, Bishop of Dromore. Pilgrimages to the Mass Rock were revived in the 1980s and a memorial stone was erected in memory of Fr Eoghan O’Hagan and his congregation.

Clonduff Parish celebrates Mass each summer at the Benediction Rock on the lower slopes of the mountain.