235 



yet remaining on the sites of such cities, are the structures of the fifst 

 foundation, it would rather appear that no changes whatsoever occur- 

 red in the civil buildings of this period, from those heretofore men- 

 tioned; the novelties in architecture were wholly ecclesiastical, and the 

 natural consequence of the new religion. The first localities, to which 

 it was sought to attach the veneration of the people, were probably 

 stone crosses, multiplied according to the facility of collecting con- 

 gregations, while there are some feeble suggestions, that stone 

 churches were not unknown even in this early interval. In the Office 

 of Saint Kenan, extant in MS. in the public Library at Cambridge,* 

 it is said that the saint built a church of stone at Duleek, whence its 

 name Daimhliag, i. e. house of stone, " for that before this time the 

 churches of Ireland Avere built of wattles and boards." In the 

 churchyard of Ardmore, Saint Declan's small stone-roofed house is 

 still pointed out. Sampson, in his History of Londonderry, says he 

 has been " in the chapel where Columba first taught Christianity, 

 and mentions its walls as still standing in 1 807 ', and lastly, the 

 Annals of Ulster speak of "ostium oraiorii lapidei in Ardmacha," as in 

 the year 788 ; yet if even all these could be proved to have been so 

 erected, they are too few to form any notable exception, and it is 

 therefore confidently laid down, that all the churches of the day were 

 of wood, and much on the plan of the private residences then still in* 

 fashion ; timber was the material most obvious for such purpose, as 

 well as that which the machinery of the day could best combine with 

 neatness and comfort. 



Concubran, where he writes of the old chapel of Monenna, 

 built A. D. 630, at Kilslieve, in the County of Armagh, describes 

 it as a church " constructed of squared pieces of wood, accord- 



• Ware's Bishops, p. 137. 

 H H 2 



