Gleann Cholm Cille is a coastal district in the southwest Gaeltacht of County Donegal, Ireland. It is also a civil parish in the historic barony of Banagh. While Gleann Cholm Cille is still an Irish-speaking community, English has been steadily replacing Irish as the main language, with only 34% of the people speaking Irish on a daily basis in 2002. Cashel is the main village in the district. The name translates into English as "valley of Colm Cille". Saint Colm Cille, or Columba, is one of Ireland's three patron saints. Colm Cille and his followers lived in the valley for a time and the ruins of several of their churches can still be seen there.
History
Between 4000 and 3000 B.C., farming people settled in the area. The district was once famous as being the parish of The V. Rev. James Canon McDyer, who championed the rights of rural people and helped establish community-based industries in the area. A parish council has been functioning in Glencolumbkille since the 1930s, to look after the interests and needs of the residents of Glencolumbkille. Members are elected to this body by the residents of the Glencolumbkille church area; elections are held every three years.
Glencolumbkille Cashel — A penitential station, also called Glencolumbkille Turas. Every 9 June the local people go through 15 "stations." It begins at a court cairn, constructed 3000 BC. The pilgrim circles the cairn three times praying, places his/her back to the stone, then renounce the World, the Flesh, and the Devil.
Glencolumbkille Church — A holy well is located in Beefan townland.
Glencolumbkille was home to the Dublin-born artist Kenneth King, whose works depict naval and merchant shipping, coastline and lighthouses. British composer Sir Arnold Bax made many extended visits there between 1904 and the early 1930s. Apparently, Bax composed much of his music and wrote many of his poems and stories while staying there. He describes the district and its villages, and the life of its inhabitants, in his autobiography Farewell My Youth.
At one end of the little Glen Bay was a wilderness of tumbled black rocks, for some reason named Romantia, and upon this grim escarpment the breakers thundered and crashed, flinging up, as from a volcano, towering clouds of dazzling foam which would be hurled inland by the gale to put out the fires in the cottage hearths of Beefan and Garbhros. The savagery of the sea was at times nearly incredible. I have seen a continuous volume of foam sucked, as in a funnel, up the whole six-hundred-foot face of Glen Head, whilst with the wind north-west a like marvel would be visible on the opposite cliff. There were days when you had to lean hard up against the wind to keep your feet at all... Yet in that unearthly valley there always seemed to be a core of peace in the heart of the most ravening tempest. —Arnold Bax, Farewell My Youth
There are a number of natural sites nearby, such as the Slieve League cliffs, The Silver Strand at Malin Beg, and Glen Head itself. At the centre of one of the largest Gaeltacht areas, the district is known as the home of Oideas Gael, an Irish-language learning institute established in 1984 to promote the Irish language and culture. The district also has a petrol station, grocer, post office, folk village, woolen mill, hill walking and accommodation centre, restaurant, "village cafe" and two pubs. Films shot on location in Glencolumbkille include The Railway Station Man, 1992, starring Julie Christie, Donald Sutherland and John Lynch.
