VANDALS have been asked to “respect our dead” after a memorial was desecrated for the second time in only four months.
The commemorative bench is dedicated to the memory of the late historian and environmentalist May McClintock who was much loved by so many.
The seat was placed by the Letterkenny Community Heritage Group close to the town’s historical Sentry Hill area that includes the local Scoil Mhuire Gan Smal.
The memorial seat was first damaged earlier this year.
The May McClintock memorial bench was damaged again in July 2026.
The tribute to May, who died in 2016, was also damaged in March past. A spokesperson for Letterkenny Community Heritage Group has now said: “We are disgusted that the little bench in tribute to the late May McClintock at Sentry Hill has once again been the target of vandalism.
“As we in Letterkenny Community Heritage Group and others around the town are in full preparation for the upcoming Heritage Week, a memorial to one of the stalwarts for the protection and preservation of our local heritage, May McClintock has her memorial desecrated once again.
“It is an insult to her memory, an insult to her family, and disappointing to our voluntary community group.
“Thank you to the community-orientated member of the public for contacting us in relation to this.
“We will now have to clean it again and check on other sites in the area. Please respect our dead and our heritage and history.
“We have the benches in place for people to sit and reflect on the beauty of these areas, also to learn of our shared past.
“Please walk on if vandalism is all you are interested in, and pause and think on your actions. Would you like it to be done to your property or to a place in memory of one of your loved ones?”
May McClintock.
May, who was born in Convoy in 1931, moved to Letterkenny and was founding member of the Letterkenny Tidy Towns committee.
Sentry Hill was a location where men would look out for advancing British soldiers called Redcoats so that they could warn people who were attending Mass at Rogers Burn during Penal times (when Catholicism was banned), according to folklore.
Building work began on St Eunan’s Cathedral near that site in 1891 and opened on 1901 and celebrated 125 years last month.
When May McClintock’s bench was damaged in March, retired Garda Sergeant Christy Galligan condemned it.
He said: “Graffiti artists, don’t deface it, just leave it alone.”