I received an email from Seoirse Ó Dochartaigh.

Hi Bettina,
I think I have found the Crom hill. It’s not Greenan! It’s actually very close to where I live. The information about the river sources was important as I found the source of the Bredagh River on the hill. The hill is now called Crockaulin (Cnoc Álainn – Hill of Beauty) and there is some evidence of caves there close to the road as mentioned in that page you gave me. I haven’t explored it yet but I will one day when I’m not busy. I could use The Arch Survey Book!!!
Seoirse

The hill is the highest at 325 meters (1074 feet) of a cluster running from west to east towards Inishowen Head in the middle of a triangle between Moville, Greencastle and Kinnagoe Bay at a latitude of 55.2217 and a longitude of -7.01833.
The little information to be found is below.

Mabel Colhoun, The Heritage of Inishowen:
Rath
(Iron Age or later)
22/6
Td. Ballybrack
1943 (13.5 ins. N. 5 ins. E) Alt. 100ft. About 1 mile N.E. of Moville on road to Greencastle, at S.E. side of road 0.25 mile from the sea. Arable. View restricted. The circular fort is on a loop of land high above the stream which surrounds it on three sides, being closest on the W. It is barely discernible owing to whins and heather, and with little of the surrounding bank left. The bank at the S. appears to be worn away and the edge of the enclosure irregular; the rest of the bank, except at the N.E. is only a few inches high. The enclosure is grass-covered and fairly level.
Measurements:
Interior diameter N.E., – S.W. ……..83 ft.
Interior height of bank at N.E. ………3 ft.
Exterior height of bank at N.E. ……..2 ft.

Standing Stone
(Megalithic)
22/7
Td. Ballybrack
1943 (15.25 ins. N. 5.75 ins. E.) Alt. 190 ft. About 0.25 miles further from Moville than (22/5), the road divides, lower fork on right leading to Greencastle, left or N.E. Fork to Shrove by upper road. Site about 300 yards at left or N.W. Side of road. Arable. Clear view except for higher ground 0.25 miles distant to N.
The standing stone faces N.E.-S.W. And leans at a sharp angle. It is a hard grey stone curiously weathered in horizontal bands, 2 ins wide and 2 ins. Deep, in holes or hollows.

Measurements:
Height………….. 6ft. 6 ins.
Width…………… 3 ft.
Thickness………….. 11 ins.

Settlement(?)
(Miscellaneous))
22/8
Td. Ballybrack
1944 (20.5 ins. N. 4.5 ins. E.) Alt. 630 ft. About 1 mile N.N.W. As crow flies, from (22/7). Just before reaching latter, road branches to N.W. Passing St. Mary’s R.C. Church, through Ballybrack; at topmost field of cultivation level on right or E. of road. Cross field, site in next field. Mountain pasture, heather, boggy. Unrestricted view over lough and sea, rising ground to N.

Site contains:
(a) A well
(b) A circular stone enclosure
(c) Alignments, and cluster of small stones

All are on the S. slopes of Crockaulin (1074 ft.). There is an old road running down the hill outside the E. field boundary.

(a) Well: In the centre of the field is a large well, used by cattle; a wall, now much overgrown, had been built to support the bank which apparently had been dug into in order to find the well.

(b) Circular Enclosure: Near one corner of the field is a heather-covered circular bank on a stone foundation. The enclosure is marshy with, in the centre, a slight height some 13 ft. in diameter which partly covers some stones which might suggest a wrecked cist. There seems to be a S. opening to the enclosure.

Measurements:
(b) Circular enclosure:
Interior diameter N.-S. …….30 ft.
Exterior diameter N.-S. …….47 ft.

(c) Alignments and small stones: All stones appear to be set in the ground in the same direction, those showing being not more than 1.5 ft above ground. There might be three parallel alignments, 6 ft – 8 ft apart, the longest being about 25 ft. From a distance the clusters of stone suggested habitation sites, such as boley huts, but on closer inspection it is difficult to follow any particular pattern. They remind me of sites near the Butterlope in the Sperrin Mountains examined by O. Davies years ago. To make sense of them they would need to be surveyed by an expert. It is reported that there are standing stones about 0.5 miles to the N.E. and at about the same altitude in Ballymacarthur. I found none.

Brian Lacy, Archaeological Survey of County Donegal (1983)
346 Ballybrack
OS 22:5:3 (176 381) 4OD 100-200 C633396
A standing stone 1.93m high x .92m wide x .29m thick. Situated on pasture land.

One curious and poetic entry was made by Maghtochair in his book Inishowen: Its History, Traditions, and Antiquities (1867), not quite located on or around Crockaulin, but close enough to mention.
“One morning early in Autumn, about 1,000 years before the Christian era, a venerable man might have be seen prostate on the beach at the foot of that promontory known as Inishowen Head. He knelt there to worship the sea god – to pour forth the gratitude of his heart to Neptune for the happy termination of a long and perilous voyage. His ship rode at anchor before him. No cloud darkened the deep blue of the heavens, the air was calm, the sky lustrous, the sun had just risen, and burnished with dazzling brightness the gentle ripple which played on the surface of the waters. The stranger was Ith, uncle of Milesius, who had sailed from Braganza, in Spain, in quest of the most western isle of the world, which a soothsayer had declared should be the final resting-place of his nation.”

