Uses of the Round Towers of Ireland, fyc. 



179 



of Tir Oililla, or, as it is now corruptly anglicised, Tirerrill, in the county of 

 Sligo, affords a richer specimen of the arched doorway, but I shall not venture 

 to pronounce so confidently on its antiquity, as I have on the previously ad- 

 duced examples. That it is of very early date, however, there can be no doubt, 

 and its original foundation by St. Patrick is thus recorded in the Annotations 

 of Tirechan, in the Book of Armagh : 



" Et exiit trans montem filiorum Ailello, et fundavit seclesiam ibi, L e. Tamnach et Ehenach, et 

 Cell Angle, et Cell Senchuse." Fol. 15, a, a. 



From the Tripartite Life of St. Patrick, Part II. c. 102, we learn that St. 

 Patrick left his disciple Bishop Manius at JEach-ainech, in the territory of Tir- 

 Oililla ; and the memory of this saint, as I have ascertained on the spot, where 

 a holy well called Tobar Maine bears his name, is still venerated at this church. 

 As in the preceding instance, the jambs of this 

 doorway are not inclined, and the arches, of which 

 there are two, one recessed within the other, do 

 not rest on imposts. The outer arch is four feet 

 ten inches in width, and seven feet nine inches in 

 height; and the breadth of the jambs is eight 

 inches : the inner arch is three feet four inches 

 in width, and seven feet in height ; and the en- 

 tire thickness of the wall, at the doorway, is three 

 feet nine inches. Both the arches are ornamented 

 with a plain torus moulding, which is carried down the angles of the jambs. 



There is another class of doorway found in some of the earliest of our 

 churches, also of a quadrangular form, but in which the weight on the lintel 

 is taken off by a semicircular arch, placed immediately above it, and having the 

 space within the curve filled up with masonry. A doorway of this description 

 is found in the cathedral church at Glendalough, and also in the curious struc- 

 ture in the same interesting locality, called St. Kevin's House, both which shall 

 be noticed hereafter. It is also found as a side entrance in the beautiful abbey 

 church of Inishmaan, in Lough Mask, county of Mayo, originally built in the 

 fifth century by St. Cormac, and remodelled and enlarged in the twelfth. The 

 finest specimen, however, of this class of doorway, now remaining, is probably 



2 A 2 



