255 
There are many crosses scattered over the graveyard of the large 
church at Glendalough, called ‘“‘ The Cathedral,” and possibly one of the 
oldest, though the smallest of them, is represented in Fig. 2 of this group. 
It is a simple Greek cross, enclosed in a circle, but the lower arm is pro- 
longed into a shaft or staff. The drawing is nearly the size of the ori- 
ginal, which is carved out of a rough slab of mica slate. 
The next sketch represents an incised cross of graceful and quaint 
form, partaking of the Greco-Irish type. There appears at the intersec- 
tion of the arms the rudiment of that circular central ornament which in 
the eleventh and twelfth centuries was enlarged into important propor- 
tions, and formed the most distinctive feature of carvings of this class. 
In all speculative research it is a pleasure of no ordinary kind to be 
able to rest the mind on a fact relating to the subject, or at least on what 
we are willing to receive as such. Dr. Petrie, to whom the student of 
Trish Archeology is under a debt of gratitude for the clear analytical and 
philosophical manner in which he has treated the subject of early Chris- 
tian and pre-Norman Irish architecture, states, that he considers ‘‘ the 
Church of the Monastery,” or, as it is sometimes called, “the Priory of 
St. Saviour,”’ at Glendalough, to have been erected within the period 
between the close of the ninth and that of the tenth centuries. I have 
now to submit to you a drawing of the full size of one of the marvellously 
sculptured stones from this singular ruin. Let us mark its ornamenta- 
tion, and it will aid us in our inquiry as to the probable age of many of 
the sculptured stones from the neighbourhood. 
The next drawing is of a flat tombstone from the cathedral grave- 
yard ; and its central ornament is so very like that of the stone from the 
monastery that we are insensibly led to regard them as of the same pe- 
riod. This stone bears a mutilated inscription in Irish, commencing with 
the words or.po., the letters being of the Uncial, or old Roman cha- 
racter. 
The drawing No. 6 is of the small and beautifully ornamented cross 
from the graveyard of the Reafert Church (or Church of the Kings). 
Dr. Petrie states he considers this carving to be a work of the tenth 
century. (See Essay, page 266.) 
The next cross is from the ruins on the shore of the Upper Lake at 
Glendalough called Temple-na-Skellig ; and though its ornamentation 
is rude and simple, the type or idea expressed is clearly the same as the 
last, though very likely of an earlier date. 
Nos. 8, 9, and 10. These represent the upright crosses which are 
placed at intervals across the alluvial flats which separate the Upper from 
the Lower Lake at Glendalough. The first is of the same type as that 
from Temple-na-Skellig, its characteristic features being the three-quar- 
ter circles, which are cut out of its surface at the angles of the intersect- 
ing arm, thus suggesting the modified Greco-Irish form. 
The large granite cross which stands in the graveyard of the cathe- 
dral exhibits a total change in outline and general design to any of the 
preceding ; and I do not think that it is of equal age with them; indeed, 
I should be disposed to attribute it to the twelfth century. 
