ABBEY ASAROE Gray, gray is Abbey Asaroe, by Ballyshanny town, It has neither door nor window, the walls are broken down; The carven-stones lie scatter'd in briar and nettle-bed; The only feet are those that come at burial of the dead. A little rocky rivulet runs murmuring to the tide, Singing a song of ancient days, in sorrow, not in pride; The elder-tree and lightsome ash across the portal grow, And heaven itself is now the roof of Abbey Asaroe. It looks beyond the harbour-stream to Gulban mountain blue; It hears the voice of Erna's fall, -- Atlantic breakers too; High ships go sailing past it; the sturdy clank of oars Brings in the salmon-boat to haul a net upon the shores; And this way to his home-creek, when the summer day is done, Slow sculls the weary fisherman across the setting sun; While green with corn in Sheegus Hill, his cottage white below; But gray at every season is Abbey Asaroe. There stood one day a poor old man above its broken bridge; He heard no running rivulet, he saw no mountain-ridge; He turn'd his back on Sheegus Hill, and view'd with misty sight The abbey walls, the burial-ground with crosses ghostly white; Under a weary weight of years he bow'd upon his staff, Perusing in the present time the former's epitaph; For, gray and wasted like the walls, a figure full of woe, This man was of the blood of them who founded Asaroe. >From Derry to Bundrowas Tower, Tirconnell broad was theirs; Spearmen and plunder, bards and wine, and holy abbot's prayers; With chanting always in the house which they had builded high To God and to Saint Bernard, -- whereto they came to die. At worst, no workhouse grave for him! The runs of his race Shall rest among the ruin'd stones of this their saintly place. The fond old man was weeping; and tremulous and slow Along the rough and crooked lane he crept from Asaroe. -- William Allingham (1824-1889)* This location sppears to be in the province of Ulster, near Bundoran in Co. Donegal, as there is mention of gravestone inscriptions from Assaroe Abbey in "Donegal Annual," Vol. III, No 3 (1957), per John Grenham's book, Tracing Your Irish Ancestors." I also note a reference to a St. Mary's of Assaroe, that is one mile NW of Ballyshannon and contains the meagre ruins of Cistercian abbey founded in 1184. Just south is a grotto-like Catsby Cave, where mass was celebrated in penal times. I also note that an author H. ALLINGHAM, wrote some local history of "Ballyshannon: its history and antiquities (with some account of the surrounding neighbourhood), which contains history of Co. Donegal, pub. in Londonderry, 1879, NL Ir. 94113 a 1, and that a William J. DOHERTY authored "Inis-Owen and Tirconnell: being some acount of the antiquities....of Donegal," pub. Dublin (1895), also found in the National Library of Ireland (Dublin), NL Ir. 94113 d 1. *Circa 1981 the cottage where the noted 19th c. poet, William ALLINGHAM lived in Ballyshannon was in "a decrepit state" and in the Allied Irish Bank you could apparently see his bust and the tall desk at which he once kept accounts and the words he scratched on the windowpane. He is buried in the graveyard of St. Anne's just north of the town. There apparently was also an "Allingham Weekend" of poetry reading, competitions, exhibitions of the poet's memorabilia, usually the end of October.