Uses of the Round Towers of Ireland, fyc. 441 



SUBSECTION VI. 

 KITCHENS. 



IT appears from the oldest authorities, that from the introduction of Chris- 

 tianity in Ireland, one of the group of buildings, constituting a monastic estab- 

 lishment, was that called cmcin, or coircenn, and sometimes cmli, all which 

 denote a kitchen, with which word the two former, at least, are cognate, and 

 seem to be of the same Indo-Germanic origin, while the latter is obviously cog- 

 nate with it, if not derived from the Latin culina. 



In the list of buildings enumerated in St. Evin's Life of St. Patrick, as hav- 

 ing been erected by the saint at Armagh, " juxta formam et modum ab angelo 

 prcescriptum" the culina, or kitchen, is stated to have been of the length of 

 seventeen feet ; and in notices which occur in the Irish annals of the buildings 

 which existed subsequently at Armagh, the kitchen is alluded to as a separate 

 building, as in the passage already quoted at p. 146, from the Annals of Ulster, 

 at the year 915. And that this was the usual measurement of such buildings, 

 may be concluded from the account of the buildings previously erected by St. 

 Patrick at the Ferta, near Armagh, as thus stated, in a fragment of the old 

 Irish Tripartite Life of the saint, preserved in the Library of Trinity College; 

 Dublin, H. 3, 18, p. 527 : 



" lp ctmlaio ono oopoimpi pacpaic in pepca, .1. pecc;c;c.ie cpai^eo ip in lip, 7 pecc rpaijeo 

 ;er.ic ip in cij tnoip, 7 pecc cpuijjeo ;c. lp in cuili, 7 pecc cpaijjeb ip inb apejal, 7 ba pamlaio 

 pin po poraiges pom na congbala DO jpep." 



" It was thus Patrick measured the Ferta, viz., seven score feet in the Lis, and seven and twenty 

 feet in the great house, and seventeen feet in the kitchen, and seven feet in the aregal; and thus he 

 was always accustomed to build the congbhals" [ecclesiastical establishments]. 



We have notices of the kitchen of St. Columba, at lona, in some of the 

 Lives of that saint ; of the kitchen of St. Bridget, at Kildare, in the Life of that 

 saint, preserved in the Leabhar Breac; and of the kitchens of many other saints, 

 at their various establishments. But, as I have met with no remains of any build- 

 ing of this class, of an age anterior to the close of the twelfth century, I do not 

 deem it necessary to dwell further upon this subject, which I have thus lightly 

 touched, as elucidating some passages in the oldest authorities, relative to our 

 ancient architecture, not previously explained, and in the hope that it may 



VOL. xx. 3 L 



