Uses of the Round Towers of Ireland, fyc. 311 



rest as a specimen of the jewellery art in Ireland before the arrival of the 

 English ; and, like the cotemporaneous archiepiscopal crozier of Tuam, it may, 

 perhaps, as a work of art, challenge a comparison with any Christian monument 

 of the same class and age now remaining in Europe. 



Having now proved, as I trust satisfactorily, that the architectural features 

 found in Cormac's Chapel are not only strongly marked with the known cha- 

 racteristics of Norman architecture, and that these characteristics are very dif- 

 ferent from those which distinguish buildings of undetermined age, but which 

 I would assign to an earlier period, it might be considered unnecessary to pur- 

 sue this comparison further, and particularly as several characteristic examples 

 of this Norman style of architecture of the twelfth century, equally well 

 marked, will be found in the Third Part of this Inquiry. I cannot, however, 

 resist the temptation to notice in this place the remaining fragments of a church 

 of somewhat later age, in which the same well-marked peculiarities are found, 

 and which was originally, as would appear, of far greater splendour; I allude to 

 the cathedral church of Tuam, which Ware states to have been rebuilt " about 

 the year 1152, by the Archbishop Edan O'Hoisin, by the aid and assistance of 

 Turlogh O'Conor, king of Ireland." 



I have not, indeed, been able to discover what authority Ware had for this 

 statement ; but that the cathedral was rebuilt by those distinguished persons 

 may be considered certain from the following cotemporaneous inscriptions, on a 

 slab of sandstone, found near the communion table of the present choir, and 

 which seems to have been mistaken by Harris for a monument to the archbishop ; 

 for, in his notice of O'Hoisin he states: " He died in 1161, and was buried in his own 

 cathedral, under a monument, on which is inscribed an Irish epitaph, giving him 

 the title of Comarban or Successor ofJarlath." These inscriptions are as follows: 



'OR oo chomdR&a larataicne DO aeo u OSSIN COLS IN oeRNao IN 



ChROSSCl." 



" A PRAYER FOR THE COMHARBA OF IARLATH, FOR AED OSSIN, BY WHOM 



THIS CROSS WAS MADE." 



This inscription runs in two parallel vertical lines along the length of the stone. 

 A second, on the other side, runs horizontally, in a series of short lines, and is 

 unfortunately in part obliterated : as far, however, as the letters can be deci- 

 phered with certainty it reads as follows : 



