The Old Church of Ballynascreen Multi-Cache
The Old Church of Ballynascreen
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Difficulty:
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Terrain:
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Size: 
(small)
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There is a F.T.F button badge and a scratch card as a treat for the first cacher to find this cache.
(F.T.F. Frosbitex and KirstyGal)
The coordinates in the cache listing are those of STAGE 1.
Permission to place the cache here has been granted by N.I.E.A. to whom I give thanks and appreciation for their time.(Car Parking coords are N 54° 45.501 W 006° 51.931, also listed below as an additional waypoint. DO NOT BLOCK THE GATE TO THE FIELD PLEASE)
THE CACHE
The cache is a small tablock box.
It contains a log and pencil and a few small swaps(not the pencil)
Please conceal the cache as you found it, (cover too with vegetation litter so as not to make GZ as obvious, thanks) and close the gate when you leave the Old Church grounds
At Stage 1 (coords N 54° 45.523 W 006° 52.035) you will find the information required to complete the coordinates for the cache location.
The cache location coordinates are N 54 45.A2B W 006 51.C3D.
A = Fourth number in Mathew O'Keelt's year of death.
B = First digit in Mathew's brother's age, who rests beside him (and died exactly a year later than Mathew!).
C = Third number in Mathew O'Keelt's year of death.
D = Number of letters in the month that they died.
Checksum = 20
THE HISTORY BIT
In the parish of Ballinascreen and in the town land of Moneyconey on the banks of the Moyola stand the ruins of The Old Church of Ballynascreen.
Screen, more properly Scrin, or Scrine, is derived form the Latin Scrinium, a box or desk and applied by the Old Irish to designate the boxes or chests in which were preserved the relics of their ancient saints, whether their bodily relics, or books, bells, manuscripts, crosiers etc that had belonged to them. Ballynascreen derived its name from such box of relics that belonged to Saint Columbkille. By modern standards the Scrinium would be a vault that would contain important items of the church.
Tradition says that it was started off as a church by Saint Patrick and that Saint Columbkille converted it into a library. This church was the centre piece of nine other churches, these nine churches radiated from Ballynascreen Old Church by no more than nine old Irish miles, the reason being that, manuscripts were stored here and Ballynascreen Old Church serviced these other churches, namely; Bodoney, in Glenelly, Dungiven, Killelagh, near Maghera, Maghera, Magherafelt, Kilcronaghan, Desertlyn, Desertcreat and Termonmaguirk in Carrickmore, collectively called The Nine Mile Churches.
Ballynascreen Old Church was chosen for this purpose as it was situated at the top of the then wild wooded glen of Glenconkeyne, in a very secluded and thickly forested area once described by an English lord as the most dangerous place in Ireland. Raiders would not have got too far in their plundering, add in the mountains to the north and west and it was a relatively safe location. The Nine Mile Churches stored their valuables here as they themselves were vulnerable from plunder.
In the Ordnance Survey Memoirs of Ireland 1836, the church is described as follows:
“ The stones of the old church of Ballynascreen are large and carefully fitted. The mortar has an ancient appearance and is very hard and coarse. It is a rectangle 72 feet by 25 feet from out to out. The walls are 3 feet thick. The side walls are 16 feet from the floor. The door seems to have been originally 3 feet wide; it is at present 6 feet 9 inches high and 5 feet wide and, from the decay of the building, is such a shapeless aperture that its form cannot be ascertained. Neither can the original form of the windows, of which there seems to be 2 on the western wall and 1 on the eastern, be made out……the present church was erected from the fragments of a former building. This church was roofed with shingles of oak timber up to about the year 1700 and a portion was on the walls up to about the year 1776. A hole in the west gable called the “Bell Hole” was perfect up to 1794.”
The most recent burial that can be deciphered from the headstones is from 1830, but the rest of the headstone is so badly weathered that only the date and the age of the deceased can be read. This does not mean that 1830 was the last burial, most probably burials did occur late into the 19th Century, but the bereaved families did not install permanent memorials.
The Old Church Bridge
As you head back to the car don't forget to peek over the Old Church Bridge that spans the Moyola River. This current bridge constructed from reinforced slab concrete, was built in 1935. It has a single span of 10.8m, deck width of 6.8m and height from the river bed of 3.25m. Notice that the detailed shuttered concrete on the roadside of the parapet is replicated on the riverside parapet too.
Additional Hints
(Decrypt)
Nf gur pyhrf jrer frg va fgbar, guvf pnpur vf haqre bar bs vgf bja!
Treasures
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