Uses of the Round Towers of Ireland, fyc. 



313 



" A PRAYER FOR TURLOGH O CONOR FOR THE * * ****** IARLATH BY 



WHOM WAS MADE THIS * * * *." 



That this cross was of cotemporaneous age with the church, and was intended 

 as a memorial of its founders, or rebuilders, there can be no reason to doubt. 

 Such was the Cross of the Scriptures at Clonmacnoise, which, as I have already 

 shown, was designed as a memorial of the erection of the great church there ; 

 and such also was the triple-shafted cross at Cashel, just noticed in connexion 

 with Cormac's Chapel, though the inscriptions on it are now wholly obliterated. 

 It seems more probable, therefore, that this church was erected previously 

 to 1150, when O'Hoisin became bishop, and between the year 1128, when he 

 became abbot, and 1150, when he succeeded as archbishop. But the precise 

 year of its erection must remain a matter of doubt, till some definite authority 

 be discovered to determine it. If, however, I might indulge in conjecture, I 

 should assign its erection to a period not very long after his succession to the 

 abbacy, and this not only from the perfect similarity of the interlaced tracery 

 which decorates the base of this cross, of one side of which I annex a sketch, 



to that on the archiepiscopal crozier of Tuam, which, according to the Annals 

 of Innisfallen, was made in the year 1123, but also to the traceries on the base 

 of the cross at Cashel made in 1134, and still more with those on the tomb of 

 Cormac, sculptured, as we may assume, in 1138. And I may add, that in the 

 VOL. xx. 2 s 



