A June Evening at Banagher Old Church
On the 14th of June, I set off in the early evening for Banagher Old Church. The road brought me first through the historic town of Dungiven, and, as I tend to do any time I find myself there, I stopped at the 12th-century Augustinian Priory for a quiet walk around.
It is one of those places that always makes me stop (I’ve amassed so much footage of this place over the years!) You find yourself standing before old stone and trying to imagine all the versions of it that have existed before you. The building as it was. The people who passed through it. The prayers said there. The dead carried there. The centuries of weather, and change that have settled into the stone.
I stood for a while peering through the protective wire on the door protecting the ornate grave of Cooey-na-Gall O’Cahan, an O’Cahan chief. Even from behind the barrier, it has presence. A reminder that these ruins were never just decorative leftovers from the past. They were places of power, family, faith, and memory.
But that evening, Dungiven was only the beginning. I was on another mission.
First Stop Dungiven…
Banagher was waiting…
I arrived at Banagher Old Church after 7pm, following the Carnanbane Road, where the old church is thankfully well signposted with those brown tourist signs that have caused me to abruptly brake, turn, and investigate somewhere new, on so many occasions over the years.
Before unloading the filming gear, I did what I always like to do first. I walked.
No camera. No drone. Just a slow wander, to get reacquainted with the place.
Even before you enter the churchyard, there is something to notice. Sitting to the right is a bullaun stone. A bowl-shaped stone with a deep hollow worn into it. The exact purpose of these stones is still debated, which is usually where folklore quietly steps in and makes things more interesting.
Some were likely used practically. Some became associated with pilgrimage. Some were linked to healing, with rainwater gathered in the hollow and believed to cure ailments. Others were said to be used as cursing stones, where a smaller stone was turned inside the basin while words were spoken with more intent than kindness.
Later Christian sites often absorbed these older things into their own sacred landscapes, turning what may once have belonged to older customs into holy water fonts, ritual stones, or simply objects of reverence.
That is one of the things I find endlessly fascinating about places like Banagher. Nothing here seems to belong to only one time.
Beside the bullaun stone is a small enclosed area, reached through a stone doorway and a crosshatched gate. From there, you can see the Banagher Graveyard sign up close, framed by stone, grass, and the feeling that you have discovered somewhere very special indeed.
Then comes the larger gate.
Once opened, a flat stone path leads you towards the ruins of the old church and around the far side of it. It gives the place a gentle sense of procession, as though even now the ground expects you to enter slowly.
Inside the church itself, you get a glimpse of how beautiful this building must once have been. Even in ruin, it still carries itself with dignity. There are details in the stonework that speak of care, skill, and worship. Now, two graves occupy the space where one imagines the altar may once have stood.
There is something very Irish about that. The living church gives way to the dead. The dead become part of the church. The ruin keeps them both.
Moving from the stone path into the grassy graveyard, you begin to notice the older headstones, worn by years of wind, rain, frost, and whatever mood the Sperrins happened to be in that day. Being at the foot of those hills, Banagher must see every kind of weather. Soft gold light one moment. A curtain of rain the next. Mist drifting over the slopes like a beautiful blanket over the land.
And then, of course, there is the tomb of St Muiredach O’Heney. It is impossible to miss.
The stone tomb is shaped almost like a little church, or perhaps a small house for the Saint. It does not simply sit on the land. It seems to sit into it, as though the earth has slowly risen around it over the centuries. Or perhaps that impression owes something to the many hopeful hands that have sought the famous Banagher sand.
That sand is the legend that brought me here.
The story says that sand from around the Saint’s grave can bring good fortune. Luck. Success. Better days. Better outcomes. The sort of thing people have always prayed for, wished for, bargained for, and quietly carried home in their pockets.
Horse racing. Court cases. Lottery numbers. Any one of the many struggles of life itself.
It would be easy to laugh at that, but I don’t think I could. Standing there, in the evening light, with the Sperrins rising beyond the graveyard, the story felt less like superstition and more like something deeply human.
Because people have always come to sacred places carrying their worries. Some brought illness. Some brought grief. Some brought impossible decisions. Some brought nothing more than a faint hope.
And if a little sand from the grave of an old Saint made the world feel less cruel for a while, then perhaps that tells us more about people than it does about luck.
It also says something about the Christianity that took root here in Ireland. In many parts of the Christian world, the idea of luck is treated with suspicion. Faith and fortune are often kept in separate boxes. But here, as so often in Ireland, the boundaries are not quite so neat.
Holy wells. Blessed clay. Saints’ graves. Cure stones. Pilgrimage routes. Prayers whispered beside ruins. Folk belief and Christian devotion have grown together for centuries, not always comfortably, but always unmistakably.
Some corners of Theology may insist that luck has no place. But people are not theology books.
People are frightened, hopeful, grieving, grateful, desperate, curious, and occasionally optimistic enough to believe that a pinch of sand might change their fortunes. And maybe that is why the Banagher lore stayed with me.
Not because I believe every old story exactly as it is told, but because I understand why people wanted to believe it.
After visiting the tomb, I walked up towards the higher parts of the graveyard, where the views open out beautifully towards the Sperrins. It is a view that demands a pause, a long one. No traffic rushing by. No city noises. Just old stone, green fields, distant hills, and the strange comfort of being somewhere that has outlasted almost everything around it.
The chance to film Banagher on such a beautiful evening was not lost on me. I used an entire drone battery, and if the golden hour had not been fading, I would happily have carried on for much longer. Some places fight the camera. Banagher does not. It gives you stone, shadow, light, texture, distance, and atmosphere without ever needing to perform.
On the way home, I stopped at two picnic areas, partly because I wanted to take in more of the Sperrins, and partly because I was not quite ready to return to ordinary life. As much as I enjoy the warmth these videos receive from strangers near and far, I think I enjoy the escape they give me just as much. It’s a brief step away from the mundane, and into somewhere more older, much more strange, and much more me.
But work was waiting for me early in the morning, as it always does. But for that evening, I had old churches, Saintly sand, ruined stone, and hills glowing under a June sky.
And honestly, there are many worse ways to spend your time.