#ardboe

January 29th, 2023

A Co Tyrone man who served a prison term for weapons offences has won the legal right to challenge new powers aimed at cracking down on terrorist activity. Damien McLaughlin was granted leave at the High Court to seek a judicial review of legislation police can use to obtain search warrants. Lawyers for the 43-year-old claim his right to privacy is being breached by a regime which also means he…

ARDBOE or Ard Bó

In Irish the name means Height of the Cow. The Ardboe high cross stands 18 feet high on the shores of Lough Neagh in County Tyrone. It has 20 scenes from the Old Testament carved into its shaft. This and similar high crosses throughout Ireland were teaching tools used by the monks for religious education. In the early days of the Church, few people could read.

Near the cross are the ruins of a small 16 century church built on the site where St. Colman founded a monastery in the 7th century. The name Ardboe came from a legend that the mortar used to build the church came from a magic cow that emerged from the lough (Lough Neagh) that had gone dry.

Ardboe has an intense energy about it. Irish writer, Polly Devlin wrote about Ardboe in the 1950s...

The position of the small primitive group of holy buildings silhouetted against water and sky affects us, and most visitors, to initial stillness and silence. The crumbling arched windows frame the perpetual movement of the small crested waves of the lough.