220 



so well put together, that although the door- way has been consi- 

 derably enlarged at the sides, and the arch over it destroyed, none 

 of the wall above it has given. Each stone is, by the breaking of 

 the wall, discovered to have been cut in a wedge shape, exactly to 

 fit the place it occupies, and reaching quite through the wall, so that 

 every course formed as it were a horizontal arch of great strength. 



From twelve to fifteen feet of the upper part are built of the same 

 sort of stone as the neighbouring church ; one half of this addition 

 has fallen, but in the part that remains there are four windows, 

 and it finishes in a slightly projecting graduated embattlement, 

 precisely similar to that of the church, and agreeing also in the 

 manner of building, which is in the most ancient kind of mason- 

 work; large and small stones being most curiously intermixed, some 

 of great weight near the top of the wall among small ones, and 

 parts of the coins being built of slaty stones of small size. The 

 windows are few, and so very narrow that they almost appear as 

 if it had been intended to leave them unglazed, as it is well known 

 some of the early stone churches in England were so left.* 



The west end of this very ancient structure was raised mucli 

 above tlie roof, and built with open arches for hanging tiie bell, in 

 the same manner as that at Donoughmore. 



This church is attributed to St. Kieran, about A. D. 540 ; and 

 the size, the windows, and the masonry, agree perfectly with that 

 early date ; but the construction of the addition on the top of the 

 tower, coincides so precisely with that of the church, that there 

 carmot exist a doubt of their having been built at the same period, 

 and by the same hands ; that addition therefore proves that the 

 tower is of a previous date, and by very different and far superior 

 artificers. 



* Britton's Antiquities, V. p. 353. 



