128 Mr. PETRIE'S Inquiry into the Origin and 



tionem lasciuiam, ad erigendam in suprema desideria totam mentis intentionem, pius incola nil de 

 sua mansione prater ccelum posset intueri : quern videlicet murum non de secto lapide vel latere & 

 ctemento, sed impolitis prorsus lapidibus & cespite, quern de medio loci fodiendo tulerat, composuit. 

 E quitras quidam tantse erant granditatis, vt vix a quatuor viris viderentur potuisse leuari : quos 

 tamen ipse angelico adiutus auxilio illuc attulisse aliimde, & muro imposuisse repertus est. Duas 

 in mansione habebat domos, oratorium scilicet & aliud ad communes vsus aptum habitaculum : 

 quorum parietes quidem de natural! terra multum intus forisque circumfodiendo siue cedendo con- 

 fecit, culmina vero de lignis informibus & fceno superposuit. Porro ad portam insulas maior erat 

 domus, in qua visitantes eum fratres suscipi & quiescere possent ; nee longe ab ea fons eorundem 

 vsibus accommodus." Vita S. Cuthberti, apud Colgan, Acta SS. p. 667. 



That these buildings were, as I have already stated, erected in the mode 

 practised by the Firbolg and Tuatha De Danann tribes in Ireland, must be at 

 once obvious to any one, who has seen any of the pagan circular stone forts and 

 bee-hive-shaped houses still so frequently to be met with, along the remote 

 coasts, and on the islands, of the western and south-western parts of Ireland, 

 into which little change of manners and customs had penetrated, that would 

 have destroyed the reverence paid by the people to their ancient monuments 

 the only differences observable between these buildings and those introduced 

 in the primitive Christian times being the presence of lime cement, the use of 

 which was wholly unknown to the Irish in pagan times, and the adoption of 

 a quadrangular form in the construction of the churches, and, occasionally, in 

 the interior of the externally round houses of the ecclesiastics, the forts and 

 houses of the Firbolg and Tuatha De Danann colonies being invariably of a 

 rotund form, both internally and externally. 



It may interest the reader to present him with two or three characteristic 

 specimens of these singular structures, of different styles and eras, and which 

 have been hitherto unnoticed. The annexed view will give a good idea of the 

 general appearance of the round and oval houses erected in pagan times, and of 

 which there are some hundreds still remaining, though generally more or less 

 dilapidated. This house, known to the peasantry by the name of Clochan na 

 carraige, or the stone house of the rock, is, or was when I sketched it about 

 twenty years since, situated on the north side of the great island of Aran, in 

 the bay of Galway, and is, in its interior measurement, nineteen feet long, 

 seven feet six inches broad, and eight feet high, and its walls are about four feet 

 thick. Its doorway is but three feet high, and two feet six inches wide on the 



