230 Mr. PETEIE'S Inquiry into the Origin and 



but we learn from the Leabhar Gabhala of the O'Clerys, an authority of great 

 value, that money was also minted there in the reign of his father Turlogh ; 

 and it is by no means improbable that money was coined there at a much 

 earlier period, though the records of such mintages have not been preserved, 

 or at least not yet discovered. 



On the whole, then, I have, I trust, adduced sufficient evidences to show 

 the great probability, if not absolute certainty, that coined money was in use in 

 Ireland previously to the Danish irruptions, and that the discovery of brac- 

 teaie pinginns in the Eound Tower of Kildare, which there is every reason to 

 believe were placed there, either accidentally or by design, cotemporaneously 

 with its original erection, affords no presumption at variance with the antiquity 

 which I am disposed to assign to that edifice, or to the style of architecture which 

 it exhibits, namely, the close of the eighth, or beginning of the ninth century, 

 when the description of the church of Kildare was written by Cogitosus. 

 Indeed, were I disposed to venture on assigning this doorway to an earlier 

 period, nay, even to the age of St. Bridget, to which the legend in Cambrensis 

 would seem to refer it, there is, I think, nothing in its style of architecture 

 which would invalidate such a supposition, as there is no feature in its decora- 

 tions of which earlier examples may not be found in the corrupted architecture 

 of Greece and Rome. Of the triangular, or rather ogived label, or canopy, 

 which appears above the architrave or semicircular moulding on its external 

 face, an example is found over a semicircular-headed doorway of a temple on 

 a coin of the Emperor Licinius, A. D. 301 ; and another example, exhibiting an 

 ogived or contrasted arch, occurs in the Syriac MS. of the Gospels, transcribed 

 in the year 586, and preserved in the Mediceo-Laurentian Library at Florence. 

 Of the chevron moulding, which ornaments the architrave of the second of the 

 two recessed arches, abundant examples are found, as ornaments on arch 

 mouldings, in the Syriac MS. already referred to ; and a remarkable example 

 of the use of this ornament on a very ancient arch at Chardak, in Syria, is no- 

 ticed by the Rev. Mr. Arundel in his Visit to the Seven Churches of Asia, 

 p. 103 : it is also figured as an arch ornament in the exquisitely executed illu- 

 minations in the Book of Kells, a manuscript copy of the Gospels, undoubtedly 

 of the sixth century, which, as I have already noticed, is now preserved in the 

 Library of Trinity College, Dublin ; and I need hardly remark, that it also ap- 



