124 Mr. PETRIE'S Inquiry into the Origin and 



well feel a pride that it should have fallen to my lot to accomplish. To do 

 this, however, it is necessary that I should not confine this Inquiry to the ques- 

 tion of the origin and uses of the Eound Towers alone, but also, as accessary 

 and indeed essential to that Inquiry, go into an investigation of our ecclesias- 

 tical architecture generally, of which the Round Towers constitute only a subor- 

 dinate feature. 



It is true that these remains will be found to be of a very simple and un- 

 artificial character, and to exhibit nothing of that architectural splendour so gra- 

 tifying to the taste, which characterizes the Christian edifices of Europe erected 

 in the later days of ecclesiastical power ; but if, as the great sceptical poet, 

 Byron, so truly says, 



" Even the faintest relicts of a shrine 

 Of any worship wake some thoughts divine," 



these simple memorials of a Christian antiquity, rarely to be found outside our 

 own insula sacra, and which, in their grave simplicity, exhibit a characteristic 

 absence of meretricious grandeur, typical of the primitive ages of the Christian 

 Church, can scarcely fail to excite a deep and reverential interest in the minds 

 of Christians generally, and still more of those who may justly take a pride in 

 such venerable remains of their past history. 



SECTION II. 

 ANTIQUITY OF IRISH ECCLESIASTICAL REMAINS. 



IT must be admitted that the opinion expressed by Sir James Ware, as founded 

 on the authority of St. Bernard's Life of St. Malachy, that the Irish first began 

 to build with stone and mortar in the twelfth century, would, on a casual exa- 

 mination of the question, seem to be of great weight, and extremely difficult to 

 controvert ; for it would appear, from ancient authorities of the highest cha- 

 racter, that the custom of building both houses and churches with oak timber 

 and wattles was a peculiar characteristic of the Scotic race, who were the 

 ruling people in Ireland from the introduction of Christianity till the Anglo- 

 Norman Invasion in the twelfth century. Thus we have the authority of Ve- 

 nerable Bede that Finian, who had been a monk of the monastery of lona, on 



