Uses of the Round Towers of Ireland, fyc. 201 



St. Patrick, named Asicus, Biteus, and Tassach, who fabricated such utensils 

 with admirable art, are noticed by Flann of the Monastery, and in the most 

 ancient Lives of St. Patrick ; and it is not improbable that specimens of their 

 works may still remain. Thus also in an ancient Life of the celebrated artificer 

 St. Dageus, who nourished in the early part of the sixth century, as quoted by 

 Colgan, it is stated that he fabricated not only bells, croziers, crosses, &c., but 

 also shrines ; and that, though some of those implements were without orna- 

 ment, others were covered with gold, silver, and precious stones, in an inge- 

 nious and admirable manner. This interesting passage is as follows : 



" Idem enim Episcopus, Abbatibus, alijsque Hibernise Sanctis, campanas, cymbala, baculos, 

 cruces, scrinia, capsas, pixides, calices, discos, altariola, chrismalia, librorumque coopertoria ; quae- 

 dani liorum nuda, qutedam vero alia auro, atque argento, geminisque pretiosis circumtecta, pro 

 amore Dei, & Sanctorum honore, sine vllo terreno pretio, ingeniose, ac mirabiliter coposuit." 

 Acta Sanctorum, pp. 374 and 733. 



In like manner, the memory of Conla, a celebrated artificer in brass of the 

 fifth or sixth century, is preserved in the Life of St. Columbkille, by O'Donnell, 

 as the manufacturer of a shrine remarkable for its beauty, which was preserved at 

 Dun Cruthen in Ardmagilligan, near the eastern shore of Lough Foyle, in the 

 present county of Londonderry, about the commencement of the sixteenth cen- 

 tury ; and Colgan tells us, that so great was the fame of this artificer, that it 

 had given origin to several popular sayings. His words are as follows : 



" Prsestantia illius artificis fecit locum diuersis prouerbiis Hibernis familiaribus. Quando enim 

 volunt quempiam tanquam bonum aurificem seu ffirarium artificem laudare, dicunt ; Nee ipse Conla, 

 est eo prcestantior artifex. Item quando volunt ostendere aliquid esse irreparabile, vel inemendabile ; 

 Nee hoc emendaret cerarius Artifex Conla." 1 Trias Thaum. p. 451, col. 2, n. 82. 



It would, indeed, appear from the number of references to shrines in the 

 authentic Irish Annals, that previously to the irruptions of the Northmen in 

 the eighth and ninth centuries, there were few, if any, of the distinguished 

 churches in Ireland, which had not costly shrines, containing the relics of their 

 founders and other celebrated saints. Thus the Annals of Ulster, at the year 

 794, and of the Four Masters, at the year 790, record that Rachrainn was 

 burned by plunderers, and its shrines opened and stripped ; and again, at the 

 year 793, that Inispatrick was burned by foreigners, who carried away the shrine 

 of St. Dachonna ; and again, at the year 804, that Ulidia was devastated by the 



VOL. xx. 2 D 



