Clogher takes its name from the Irish for a stony place, and the old tradition is that the stone was gold. Cermand Cestach, or the Cloch Óir, the Golden Stone, was said to have been a gold-covered pagan idol that stood at the site of Clogher Cathedral in County Tyrone.
The earliest account is in the Life of St Macartan, who is placed in the fifth century. It says a pagan noble, Cairpre, father of St Tigernach of Clones, who had harassed the saint in every way, was won over by his patient kindness and gave him the sacred stone. A gloss on the 8th-century martyrology Félire Óengusso calls it the chief idol of the north and says a devil used to speak from it. A 16th-century Clogher register records a golden stone in the city from which St Patrick drove out the demon that gave prophetic answers.
The annalist Cathal Maguire, who died in 1498, described the stone as a curiosity in the porch of Clogher Cathedral. Local tradition identifies a large decorated stone, about 1.67 metres high, in the cathedral porch as the same stone. It is one of three great Irish oracle stones alongside the Lia Fáil at Tara and the Crom Cruach stone.
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