368 



Mr. PETRIE'S Inquiry into the Origin and 



" NEWCASTLE, Wednesday, 29 [May, 1832]. 

 " MY DEAR PETRIE, 



" I hope you will consider the promptness with which I have attended to your com- 

 mission, as some proof of the satisfaction it affords me to contribute, in any manner within my 

 power, to your wishes. On reaching Limerick yesterday I immediately set out for Dysart, as my 

 first object, whence it is distant twelve miles, of which I found it necessary to walk the last four 

 across the country. The accompanying sketches will, I believe, afford you all the information 

 which you can require. The construction of the Tower at Dysart is quite similar to that at Eattoo, 

 only differing in the quality of the material, which is somewhat more massive ; it bears a strong re- 

 semblance to the Etruscan masonry of Italy, a mode of building likewise adopted in some of the 

 early Greek churches, of which you have a good representation in one of the plates of the ' Unedited 

 Antiquities of Attica.' The adjacent church is, manifestly, coeval with the Tower, the mode of 

 building and the forms perfectly corresponding. The coverings of its opes are gone, but from what 

 remains there can be no doubt of their having been finished as those of the Tower, the entrance 

 being semi-circularly arched, and the windows either arched or covered with horizontal lintels of 

 long stone. 



" You observe that the Tower is divided into stories, as at Rattoo, but with this difference, that 

 here there is a window to each story, and that the intermediate corbelle stones are omitted. 



" The door of entrance bears you out in your opinion, and establishes the 

 fact of the Tower having been employed occasionally as a place of defence. 

 There are, you observe, bolt-holes for double doors (a, a, a, with corresponding 

 ones opposite), the one exterior of the other, but there is not any apparent means 

 for the hanging of the door itself ; the form of the ope, however, would supply 

 this seeming deficiency ; narrowing to the exterior a timber frame might have 

 been inserted, and wedged to iheinside, to which the door might have been hung, 

 with leather hinges. The narrowing of the ope would itself prevent the frame 

 being drawn out ; and the bolts and wedges insured its not being driven in. 



" There is no appearance of more than the one church in the immediate 

 vicinity ; about half a mile off there is another, but it is of a much later 

 period, pointed opes, splayed reveals, &c. 



" You shall hear from me again from Carlow, if I can obtain the informa- 

 tion you require there. 



" Your's ever, 



" WILLIAM MORRISON." 



I have annexed a copy of his sketch of the section of this doorway, as a 

 necessary illustration of the description in the preceding letter ; and sketches 

 of the details of the Tower will be found in the Third Part of this work. 



To this portion of my evidences I do not feel it necessary to add another 

 word. 



