Area: Churchill
AKA: Church Hill
Started: December 1958
Finished: September 1959
Poles used: 1927
Line used (km): 183
Premises connected: 413
The figures above were sourced from our REO News magazine, to learn more about what these figures mean, visit our interactive map page. The map above shows the area boundary and is from a digitised version of the original map used during the scheme.
Churchill is steeped in history The REO News from October 1959 reports.
This digital scan from the REO News displays the following text:
"Steeped in History
(By P. J. Quinn)
Churchill Rural Area, in the heart of the Donegal Highlands, is an area of exceeding beauty, of deep valleys and rugged mountains, where the noisy streams tumble down to the many placid lakes. It is also a county rich in history.
Overlooking beautiful Gartan lake is now erected a massive granite cross, to mark the birthplace of Donegal’s own St. Colmcille, and nearby stands the ruins of his first church. Not far away is Doon Well, for generations a hallowed place of pilgrimage, where the pilgrims come on foot from all parts of the county. In more recent times – at the end of the last century, the valley of Glenveagh was the scene of Donegal’s last mass evictions, when, to make way for a deer park, sixty families were driven from their humble cabins and offered passage to Australia. The deer park in Glenveagh Castle still flourishes. The present owner of the acquisition offered to return their forefathers’ holding to any interested descendants of those evicted, but he had no response. “I guess they’re much better off where they are”, he says.
The people here are an industrious lot. Though much of the land is of poor quality, what good land there is is well cultivated. Sheep raising, the prime source of income for many of these small farmers, and seed potatoes from their modest plots, find their way to the markets of many lands.
When the changeover from diesel power has been completed, the area's largest consumer will be Barnes’ Limestone Quarry from which flows a steady stream of that rich powder to feed the hungry land."