Uses of the Round Towers of Ireland, fyc. 245 



In height, this doorway measures, externally, five feet four inches from the 

 bases to the tops of the imposts, and six feet seven inches to the vertex of the 

 arch ; and in width, two feet six inches between the capitals, and two feet nine 

 inches between the bases. In form, the church is a simple oblong, measuring 

 externally thirty-nine feet by twenty-three ; and its massive polygonal masonry is 

 of the earliest Christian style. It was lighted by two windows, one, as usual, in 

 the centre of the east wall, and the other at the upper end of the south wall : the 

 former is quite ruined, and the latter is a restoration of the 

 fifteenth century. It is built throughout of the limestone of 

 the district, and the ornaments on its doorway are remark- 

 able for their sharpness and beauty of execution. As is usual 

 in the architecture of this class, the ornaments on the bases 

 of the semi-columns differ in their details, those on the 

 south side being plain mouldings, while those on the north 

 present the figure of a serpent, as shown in the accompanying engraving. 



To the same age as the remains at Rahin, we may, I think, with every 

 appearance of probability, assign the interesting fragments, for we unfortu- 

 nately possess no more, which remain in the sequestered valley of Glen- 

 dalough. I have already, to some extent, laid before the reader the charac- 

 teristic features of the more ancient and unornamented churches in this 

 interesting locality : those which I have now to notice are obviously of a 

 later age, but yet, as I conceive, anterior at least to the repetition, by the Danes, 

 towards the close of the tenth century, of those devastations, which had been 

 committed in the ninth, namely, the interval between the years 886 and 977- 

 These fragments belong to three churches, namely, 1. the small chapel or 

 oratory, popularly called the Priest's House, or Priest's Church, from the circum- 

 stance of its having been used for a considerable period as a cemetery for the 

 Roman Catholic clergy of the district ; 2. the chancel of the Cathedral ; 3. the 

 chancel of the small abbey church, now popularly called the Monastery. 



Of the first of these buildings there now unfortunately exist but very slight 

 vestiges ; but I am enabled to illustrate, to some extent, the ornamented por- 

 tions of its architecture, as existing in 1779, by means of drawings, made for 

 the late Colonel Burton Conyngham in that year, by three competent artists, 

 Signer Bigari, Monsieur Beranger, and Mr. Stephens. The form of this small 



