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Mystery of missing Mass Rock 14.07.09

Special symbol disappears from Inishtrahull

By Liam Porter, Inishowen Independent

BAFFLED locals in Glengad and Malin Head have expressed their shock and dismay this week at the news that a Mass Rock has disappeared from Inishtrahull Island - Donegal’s most northerly offshore island.
While the island which lies about five miles north of Malin Head has been unoccupied since the late 1920s, many local families still have strong connections to the island.
“There are an awful lot of people in Glengad whose people came from the island and they visit regularly and I know they are very upset about this,” local fisherman Denis Glackin said yesterday.
Many locals continue to frequent the island, some occasionally camping overnight and it is understood that the disappearance was noticed on one such visit.
“A few lads from Glengad were over there for a night and they noticed that the rock was gone. That was about ten days ago and it’s hard to know why anybody would want to take it,” Mr. Glackin said.
Describing the rock itself as ‘not in any way spectacular’ Mr. Glackin said its place as the Mass Rock made it valuable to those who had a connection with the island.
“I don’t know what use it would be to anybody, as a rock it wasn’t square or spectacular in any way and it would have been heavy enough, maybe three hundredweight, but as a Mass rock it had a special significance for the people,” he said.
Mr. Glackin who said he loved Inishtrahull despite having no family connections with it, is a regular visitor to the tiny island that measures about a mile long and a half a mile wide.
“The school was built on the island in 1901 and I think Mass was in the schoolhouse after that, but until then the Mass would have been celebrated at the Mass Rock and it is easy to see why people with links to the island are annoyed about this.”
While small numbers of people visit Inishtrahull on a regular basis, the last time a large number visited was in 2001 when several hundred people visited the island for an open air Mass.
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