177 



try, a custom must have been generally prevalent, which could 

 hardly have taken place in the short period of thirty-six years, 

 between 1 134, when the primate is supposed to have first introduced 

 the art to the ignorant Irish, and 1 1 70, when Giraldus found lofty 

 stone towers to be customary. Besides the Danes and Ostmen had, 

 many years previous to the arrival of the English, established such a 

 footing as to have built towns and surrounded them with strong 

 walls fortified by towers.* 



It may also reasonably be argued, that if the art of masonry was 

 unknown to a country, the written laws of that country would not 

 be likely to give minute directions regarding the various modes of 

 building, as did the Brehon Law ; nor would there be privileges 

 and rewards granted to those who were skilled in the art, as it ap- 

 pears from the Seanchus Bheg, a very ancient law tract, was the 

 fact.-f- The old Irish language possesses distinct names for the 

 different species of houses and modes of building with stone, which 

 could not have been the case if no such style of house were known. 



Ptolomy, i[i speaking of Ireland, names several cities ; civilization 

 must therefore, to a certain degree, have been advanced at that 

 time ; and the probability is, that there were some stone and lime 

 edifices in them, although the great bulk of the dwelling-houses 

 were constructed of mud-wall, or plastered wattle, or smoothed 

 timber, or split oak, thatched with reeds, as Bede says was the 

 manner of the Scots, that is, the Irish. That this was the case is 

 likely from the circumstance, that in 964, Edgar, who with a pow- 

 erful fleet had invaded and ravaged a great part of Ireland, terms 



• Whitelaw's History of Dublin, I. p. 66. et seq. — History of Armagh, pp. 585 — 587. 

 f Essay on the Brehon Law, Trans. R. I. Academy, XIV. p. 199. 



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