Having visited St Fechin’s spectacular sites at Omey Island in Galway and Fore in Westmeath I had high expectations when I went to Termonfeckin (Fechin’s Termon) on Louth’s east coast.
Maybe some scholars were right when they said he never had a foundation there, neither of the two early ‘Lives of St Fechin’ mention it. That might explain the ‘ordinariness’ of the site.
Its best feature is a tree-lined avenue leading up to a COI church, built in 1792, that was put on sale in 2010 at an asking price of 130,000 euro. When I visited, there was no sign that a sale had even been made.
But first, what is a termon? It means a place that, because of its sacred nature, provided sanctuary for those ‘on the run’. The word comes from the Latin ‘terminus’ meaning boundary mark, anyone getting that far was safe.
So, did Fechin ever set up such a sanctuary in Louth? I tried to trace his movements.
Fechin was born in 580 near Sligo and studied under the famous St Nathy, a disciple of Finnian of Clonard. He set up his first cell on lonely Omey Island in Galway, with High Island just off it as a further retreat from society. It would seem he began with an inward search.
Then he moved east to Fore, in the centre of the country, and involvement in society. His foundation there grew into an influential monastery and from it he reached out to, among other places, Cong Co Mayo (‘Cunga Fheichin’, St Fechin’s Narrows), Leaba St Fechin (St Fechin’s Bed) in Ballysadare, Sligo and in Naas. But Fore seems to have been his base and it was there that he died during the plague of 664.
Despite the questioning scholars, in Termonfeckin local tradition is confident he was there also. They point to a holy well with his name on it and the stretch of land down to the beach known as ‘Feichin’s Valley’. A window in the local Catholic Church shows him curing a blind person. There is a stone cross on the site that has a crucifix and figures on it indicating an early date. Maybe it was the original ‘termon’ boundary marker?
Fechin was in the Termonfeckin area when the followers of the southern O’Neills made a stand there to halt the expansion into Meath of their northern cousins. The northern forces were superior and a slaughter seemed likely until Fechin confronted their leader, Domnall, and convinced him to withdraw.
Even allowing for changes in the landscape, Termonfechin does not leave an impression such as the wild loneliness of Omey and High Island or the magic of Fore with its ‘Seven Wonders’. Perhaps its identity as a ‘termon’ or sanctuary, rather than monastery or church, on the much disputed east coast corridor show another side of his activities.
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