PAGAN ANTIQUITIES. 
St. Columb’s Stone. 
f 1 16 °, f , A , llea ? !’ *£? m ° St remarkabIe remain of antiquity connected with this 
p ansh is that called St Columb s Stone, situated m the garden of Eellmont on the Fahan 
ent \ fr °m Derry. It is marked on the map of the siege made by Neville, and re- 
this memoir This stone, which is of granite, exhibits the sculptured impression 
of two feet, right and left, ot the length of ten inches each, and is otherwise unmarked with 
the chisel. Its general form and measurements will appear from the annexed wood-cut 
• • thl f s monument is held m great veneration, there is no tradition connected with its 
origin worthy of notice. It appears, however, to have been one of the inauguration stones of 
the ancient Irish kings, or chiefs. That stones of this kind, as well as rudestone chairs were 
used m the several distinct territories, appears not only from the existence of several to this 
day hut also from the testimony of the poet Spenser, who thus speaks of them in his interest¬ 
ing Views on the State of Ireland ’ “ They used to place him that shall he their captain 
T-stone always res erved for that purpose, and placed commonly upon a hill, in some of 
Hin\ h fV,nt aVe h Seen 7 me t *?• en S raven foot, which they say was the measure of their first cap- 
tam s toot, whereon he standing receives an oath to preserve all the ancient former customs in- 
i lolable, and to deliver up the succession peaceably to his Tanist, and then hath a wand delivered 
unto him, by some whose proper office that is.” verea 
It is not, perhaps improbable, that this stone may be the identical one appropriated to the 
rfiri?HWt° n - 0f iu 6 kmg ! ° f Al . leaoh > f rom a period even antecedent to the establishment of 
Ailpfr y m 6 C0Untry ‘ That , a St0ne c o nsec rated to this purpose anciently existed at 
mentioned PPearS “ a PaSSag6 “ tn P artite life of St - Patrick, in which it is thus expressly 
“The man of God accompanied Prince Eoghan to his palace, which he then held in the 
most ancient and celebrated seat of the kings, called Aileach, and which the holy bishop conse- 
cratedby his blessing, promising that from the seed of Eoghan many kings andprinces of Ire¬ 
land should spring; and as a pledge of which he left there a certain stone, blessed by him 
upon which the promised kings and pnnces would be ordained.” Triad. Thaum. p 145) 
Ihat such a stone, therefore, existed at Aileach, is unquestionable, and there is little 
sacred A'T 6Ver destro y ed > because with the Irish it would have been held 
sacred, and the Enghsh had no power m the country till the commencement of the I7th cen- 
S; Of the oVedl^' tVT n S al “ rab , le fact, that they broke down the crowning 
° S -’ and lf they had destroyed any other crowning stones, we 
should not be without historic notice of the circumstance. No stone of the kind is however 
bablp^that ^°' lnd . at Aileach, which was deserted in the 12 th century,—and it is not impro¬ 
bable that its ancient inauguration stone may have been removed to a more convenient site 
m the vicinity of Derry, for the use of the O’Doghertys, its more recent local chiefs and he 
so used till the extinction of their independent existence. Against this conjecture the tradi¬ 
tional name of the monument should weigh but little, as the stone might have been and very 
probably was, subsequently consecrated by St. Columb ; and it should be borne in mind that 
it has been the constant habit of the Irish people, when their local history was lost, to connect 
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