: 
; 
: 
4 
‘ 
: 
4 
2 
1 
473 
the perfect similarity of the interlaced tracery which decorates 
the base of this cross,—of one side of which I annex a sketch, 
—to that on the archiepiscopal crozier of Tuam, which, ac- 
cording to the Annals of Innisfallen, was made in the year 
1123, but also to the traceries on the base of the cross at 
Cashel made in 1134, and still more with those on the tomb 
of Cormac, sculptured, as we may assume, in 1138.” 
Of the justness of the above opinions, Dr. Petrie stated 
that he was now more than ever satisfied, as he had no doubt 
that the error into which Ware and Harris had fallen, as to 
the supposed date of the re-erection of the church, was caused 
by their assuming that the stone on which this inscription is 
carved belonged to a monument or tomb raised to the memory 
of O’Hoisin in his own cathedral, and that the inscription on 
it was an Irish epitaph; whereas it is now absolutely certain, 
since the several portions of the cross have been put together, 
in the Great Industrial Exhibition, that this stone was really 
but one of those portions: and that the cross, as well as the 
church of which it was the memorial, was erected by O’ Hoisin, 
previously to his accession to the Archbishopric, is fully estab- 
lished by the other inscriptions carved upon the base of the 
cross, as above noticed. 
The second inscription, unlike the first, runs in a series of 
twenty-four short horizontal lines, each line consisting of from 
two to four letters. This inscription is not inferior in impor- 
tance, and is perhaps of even greater interest, than the former ; 
for it—as well as the other inscriptions on the base of the cross 
—preserves the name of the king by whose munificence the 
cross and church were, as we may believe, mainly erected,— 
and in addition, what is nowhere else preserved, that of the 
Trish artist, to whose taste and skill those structures were in- 
debted for their elaborate sculptured decorations. This latter 
fact has been only ascertained from an examination of the in- 
scription since the stone was brought to Dublin, and its dis- 
covery is the result of the careful cleaning which the tablet, 
