Uses of the Round Towers of Ireland, fyc. 



405 



any skilful observer, being obviously much more recent than the one, and 

 more ancient than the other. In the oldest of these churches the doorway pre- 

 sents the usual horizontal head, and the whole masonry of the church is in a 

 ruder style, and composed of the limestone of the country. It may not, there- 

 fore, be considered an improbable conjecture, if we assign the erection of this 



Tower to that period in which the richly sculptured stone crosses were raised, 

 which now impart such interest to this locality, and which can hardly be of a date 

 anterior to the ninth century. Of this fact the representation of our Saviour 

 crucified, which is found on both the crosses, might be deemed a sufficient evi- 

 dence, for I do not know of any examples of such representation of a date 

 anterior to that period ; but we have fortunately in an inscription carved on 

 one of these crosses, a sufficiently decisive evidence as to their age, and which 

 will leave little, if any, doubt, that the cross was erected in the ninth or tenth 

 century. The inscription is as follows : 



