Uses of the Round Towers of Ireland, fyc. 443 



Such, also, was the great Rath or Lis, called Lismor, or the great fort, 

 erected around the church and cells by St. Carthagh, or Mochuda, at Lismore, 

 in the now County of Waterford, as thus stated in the second life of that saint, 

 published in the Ada Sanctorum of the Bollandists, 14 May : 



" Delude gloriosus Pontifex cum suis per quemdam campulum, Scotico nomine Maghsgiats, 

 Latino autem Scuti-campus, ad locum sibi prsedestinatum a Domino, oblatum autem a supradicto 

 Duce Nandesi, exivit, & castrametati sunt in eo. Postea loco benedicens sanctus Pontifex cum ceteris 

 Sanctis, circulum civitatis assignarunt : & venit ad eos quasdam virgo, qua? cellulam habebat in eo 

 agro, nomine Cornell! : & interrogavit eos dicens : Quid vultis hie agere servi Dei ? Respondit ei 

 S. Mochuda : In Dei voluntate paramus atrium modicum sepire circa sarcinas nostras. Et ait sancta 

 Virgo : Non parvum sed magnum erit. Sanctus Pater Mochuda ait : Verum erit, quod dicis Christ! 

 ancilla. Nam ex hoc nomine locus semper vocabitur Liassmor Scotice, Latine autem Atrium- 

 magnum." p. 388, col. a. 



In like manner we find, from the fragment of the ancient Tripartite Life of 

 St. Patrick, already alluded to, that the earlier group of churches, founded by 

 St. Patrick, at the Ferta, near Armagh, was similarly encompassed with a Lis, 

 or earthen enclosure, measuring one hundred and forty feet in diameter ; and as 

 this is stated to be the measurement adopted by Patrick in all such works, we 

 may very fairly infer it was that of the Eath of Armagh, and not the length of 

 the wall of the church, as Colgan supposed, in his translation of the passage of 

 the Tripartite life, describing the buildings at Armagh. 



I have already noticed, at page 127, the interesting example of the custom 

 of the Irish clergy, in erecting such circular walls, preserved to us by Venerable 

 Bede, in his description of the ecclesiastical establishment founded by St. Cuth- 

 bert, in the island of Fame, in Northumberland ; and from this account it 

 may be inferred, that the object of erecting such enclosures, of which the wall 

 externally was not more than the height of a man, was less for defence, than, by 

 shutting out the view of external objects, to prevent the thoughts from rambling 

 and confine them to religious meditations. And such, indeed, would appear to 

 have been the purpose, in many instances, where the wall was of no greater 

 height, as in the Cashel at St. Fechin's establishment, on High Island, already 

 described ; and in the fine example of such a circumvallation, partly of stone, 

 and partly of earth, till recently preserved to us at Rathmichael, in the County 

 of Dublin, but of which, unfortunately, only a few stones of the gateway now 

 remain. But that these enclosures were not always erected without any view 



3 L2 



