140 Mr. PETRTE'S Inquiry into the Origin and 



That the Saxons at a very early period, through the instruction of foreign 

 missionaries, acquired the art of building with stone and lime cement, and also 

 that in the erection of their most distinguished churches they even employed 

 foreign architects and workmen, is a fact now so fully established that it is un- 

 necessary for me to quote any of the evidences from which it can be proved. 

 But it may be worthy of remark, that the first church built of lime and stone in 

 the Roman style, " insolito Britonibus more," as Bede expresses it, in Scotland, 

 that of Candida Casa, now Withern, erected by Ninian, the apostle of the Picts, 

 , about the year 412, being on the shore of Galloway, immediately opposite Ire- 

 land, and within sight of it, must have been an object familiar to at least the 

 northern Irish ; and, what is more to the point, it appears from an ancient Irish 

 Life of St. Ninian, as quoted by Ussher, Primordia, pp. 1058, 1059, that this 

 saint afterwards deserted Candida Casa, at the request of his mother and re- 

 lations, and passed over to Ireland, where, at a beautiful place called Cluain- 

 Coner, granted him by the king, he built a large monastery, in which he died 

 many years afterwards : 



" Extat & apud Hibernos nostros ejusdem Niriiani Vita : in qua, ob importunam turn a matre turn 

 a consanguineis frequentatam visitationem, deserta Candida Casa, ut sibi & suae quieti cum dis- 

 cipulis vacaret, Hiberniam petijsse atque ibi impetrato a Eege loco apto & amoeno Cluapn=onfr 

 dicto, coenobium magnum constituisse, ibidemq; post multos in Hibernia transactos annos obijsse, 

 traditur," 



Independently of the preceding considerations, which, however, must be 

 deemed of great weight in this inquiry, a variety of historical evidences can 

 be adduced, from the Lives of the Irish Saints and other ancient documents, to 

 prove that the Irish were in the habit of building their churches of lime and 

 stone, though it is most probable that, in their monastic houses and oratories, 

 they generally continued the Scotic mode of building with wood, in most parts 

 of Ireland, till the twelfth or thirteenth century. A few examples from those 

 authorities will be sufficient in this place. 



1. In the ancient poem written by Flann of the Monastery, early in the 

 eleventh century, enumerating the various persons who constituted the house- 

 hold of St. Patrick, the names of his three stone-masons are given, with the re- 

 mark, that they were the first builders of damhliags, or stone churches, in 

 Ireland. 



