Uses of the Round Towers of Ireland, fyc. 319 



find a sort of tablet, enriched with simple interlaced tracery shown in the 

 prefixed view of the doorway, as seen from the interior of the church. 



That this church is that erected by St. Dairbhile, whose name it bears, and 

 whose tomb is situated within its cemetery, I cannot entertain the slightest 

 doubt ; and, therefore, if I am not in error, it must be regarded as a church of 

 the sixth century, within which St. Dairbhile unquestionably flourished. This 

 fact appears from her pedigree, as preserved in the Book of the Genealogies of 

 the Irish Saints, from which we learn that she was the fourth in descent from 

 the monarch Dathi, who was killed, according to the Chronicon Scotorum, in 

 the year 427, so that, allowing the usual number of thirty years to a generation, 

 she must have lived about the middle of the sixth century. If, indeed, we 

 could give credit to a statement in the Life of St. Farannan, as published by 

 Colgan in his Acta Sanctorum, at 25th of February, it would appear that she 

 was living at the close of this century, as her name is included in the list of 

 illustrious religious persons who assembled at Ballysadare to meet St. Columb- 

 kille, immediately after the great Council of Druim Ceat, in 590 ; but as some 

 of the persons there enumerated were dead, and others not born, at the time, 

 the statement must be regarded as of no authority, except as referring her 

 existence to the sixth century, in which Dr. Lanigan properly places her : St. 

 Dairbhile was of the second class of Irish saints, and her festivals are set 

 down in the Irish Calendars, at the 3rd of August and 26th of October. 



If, then, in a church erected in the middle of the sixth century, as I assume 

 this of St. Dairbhile to be, situated too in a remote corner of the island, where 

 we should least expect to meet with any traces of ancient civilization, or know- 

 ledge of arts, we find an example, however rude, of the use of architectural 

 ornament requiring the sculptor's aid, is it not a legitimate inference that it 

 could hardly have been a solitary example, and that ornaments of a higher cha- 

 racter must have existed in churches in more civilized parts of the country, and 

 be perpetuated, at least to some extent, from age to age ? 



That I may be in error as to the exact ages to which I have assigned some 

 of the examples adduced, is, I am satisfied, not wholly impossible, as the style 

 of a peculiar class of ornaments which they exhibit, and on which I have 

 grounded my opinions, may have been continued, by imitation, to a later period 

 than that to which they originally belonged; and, to some extent, such a con- 



