placenamesBurt
An Bheart
Burt’s parish landscape includes a major work of modern church architecture, an eighteenth-century industrial building and a longstanding Presbyterian congregation.
The name
A reliable full-name meaning has not been established here. The recorded Irish and English forms are given without an unsupported translation.
Recorded forms
- An Bheart · Irish · main form · non-validated name
- Burt · English · main form
Place & story
Liam McCormick’s church
Liam McCormick designed Saint Aengus's Church at Carrownamaddy, built between 1964 and 1967. Its circular plan responds to the nearby Grianán of Aileach while arranging the congregation around the sanctuary. Fieldstone walls conceal concrete and steel construction, and a curving copper roof rises above a band of stained glass. The architectural inventory connects this arrangement with the liturgical changes of the Second Vatican Council. [2]
Artists working together
The church's interior brings together several Irish artists. Imogen Stuart made the Portland-stone altar with its loaves-and-fishes theme, and Helen Moloney designed the surrounding stained glass. McCormick also commissioned teachers from Saint Joseph's Secondary School in Creggan: Brendan Friel supplied silver-plated candlesticks, while Seamus Donaghy made the altar and processional crosses. The finished building received the RIAI Triennial Gold Medal for 1965–67. [2]
The distillery at Bohullion Lower
A surviving distillery building at Bohullion Lower dates from around 1750. Its prominent square chimney tower accompanies a long, low rubble-stone range. The national inventory identifies a larger distillery complex on the first-edition Ordnance Survey map of about 1837. Later agricultural use altered the surviving structure, including opening its northern side as a hay barn, while its tower continued to mark the former industrial site. [3]
A congregation founded in 1673
Burt Presbyterian Church dates its congregation's foundation to 1673. Situated at Carrownamaddy, it marked its 350th anniversary with a thanksgiving service in September 2023. Its own account also records a link with Inch Presbyterian Church, illustrating a religious association across the parish boundary towards Inch Island. [4]
Geographic information
- Place type
- Civil parish
- County
- Donegal
- Barony
- Inishowen West
- Coordinates
- 55.04477, -7.41032
- Mapped area
- 52.71 km²
- Logainm ID
- 774 ↗
Sources & further reading
- Logainm.ie — Burt. Place names and geographic record, licensed under CC BY 4.0.
- Saint Aengus’s Catholic Church, NIAH 40904702 · National Inventory of Architectural Heritage
- Bohullion Distillery, NIAH 40904701 · National Inventory of Architectural Heritage
- Burt Presbyterian Church: foundation and anniversary · Burt Presbyterian Church
Name record retrieved 2026-10-25 · Source record modified 2024-05-27. How this page was prepared.