448 



Mr. PETRIE'S Inquiry into the Origin and 



will appear from the prefixed sketch ; and its measurements at the base will 

 be seen in the annexed ground-plan : 



This gateway is in form very nearly a square, 

 being sixteen feet internally between the side-walls, 

 and sixteen feet six inches, between the perforated, or 

 arched walls. It is built of undressed blocks of mica 

 slate, except in the arches and pilasters, which are 

 of granite blocks of larger size, and chiselled. The 

 external arch is formed of twenty-six stones, of which 

 the lower are two feet six inches in height ; the upper 

 stones average one foot three inches on the face, and two feet six inches on the 

 soffit. The inner arch is formed of twenty-seven stones, which measure two 

 feet seven inches in the jambs and soffit. These arches are of equal height, 

 namely, ten feet to the soffit of the key-stone, and five feet to the chord. 

 This gateway supported a tower, the floor of which was of wood, as appears by 

 the corbel stones remaining in the side walls. Of this tower there are now 

 but slight remains; but from a print in Fisher's Views, Dublin, 1795, we 

 find that it had a narrow oblong aperture in the external wall, directly over, 

 and about two feet from, the key-stone. 



Of the cashel, or wall itself, which enclosed the monastic establishment, 

 there are but slight vestiges remaining, but these are sufficient to show that it 

 was built without cement, and of a very irregular figure, in consequence of the 

 inequality of the surface along which it passed, and the great extent of the 

 area which it enclosed. 



From a ground-plan preserved among Sir James Ware's MSS. in the British 

 Museum, we find that the wall which surrounded the churches and cemetery 

 at Clonmacnoise was equally irregular in its figure as that at Glendalough ; and 

 from a similar cause, the inequality of the surface over which it passed ; but 

 as cement was used in its construction, there is little doubt that it was of much 

 later age than that of Glendalough. It had three gateways, one of which, at 

 least, that at the west, leading to the nunnery, was arched ; but of this gate- 

 way there are now no remains. 



It seems certain, also, that the great monastery at Kells was similarly en- 

 closed, and had more than one entrance gateway, as the one called Dorus 



