Welcome to Rossorry Church and Graveyard

The early history of the site is unknown but is associated with St.Fanchea. The Annals of Ulster for 1084/1085 recorded that: “the church of Saint Fuinche at Rosoirrther was founded.”
One account states that St. Fanchea was from Rathmore, near Clogher, her father, Conall Dearg, was the local king. Other accounts suggest a different linage, but all agree she was of royal descent. Fanchea, a beautiful young woman, attracted many suitors, all of whom she turned down. She vowed not to marry and set up her convent at Rossorry. The convent soon became a place of sanctity.

Fanchea’s greatest convert was her brother, Edna. As Mary Rogers states, “Fanchea is said to have converted her brother by telling him to gaze on the face of his dead love, one of her nuns, who had chosen to be Christ’s bride rather than his.” Legend has it that as his penance he built a rath around St. Fanchea’s convent. He later established a monastery at Killanny in Co. Monaghan and another on the Arran Islands. St. Fanchea also founded a convent at Killanny, and it is here that she is buried.

In 1420 the Annals recorded the death of a member of the community and the presence of a guesthouse is noted. In 1430, Guillebert de Lannoy, a pilgrim to Lough Derg, referred to Enniskillen as “Rousseauxmoustier”, as suggested by Mary Rogers, his version of Rossorry.

Today, a visit to the site on Rossole Road shows no evidence of the former church that was clearly marked in the 1834 OS map. Instead, the site is that of a graveyard, clearly marked with Yew trees. The church was damaged in a storm of 1839 and a new parish church was built at Mullinacaw. The stone from the church was used for building the stables at the new site.

Nature Note: Yew Tree
Yew trees have a long association with burial grounds and churchyards; in Ireland they are held as sacred trees, symbols of immortality, of death and rebirth. One of Ireland’s few evergreens, the tree has an ability to regenerate itself and is seen as the tree of Immortality. This particular link with graveyards predates the Early Christian period and indeed Yew trees may have been planted in Christian burial grounds to placate Pagan beliefs. Yew trees are poisonous to livestock and may have been planted to prevent grazing. All Irish yews descend from cuttings of a tree from Florencecourt in County Fermanagh.