ICO Mr. PETRIE'S Inquiry into the Origin and 



SUBSECTION I. 

 CHURCHES. 



WHATEVER difficulty I may have had to encounter in proving from historical 

 evidences that the most ancient Irish churches were usually, if not always, of 

 stone and lime cement, I shall, I think, have none in establishing this fact from 



the characteristic features of the existing remains of the churches themselves, 



features which, as far as I know, have an antiquity of character rarely to be seen, 

 or, at least, not hitherto noticed, in any of the Christian edifices now remaining 

 in any other country of Europe, and which to the intelligent architectural an- 

 tiquary will carry a conviction as to their remote age, superior to any written 

 historical evidences relative to them now to be found. 



The ancient Irish churches are almost invariably of small size, their greatest 

 length rarely exceeding eighty feet, and being usually not more than sixty. One 

 example only is known of a church of greater length, namely, the great church 

 or cathedral of Armagh, which, according to the Tripartite Life of St. Patrick, 

 as already quoted, p. 1 56, was originally erected of the length of one hundred 

 and forty feet. That sixty feet was, however, the usual length, even of the larger 

 churches, appears not only from their existing remains, but also from the ac- 

 counts preserved in the ancient Lives of St. Patrick, in which that length is 

 given as the measurement of the DomJmach Mor, or Great Church of Patrick, 

 near Tailteann, now Teltown, in Meath, as in the following passage in the 

 Annotations of Tirechan in the Book of Armagh. 



" Deinde autem uenit ad Conallum filium Neill, ad domum illius qui fundauit in loco in quo est 

 hodie aeclessia Patricii magna, et suscepit eum cum gaudio magno, et babtitzauit ilium, et firmauit 

 solium ejus in Eeternum, et dixit illi, semen fratrum tuorum tuo semini servit in aeternum. lit tu 

 missericordiam debes facere heredibus meis post me in saeculum, et filii tui et filiorum tuorum filiis 

 meis credulis legitimum sempiternum, pensabatque asclesiam Deo Patricii, pedibus ejus Ix pedum, 

 et dixit Patricius, si diminuatur aeclesia ista non erit longum regnum tibi et firmum." Fol. 1 0, a, b. 



In the Tripartite Life also of St. Patrick, ascribed to St. Evin, the measure- 

 ment of this church is given exactly in the same words, which shows that these 

 ancient Lives of the saint have been derived from a common original : 



" Patricius relinquens filium perditionis Carbreum declinauit ad Conallum eius fratrem. Domus 

 Conalli erat tune in loco in quo Ecclesia de Domnach Patruic extructa est. Conallus vero veritatis 



