Cooley, situated on good land on a steep hill that overlooks Lough Foyle and Moville is the site of a monastery founded by St. Finian in Patrician times.
At what would have been the gates of the old monastery is an unusual monolithic High Cross. Uncarved, the cross contains a pierced ring and a hole, suggesting it may originally have been a more ancient hole stone. It was not unusual for St. Patrick or his contemporaries to consecrate pagan shrines to ease the trauma of conversion, so possibly this cross predates the ecclesiastical foundation.
The site contains the ruins of an old church and more unusually, a small rectangular building covered with a stone roof containing human remains, commonly known as “The Skull House”.
Although the graveyard is of fairly recent origin the Skull House and the cross (which has been retained in its original location) are the survivors of an earlier tradition and of many attacks including the Vikings.
Location Map
