154 



tradition that formerly the people collected round such stones for 

 worship is curiously confirmed by the common expression in Irish, 

 of going to the stone, for going to chapel.* 



, e>RiJese idolatrous stones are conceived by many-f- to have given 

 rise to the carved stone cross which is found in so many church- 

 yards, apd usually near the most ancient of our churches. By 

 cutting down ^he uncouth stone to a slender cross, or where this 

 was not feasible, by carving upon the pillar the figure of the cross, 

 or, bas rehevojs representing some part of Scripture history, these 

 rude obelisks Wiere consecrated : it appears to have been amongst 

 the early Christian missionaries a frequent practice to retain, as it 

 were, the popular veneration, but to change the motive by investing 

 the object of it, with a Christian instead of a pagan character. 

 Hence they were resorted to for Christian worship as they had been 

 for heathen idolatry ; even now, the habit is not quite extinct in 

 some remote parts of the kingdom, as in the island of Cape Clear, 

 close to the ruined church, which is built in the oldest style of ma- 

 son-work, stands a pillar-stone, towards the top of which a cross has 

 been cut, it is said by St. Kieran, who flourished about A. D. 540. 

 This regenerated stone is held in great veneration, and the islanders, 

 every spring gather round it for religious service to that saint upon 

 the day of his festival. 



Pillar stones and crosses so constantly are found in the near 

 neighbourhood of the oldest and most rudely built churches, as to 

 shew the probability that these small early structures were purposely 

 placed in such situations as were previously regarded with super- 

 stitious respect, that they might share, or rather win from the pagan 



* Ryland's History of Waterford, p. 265. 



t Aestel and Pegge in the Archeologia. Ledwich's Antiquities of Ireland. Pennant's 

 Western Tour. 



