ARRIVAL OF CHRISTIANITY
The arrival of Christianity
marked a decline in the old order and the dawn of a new era. Many
of the existing religious and ceremonial sites of the Druids were
Christianised and adapted by the new religion.
The founding
of the first church by Saint Fiachna, the patron saint of the
parish, at Droum-Fiachna, in the townland of Garranes is a case
in point. The unique Bullaún stone nearby, known as the
Rolls of Butter, while closely associated in legend with the saint,
is believed to have been used by the Druids as a ceremonial site.
The present
ruins in Saint Fiachna's Cemetery, which may well have replaced
an earlier church, or churches, dates from the post-Norman period.