Holy Cross, Parish of Lisnaskea

History

Holy Cross church was dedicated on Sunday 18 August 1907, the feast of St Helen, who is credited with the discovery of the True Cross in Jerusalem in the fourth century. The parish records that the church had already been in use for regular services before the dedication.

The church belongs to the parish of Aghalurcher, a name the parish translates as "the field of the cast" and traces to a legend of St Ronan, who was looking for a site for a church and agreed that a stone should be cast from a sling and the building raised where it fell. The remains of the church and cemetery that St Ronan founded on that site can still be visited. The parish places the first Christian worship in the Lisnaskea area at Aghalurcher, where the ruins of St Ronan's church, which the parish dates possibly as far back as the seventh century, survive. Maguiresbridge was the official name of the parish until it reverted to Aghalurcher in 1955.