Cadamstown has always been proud of its past. Despite the absence of documentary evidence, local traditions concerning Lughna and his monastery at Letter, situated on the hillside 1km south of Cadamstown, have persistently maintained the importance of Letter in early Christian times. We know nothing of Lughna himself: there are stories linking him in one way or another with Saint Patrick, but the only thing of which we are reasonably certain is the date of his feast. On the evidence of a 'date stone' recovered near Letter the monastery is said to have been founded in 899; this is certainly false. Whenever it was founded , no trace now remains of the original foundation. Part of a gable wall of a presumably later building may still be seen, but it is probably only a matter of months before this too begins to crumble. Nearby is Saint Lughna's Well, the water from which was once believed powerful in curing diseases of the eye. Beside the monastery was the graveyard, concerning which there is much local tradition far beyond the scope of this article. A number of carved heads and ornamented stones said to come from Letter survive around the mountains, but there is nothing left at Letter itself - a least not above ground.

Cadamstown and Letter were in the tuath of Cinel Arga, one of the eight cantreds in the territory of Eile ui Chearbhaill (Ely O'Carroll); to this day the track leading up the mountain above Letter is known as the Cinel Lane. The local chieftains were the O'Flanagans, about whom we know next to nothing about. The O'Flanagans residence was at a place called Ardlich Oilill, the location of which has long been lost. The area passed out of O'Flanagans hands presumably during the plantation of Eile in the early part of the seventeenth century, and by the 1640s was in the possession of Adam Lord Viscount Loftus of Ely. The name 'Cadamstown' (Baile Mhic Adhain) dates to around this time, the 'Adam' in question presumably being the Lord Viscount himself. Letter passed through a succession of hands after this, but that is another story.

BRONZE AGE BURIALS

Early Christian foundations were often sited at or near earlier pagan religious sites, which were thus christianised, as were certain practices of the earlier religion. Thus we find Saint Finan's monastery at Kinnitty situated at the foot of Knocknaman, and his well in Forelocks itself, in the heart of an area whose history dates back at least as far as the Bronze Age, and which still retains hidden in the features of its landscape an impression of the beliefs of the earlier peoples of this part of Slieve Bloom. So too, where Lughna was selecting a site for his foundation, he picked on Letter because it has similar associations.

On the high ground above Letter people of Bronze Age times had buried their deadleaders; there are at least six burial tumuli of probably late Bronze Age in Coolcreen townland and the adjacent townlands of Spink and Magherabane.

Two of these, on Mr. John Bracken's land in Coolcreen, are in particularly fine condition; they show the characteristic saucer- like depression on top of the mound, which is due either to collapse of the cist or chamber inside, or to early interference with the sites.

RING FORT

There are several other interesting monuments in the same area - a ring-fort in Magherabane, and again in Coolcreen a most unusual enclosure banked by a circular rampart and with a depressed central lios. This may well have been a medieval booley enclosure, and in this connection it is interesting that the area above the weir on the Silver River 1 km away to the north-west was known as Aughaboolia - the booley-field or ford. On the slope at the north end of Coolcreen there is an unusual bank which runs around the hill for nearly half a kilometre, transgressing the field-boundary. Were it not for its unstategic situation it might have something to do with a hill-fort: as it is, it's not impossible that it simply has to do with hedge clearance in the last century. Still, one must consider the local tradition that the O'Flanagans had a fort up here somewhere.