Uses of the Round Towers of Ireland, Sf-c. 153 



Secondly, that it is quite certain that the churches at Armagh were stone 

 buildings in the ninth century. This is sufficiently shown not only from the 

 notices of these churches as stone edifices already given as early as the year 

 838, but also from the following important notice in Colgan's annals of Ar- 

 magh at the year 1145, relative to the erection of a lime-kiln of enormous size 

 by Gelasius, archbishop of Armagh, for the purpose of repairing the churches, 

 as authority for which he quotes the Life of Gelasius (cap. xiv. in Acta Sanct- 

 orum, p. 775), and the Annals of the Four Masters : 



" A. D. 1145. Priorum [Pwrurn] laborum indefessus exanilator Gelasius cogitans de Ardmachana 

 Basilica, aliisq; sacris cedibus adhcerentibus reparandis, extruxit pro cake <$f ccemento in hunc finem 

 excoquendo, ingentis molis fornacem, cuius latitude ab ornni parte erat sexaginta pedes protensa." 

 Trias Thaum. p. 305. 



It may indeed be objected that the authorities to which Colgan refers are 

 insufficient, inasmuch as the Life of St. Gelasius, in which this passage is 

 found, appears to have been compiled by Colgan himself from various autho- 

 rities, and the record in the Annals of the Four Masters does not state the 

 purpose for which the lime-kiln was erected : but it is not likely that so very 

 accurate a compiler as Colgan would insert such a passage without sufficient 

 authority ; and, even if the purpose assigned for the erection of this lime- 

 kiln were only an inference of Colgan's own, it would be a perfectly legitimate 

 one, for if it had been erected not to repair, but to build the churches, the 

 annalists, as was their habit, would not have failed to state an object so honour- 

 able to the fame of a distinguished ecclesiastic, as will appear from several 

 examples connected with Armagh itself. Thus at the year 1126 the Annals of 

 Ulster and of the Four Masters record the erection of a damhliag, or stone 

 church, called Regies Foil agus Pedair, or the Abbey Church of SS. Paul 

 and Peter a church, the original erection of which is erroneously ascribed 

 by Ware and all the subsequent writers to St. Patrick, and its consecration 

 by the archbishop Celsus. It is thus given in the Annals of Ulster : 



"A. D. 1126. t)avhliuc pejlepa poil 7 peoaip, DO ponao la h-lmap h-Ua n-Oe6acaii, DO 

 coipecpao DO Ceallach, comapba pacpaic, in xij. Kal. Nouembpip." 



X 



Thus translated by Dr. O'Conor, who misunderstood the meaning of the word 



1 , which signifies an abbey church: 

 VOL. xx. x 



