Douerty—On the Abbey of Fahan. 101 
many eminent ecclesiastics have been buried in this graveyard, one 
of the latest having been the Rev. James Hegarty, Doctor of Divinity 
of Raphoe, who was interred under the shadow of this cross, in the 
year 1715. The stone overlying his remains is of white Italian 
marble, but sadly discoloured, from its low position and by age; at 
its western end, or top end of the slab, is a space two feet square, 
which has been carefully carved over with what appears to have 
been a combined ecclesiastical and family escutcheon inside a graven 
shield. The ecclesiastical portion bears an angel with expanded 
wings: at the top are the words, partly obliterated, Zn-Oce-—— Columba, 
together with an open scroll on one side, and the outlines of a church 
or castle on the opposite side. Below is what seems to be the typical 
seven-branch candlestick, supported by two doves, with this epitaph :-— 
“‘Under this stone doth James Hegarty lye, Priest, and Doctor of Divi- 
nity; sometime Rector of the Roman Clergy of Raphoe; An ornament 
and zealous teacher of his Church and lover of his country; who 
changed this life in hope [of a] glorious resurrection, and . . . . in the 
mercy of his God, the 30th day of June, 1715, in the 65th year of his 
age.’’ On another slab alongside the above, but of coarser material 
and ruder workmanship, and evidently of an earlier date, the same 
clerical and secular arms are graven. This second stone has a plain 
Roman cross at its top, rising out of the well-known symbolical 
letters 1.H.S., on it is the angel with wings outspread, also a bell, 
book, and candlestick, and underneath the castle and open scroll the 
seven-branch candlestick and two doves, and the following inscrip- 
tion— 
A.D. MEMORIAM RLY. DOM. BERNARDI 
HEGARTY QVI PAR®CHI(?)4 DE FAWN HAC... 
together with about a dozen other letters entirely undecipherable. 
The inscription bears no date. Prior to 1833 this ground formed 
the general cemetery for all denominations of the district. On re- 
opening a grave a few years since, a stone coffin was discovered 
therein. Another curious stone is to be seen built into the wall 
fronting the roadway to the left of the gate; in its centre is a circular 
hole, about the size of a closed hand. Many conjectures have arisen 
in the locality as to the former use and purpose of this stone. Some 
of the peasantry believe that it had been placed outside the abbey as 
a stoup for holy water. These, as O'Donovan states, are all the 
remains in the churchyard ‘‘ that belonged to the time of Mura.’’™ 
10 T learn from Dr. Logue, Bishop of Raphoe, that a Dr. Hegarty of about this 
date has been traditionally spoken of in his native parish, near the Mulroy, under 
the title of the ‘‘ Soggarth-Mor.”’ 
11 The Very Rey. Dr. Reeves has contributed an exhaustive article on ‘‘St. Mura” 
to the Ulster Journal of Archaology, vol. i., in which he refers to the two old stone 
CTVOS8SCS. 
