Uses of the Round Towers of Ireland, $c. 125 



becoming bishop of Lindisfarne, " built a church fit for his episcopal see, not of 

 stone, but altogether of sawn wood covered with reeds, after the Scotic [that 

 is, the Irish] manner." 



"... fecit Ecclesiam Episcopal! sedi congruam, quam tamen more Scottorum, non de lapide, sed 

 de robore secto totam composuit atque harundine texit." Beda, Hist. Eccl. lib. iii. c. 25. 



In like manner, in Tirechan's Annotations on the Life of St. Patrick, pre- 

 served in the Book of Armagh, a MS. supposed to be of the seventh centuiy, 

 we find it stated, that " when Patrick went up to the place which is called 

 Foirrgea of the sons of Awley, to divide it among the sons of Awley, he built 

 there a quadrangular church of moist earth, because wood was not near at hand." 



" Et ecce Patricius perrexit ad agrum qui dicitur Foirrgea filiorum Amolngid ad dividendum 

 inter filios Amolngid, et fecit ibi seclesiam terrenam de humo quadratam quia non prope erat silva." 

 Fol. 14, b. 2. 



And lastly, in the Life of the virgin St. Monenna, compiled by Conchubran 

 in the twelfth century, as quoted by Ussher, it is similarly stated that she 

 founded a monastery which was made of smooth timber, according to the 

 fashion of the Scotic nations, who were not accustomed to erect stone walls, 

 or get them erected. 



" E lapide enim sacras redes efficere, tarn Scotis quam Britonibus morem fuisse insolitum, ex 

 Beda quoq; didicimus. Indeq; in S. Monennce monasterio Ecclesiam constructam fuisse notat 

 Conchubranus tabulis de dolatis, juxta morem Scoticarum gentium: eo quod macerias Scoti non solent 

 facere, nee facias kabere." Primordia, p. 737. 



I have given these passages in full and I believe they are all that have 

 been found to sustain the opinions alluded to in order that the reader may 

 have the whole of the evidences unfavourable to the antiquity of our eccle- 

 siastical remains fairly placed before him ; and I confess it does not surprise 

 me that, considering how little attention has hitherto been paid to our existing 

 architectural monuments, the learned in the sister countries should have adopted 

 the conclusion which such evidences should naturally lead to ; or even that the 

 learned and judicious Dr. Lanigan, who was anxious to uphold the antiquity of 

 those monuments, should have expressed his adoption of a similar conclusion 

 in the following words : 



" Prior to those of the twelfth century we find very few monuments of ecclesiastical architecture 



