Friar Hegarty Shore
Walk, Buncrana
09.04.24
AS part of the Community
Recognition Programme, Donegal County Council in
partnership with Buncrana Tidy Towns will undertake a
programme of works over the coming months along the
popular Friar Hegarty Shore Walk in the town. The works
will include repairs to some areas of the walkway, new
signage and access improvements.
An additional element of the works programme will be the
commissioning of a public artwork responding to the
folklore around the man after whom the shore walk is
named, Friar Seamus Hegarty OP (1649-1711), a Dominican
friar who ministered in the parish of Fahan and Buncrana
during penal times and was killed for his actions at a
spot on the walk known locally as Hegarty’s Rock. |
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Shore walk path towards
Hegartys Rock. Photo by Adam Rory Porter. |
Donegal County Council has
initiated a two stage open competition through which an
artist will be invited to create a suitable public
artwork in response to Friar Hegarty’s story and deliver
the commission. Interested artists may request a copy of
the commission brief by emailing
friarhegartypublicart@donegalcoco.ie .
The closing date for the receipt of submissions is 4pm
on Monday, April 29th., 2024. |
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Hegartys Rock.
Photo by Adam Rory Porter. |
Seamus Hegarty was
ordained a Dominican by Oliver Plunkett in Dundalk in
1672 and became parish priest of Fahan in 1704. In the
same year, the Irish Parliament passed its ‘Irish Penal
Laws Popery Act’, a set of edicts and penalties designed
to suppress the practice of Roman Catholicism in
Ireland.
According to local folklore, in order to carry out his
work and avoid the attentions of the authorities, Friar
Hegarty lived in a remote cave close to the sea, in the
vicinity of the current shore walk. He celebrated mass
at a mass rock nearby. His sister, Mary Hegarty,
travelled the shore path secretly each morning to bring
him food and supplies. With a bounty of five English
pounds on his head, however, the priest lived under a
constant threat of betrayal and imprisonment or worse.
The story goes that Mary’s husband, suspicious as to her
early morning sojourns, followed her to the cave and
informed the authorities of her brother’s whereabouts.
On a morning thereafter, a party of soldiers arrived at
the cave and it is said that Friar Hegarty made good his
escape by diving into the sea and swimming towards a
rescue boat that had launched from the Fanad side of
Lough Swilly. However, he was persuaded by the leader of
the arresting party, a Colonel Vaughan, to return to
shore on the promise that he would not be harmed. When
he did so, however, he was set upon by the soldiers and
beheaded at a location on the walk known since as
Hegarty’s Rock.
Another version of the story has Friar Hegarty
attempting to escape on a white horse, but being struck
off the horse and being set upon by the soldiers. In
both versions, it is reputed that the priest’s severed
head bounced nine times on the ground before falling
into the sea and that the indentations can still be
ascertained at the site. |
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