DouEerty—On the Abbey of Fuhan. 103 
both Catholic and Protestant, for the ancient See of Derry. A former 
bishop of that See, the Most Rev. Philip M‘Devitt, who presided over 
the diocese, and who died in 1797,” was born under the shadow of the 
Scalp Mountain at Crislagh, within bowshot of the present Catholic 
church of Fahan. That distinguished prelate, Bishop Ed. Maginn, 
was P. P. of the united parishes of Upper and Lower Fahan before 
his elevation to the episcopal dignity. The present ruler of the 
Catholic See of Derry, the Venerable and Most Rev. Francis Kelly, 
D.D., was P. P. of Fahan at the time he was called to occupy the See 
of the city of St. Columba; and the present distinguished prelate of 
the Protestant Church, Dr. Alexander, was likewise Rector of the 
parish prior to his elevation to the see of Derry and Raphoe. 
Sometimes fact surpasses fiction in the marvellous; and it is indeed 
strange, even to romance, that the lands which had been granted to the 
founder of the Abbey of Fathan, by a king of Ireland in the begin- 
ning of the seventh century, should have remained until recently, 
throughout the vicissitudes of ages, an appanage of the church of 
Fahan. To the present day these are known as the church lands of 
Fahan, and amid ali the changes of stormy and perilous times they 
appear to have escaped the general confiscation. Queen Elizabeth, by 
letters patent of the 28th of June, in the thirtieth year of her reign, 
upon the formal surrender of Sir John O’Doherty, confirmed him in 
his territory of Inis-owen, excepting the castle, lands, and tenements 
of this religious house of Fahan, then for the first time dissolved, the 
lands of which were required for the Queen’s Bishop of Derry. Sub- 
sequently, however, Sir John joined in arms against her power, in 
conjunction with Hugh Earl of Tyrone; so that it is not surprising to 
find that, on May 1st, in the thirty-seventh year of Queen Elizabeth, 
the territory of Inis-owen, with the exception of three hundred acres 
around the fort of Culinore, and the lands which had previously be- 
longed to the Abbey of Fathain, became formally forfeited to the Crown. 
Sir Cahir O’ Doherty, son of Sir John, was the possessor of these lands 
at the time; but, on the 16th of July, in the eighth year of James the 
First, all the lands which had formerly belonged to Sir John and Sir 
Cahir O’ Doherty were made over and granted to Sir Arthur Chichester, 
Baron of Belfast, excepting, however, from the grant six quarters of 
termon land or erenach land at Fahan, together with sixty acres of land 
adjoining the aforesaid six quarters, and adjacent to the parish church 
of Fahan. The names of the six quarters were, Letir, the Sleane, and 
Mill quarter, the Castle quarter, the Magherabegs, and the quarter of 
Lisfannon. All these have passed away during this century out of the 
hands even of the Bishop of Derry; and the remnant of the once 
broad acres attached to the Abbey of Fahan was reduced, in 1868, to 
the statutable quantity of ten acres surrounding the glebe house of 
Fahan ; whilst the balance of the sixty acres—set apart in James’s 
1 Q’Donovan, in his Ordnance Memoir of Derry. 