Around two weeks ago I came across an ancient name of a hill in Inishowen situated between Loughs Foyle and Swilly, called Crommal or Cromla. Theoretically all hills on Inishowen, except for those at Malin, lay between the two loughs, but this description is commonly used for the narrow neck which forms the connection between Inishowen and the rest of this island, incorporating two hill-ranges divided by a gorge. The highest point on the Foyle facing range is Cnoc Énna, now Holywell Hill, and on the Swilly side this point would be Greenan.

In 1786 a rather eccentrically ambitious Colonel Charles Vallancey, of the Royal Engineers, published his third volume of the Collectanea de rebus hibernicis. On page 322 I found the following entry:

CROMLA

or Crommal, a mountain or hill between Lough Foyle and Lough Swilly. From the eastern side of this mountain proceeded the river Lubar, called by the Irish Bredagh; and from the western, the Lavath, near the source of which on the declivity of the mountain was the cave of Cluna, where resided Ferad Artho, and the bard Condan, after the murder of Cormac Mc. Art, his nephew. During the middle ages, we find it denominated Cruachan Achuil, or Mount Eagle. It seems to have obtained the name of Mount Cromla or Crommal, that is the mountain of Fate or Destiny, from having an altar or cave, dedicated to Fate or Providence, called by the ancient inhabitants of these islands, Crom; whence Cromla, a place of worship, and Crommal a place of destiny. In the neighbourhood of Cromla, stood the rath or fortress of Tura, called by the Irish writers Ailich Neid, celebrated by all the ancient Irish histories, as the principal residence of the northern kings of Ulster. See Tura, Moilena, Leana Loch and Aileach.†

† O’Connor’s Dissert. p. 96.

There are a few difficulties with his description. Maps of Inishowen from the seventeenth century experienced some considerable problems with our hills. Since the heart of Inishowen, as well as its neck, is made of stone (hills and mountains), this is shown as an array of them without any count of how many hills compose a certain hill range, never mind their names. Mount Cromla seems to be marked on Beaufort’s Map, which may be eighteenth century. The river Bredagh still holds this name and is located at Moville, flowing into Lough Foyle and taking its name from an ancient division, occupying the north/north-east part of Inishowen , called An Bhréadach. The source of the river is on the eastern side of a hill called Crocknageeha. Below its western slope originates a river called now the Long Glen, discharging itself at the mouth of Lough Swilly, into the same small bay, Kinnagoe Bay, where the vessel La Trinidad Valencia sunk. It is possible that there is nearby an undiscovered souterrain, which would have been named a cave at the time. Lavath, as mentioned, is listed on page 374 in his work;

from Labh ath, the swallow water; a river which issues from the western declivity of Mount Crommal, and falls into Lough Swilly.

Aileach Neid (Aileach Mor and Grianán), at the southern end of Inishowen, is some considerable distance away from this location. Even travelling today, the conclusion of being in the neighbourhood of this place, would not be a natural choise by anyone living here. Cruachan Achuil, or Mount Eagle is to my knowledge not identified with any hill or mountain on the peninsula, but the dominating mountain on Inishowen is Sliabh Sneachta, visible from Grianán in the distance. In Maghtochair’s book of Inishowen the discovery of ‘caves at the base of Greinan Hill’ in 1838 by Mr. and Mrs Hall is mentioned, a souterrain, containing of three chambers and high enough to stand upright.

Leana Loch is the name given to Lough Foyle in Vallancey’s book and Moilena is the plain of fea, situated in the district of Inishowen, near Lough Foyle.

Fea was one of the wives of Neid of Aileach (see Sunsets at Grianán).

I could not find Tura at all and I never heard of this name being given to Aileach Neid or any other rath or fortress in Inishowen. There is not even an entry for it in Vallancy’s book. But I have no doubt in my mind that what is standing on top of Greenan Hill is a temple and place of assembly. It has the true Aileach/Aileach Mor within a two hours walk and even an ancient road leading from its gate towards the castle.

Only one relic of worship seems to remain of Crom and it consists of a gold figure surrounded by twelve stone figures. Crom’s worship was abolished by Patrick but he may have been more a fertility god (harvest) than a savage one with human sacrifices. A tumulus was found at Grianan between the second and the third rampart consisting of a centre stone with ten stones placed around it. The tumulus was found empty and unworthy of further recording, subsequently destroyed, even the heap of stones, mentioned by Dr. Brian Lacy in the Archaeological Survey of County Donegal from 1983, has disappeared now. I am aware that I am two stones short and my centre piece is not made of gold. There is also a shortage of the two rivers mentioned and I only can presume that their origin would have been near the foot of the hill, an area which has been drastically drained and reshaped through land reclamation in the last four centuries on both the Swilly and the Foyle side. But for the moment CROMMAL/CROMLA  is my main suspect for the hill.