452 Mr. PETBIE'S Inquiry into the Origin of the Round Towers, $c. 



The tomb of St. Cadan is also built of ashlar masonry, and is obviously of 

 much higher antiquity, but it is so covered up with earth by the adjacent 

 interments that no sketch of it could be obtained. 



Remains of similar tombs are found in other parts of Ireland, some of which 

 would appear to have been of greater size and importance, but they are usually 

 in a state of great dilapidation; such, for instance, was the tomb of St. Colman 

 Mac Duach, at Kill mac Duach, which was constructed of very large blocks of 

 squared limestone, and measured ten feet in length and five in breadth. 



I have only to add that, few as these remaining examples of the ancient tomb 

 architecture of the Irish are, they are valuable, as preserving to us the probable 

 type of the tomb of St. Columba, and the more celebrated monuments of the 

 kings, at lona, which Sacheverel, Martin, and Pennant notice, as described by 

 the Dean of the Isles as "built in form of little chapels;" and, perhaps, also, 

 the tomb of St. Patrick, formerly preserved at Glastonbury " of the Irish," 

 which is noticed, by Camden and Sammes, as being of a pyramidal form. 



Of the ancient mills erected by ecclesiastics, in connexion with their 

 monasteries, we have several notices in our historical authorities, some of which 

 I have referred to in my Essay on the Antiquities of Tara. But, though 

 there are several mills in Ireland of very early antiquity, I have not hitherto 

 met with any in connexion with the churches that appear of coeval date, and 

 consequently deserving of further notice in this place. 



I have now brought this Second Part of my Inquiry to an end. That occa- 

 sional errors of opinion where opinion has been ventured on may be found 

 in it, I am prepared to expect ; but I indulge in the hope that such errors will 

 be deemed of little importance, or at least insufficient to invalidate, to any ex- 

 tent, the conclusions I have arrived at as to the antiquity and uses of the various 

 classes of ecclesiastical edifices of which I have treated ; and, if I do not much 

 deceive myself, such conclusions will be strongly supported by the descriptive 

 and historical notices of the ancient religious edifices remaining in the several 

 counties of Ireland, to which the next Part of this Inquiry will be devoted. 



