An obelisk on The Diamond
Between 1630 and 1636, four scholars set out to write down everything they could still recover of Irish history before it was lost for good – and this sandstone obelisk, standing at the centre of Donegal Town’s pedestrianised Diamond, is the town’s memorial to them. It rises roughly 6 metres (about 20 feet) from the paving, plain until you get close, when the incised Celtic crosses and interlacing on its four faces come into focus. It’s a five-minute stop rather than a destination in itself, but it’s well placed for one: Donegal Castle is five minutes’ walk away.
The scholars and the Annals
The memorial names the four compilers – Michael O’Clery, Peregrine O’Clery, Peregrine Duigan and Fearfeasa O’Mulconroy, one to each face. Working mostly in Irish, and led by the Franciscan friar Michael O’Clery under the patronage of Fergal O’Gara of County Sligo, they gathered scattered manuscripts and older annals into a single year-by-year record of Irish history, from legendary times down to 1616. The Annals of the Four Masters remain a foundational source for the medieval period, covering everything from the early High Kings and St Patrick to the Battle of Kinsale.
Where exactly they did the work is less settled than older accounts suggest. Tradition places it at the Franciscan friary in Donegal Town; more recent scholarship points instead to Bundrowes friary near Bundoran, further south. You can read the Annals themselves online, in the original Irish, through University College Cork’s CELT archive.
Design and unveiling
The obelisk is built of ashlar sandstone quarried near Mountcharles and was paid for from a £5,000 bequest by Patrick M. Gallagher. The monument itself cost £980; the rest went toward an altar and furnishings in the then-new Church of the Four Masters. It was unveiled in 1938 by the Right Reverend Dr William MacNeely, Bishop of Raphoe, and is listed on the National Inventory of Architectural Heritage as a structure of regional importance.
The form is worth a second look: a cruciform capping and four gabled projections, one to each face, give it a faint Romanesque note, while the surface detail – Celtic crosses, interlacing, the names in clear serif script at eye level – borrows directly from early Christian manuscript and stone carving. A chamfered sandstone plinth sets it off against the paving.
Visiting
The memorial sits in an open, step-free square, so it’s easy going for wheelchair users and pushchairs, with no admission and no gate to worry about. Most people take it in on the way past: it makes a natural landmark for finding your bearings among The Diamond’s shops and, on the way to or from Donegal Castle, the well-preserved 15th-century tower house on the River Eske. The Church of the Four Masters and the Donegal Railway Heritage Centre are both within an easy walk, and there are cafés and the town’s tourist information office around the square if you want to make more of the visit.