Reask Monastic Site.....

Little is known of the history of the site. The enclosing wall is roughly circular and its interior is divided by a curving wall into two parts. In the eastern part is the oratory (a small church) which was made – like all other buildings on the site – with dry-stone walls with a corbelled roof; no mortar was used to hold the walls together.

Beside and under the oratory is an earlier cemetery of forty-two graves arranged in two rows; in front is a small sunken area of paving which may have been the base of a shrine for relics. The area around the oratory was used as a ceallúnach – a children’s burial ground – after the monastery was abandoned.

Large circular clocháns (beehive shaped stone buildings which were the homes of the monks), arranged in pairs in two cases, and one small rectangular clochán are incorporated into the enclosing wall of the monastery.

At least ten cross-inscribed slabs (ogham stones) are known from the site, including the famous Reask Stone which is decorated with spiral designs and carved with the letters DNE (which stands for Domine; Latin for O Lord).