clogher hill fort and cathedral

Clogher controlled the only major route between eastern and western Ulster, and its pivotal position in the Clogher valley led some 2,000 years ago to the creation there of a hill-fort on a small hillock close to the modern Bishop's Palace. Excavations proved its significance when imports of pottery and metal work from southern England of c.100 B.C. -A.D. 100 were discovered on the site, demonstrating its extensive trade contacts. In the early years of Christianity in Ireland, Clogher had become the capital of the land of the Airghialla, and St. Patrick left behind St. Mac Cairthenn to found a church probably where the Protestant Cathedral now stands in the centre of the village.

The 18th century Cathedral (usually Locked) preserves what may be the oldest Christian monument on the site - a sun-dial of c. 700-900 A.D. To the west of the Cathedral there are fragments of at least three different High Crosses mounted together to form two separate standing crosses. They date to around the 9th or 10th century, perhaps roughly contemporaneous with the ringfort which was constructed within the, by then long abandoned, hill-fort nearby.