Uses of the Round Towers of Ireland, $<;. 189 



very apex, as appears in the annexed engraving of St. Mac Dara's church, on 

 the island of Cruach Mhic Dara, off the coast of Connamara : 



This little church is, in its internal measurement, but fifteen feet in length, 

 and eleven feet in breadth ; and its walls, which are two feet eight inches in 

 thickness, are built, like those of the church of St. Ceannanach already de- 

 scribed, of stones of great size, and its roof of the same material. The circular 

 stone house of this saint, built in the same style but without cement, still re- 

 mains, but greatly dilapidated : it is an oval of twenty- four feet by eighteen, 

 and the walls are seven feet in thickness. 



Of the history of St. Mac Dara, whose festival is noted in the Irish Calendar 

 at the 28th of September, but little or nothing is preserved, though his memory 

 is venerated as the principal saint of the western coast, and his bronze cross, 

 which was preserved in his church, still exists, and is supposed to possess mira- 

 culous powers. Of this little church and its founder, O'Flaherty, in his MS. 

 Account of the territory of West Connaught, gives the following notice, which 

 I am tempted to transcribe, as characteristic of the writer and his times : 



" Over against Mason head in the same country lies Cruach Mic Dara, a small island and har- 

 bour for ships. This island is an inviolable sanctuary, dedicated to Mac Dara, a miraculous saint 

 whose chappell is within it, where his statue of wood for many ages stood, till Malachias Quaeleus, 

 archbishop of Tuam, caused it to be buried under ground for special weighty reasons. On the shore 

 of this island is the Captive's Stone, where women on [at] low water used to gather Diileany for a 



