245 



Brennaun in the west." For this information the author ac- 

 knowledges himself indebted to Mr. Owen Connellan. He 

 then proceeds to the description of the church, of which 

 plans and drawings are given. "The building," he says, 

 " stands due east and west, and consists of two parts, the 

 nave and choir, separated by a richly carved semicircular 

 archway. The former is twenty-si.\ feet long, by sixteen 

 feet wide, and thirteen feet high to the springing of the 

 stone roof. The choir is, as usual, much smaller, being but 

 sixteen feet long, by twelve wide, and eleven feet high to the 

 roof, which was also of stone. There are five windows, one 

 in the eastern gable, and -one at each side in the nave and 

 choir; all of them having the round arch of the same style of 

 architecture as the ornamented doorways. The entrance to 

 the church is at the western end, through a richly orna- 

 mented doorway of the Anglo-Norman, or, as it is more cor- 

 rectly called, the Lombardic style of architecture. Making 

 allowance for the greater size and profusion of ornament, I 

 find in the arches of the western door and nave of Rochester 

 Cathedral, the nearest model for the doorways of Kilmelche- 

 dor church. In Ireland, the account given by Grose, in his 

 Antiquities, of Cormac's Chapel or Crypt at Cashel, may, 

 pro tanto, be copied as a description of Kilmelchedor. Thus 

 he tells us, ' it is a stone-roofed chapel,' with ' a nave and 

 choir,' with ' columns supporting the grand arch leading into 

 the choir ; the columns short and thick ; the portal semicir- 

 cular, with nail-head and chevron mouldings ; the windows 

 also round.' So far the descriptions of both buildings exactly 

 agree." 



The roof of Kilmelchedor seems to have been constructed 

 on the same principle as the roofs of the ancient and curious 

 stone hermitages in its neighbourhood ; one stone ovei-lap- 

 ping the other, with sufticient bearing to sustain the weigiit 

 as the work advanced. But the chief peculiarity of this 

 'hurch is the elaborate ornament of the interior nave, 



