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cut after the doorway had been erected. Possibly St. Fechin himself 
might have been the fabricator of his own signum, and may have 
known more of preaching than sculpture. In the interior this lintel 
has been roughly chiselled away over the doorway, evidently to admit 
of the reception of the wooden door, which, no doubt, once closed this 
aperture; here also is carved a simple straight-armed cross enclosed in a 
circle, both being very rudely and deeply cut into the stone. 
Fig. 5. The next illustration represents the doorway of the Round 
Tower of Lusk in the county of Dublin, and if similarity of design is 
any argument in favour of similarity of age in ancient Irish church archi- 
tecture, we may safely conclude that this tower and the ancient church 
at Fore are of equal antiquity. 
Fig. 6. This is a view of the doorway of the ancient church of My- 
shall in the county of Carlow, and its style of construction leads me to 
think it a work of the eleventh or twelfth century. Its general simi-_ 
larity in design to the doorway of the larger of the Round Towers 
at Clonmacnoise, called O’Rourke’s Tower, attributed by Dr. Petrie 
to the twelfth century, is very striking, though the peculiarity which 
it exhibits of having a projecting abacus extending from the exterior 
to the interior of the wall, at the springing of the arch, would lead 
me to assign it to an earlier period. 
Fig. 7. This represents the doorway of the old church of Ballyhay, 
near Charleville, county of Cork, its style beg that of rude twelfth- 
century art. 
Fig. 8. We have here a view of the Round Tower of Dromiskin, in 
the county of Louth, which in many respects is unlike the ordinary 
ecclesiastical Round Tower, its paints of difference being very striking, 
and all tending to show that it is a structure of medieval times. 
The chief peculiarity which this building exhibits, distinguishing it 
from all others of its class with which I am acquainted, is its shortness, 
as compared with its diameter: its height is not much over 40 feet to the 
springing of the conical roof, while its circumference is 54 feet 6 inches. 
The doorway of this structure is semicircular-headed, consisting of 
two arches, the inner one deeply recessed, and to these the sides of the 
door correspond. At the springing of the arch are large blocks of stone, 
which project far beyond the soffit of the outer arch, when they are carved 
to represent the capitals of pilasters. They must have originally sup- 
ported a detached and massive circular moulding, which filled up the 
angle between the outer and inner arches, and corresponded to the cir- 
cular, detached pilasters which supported the capitals. It is evident that 
this supposition must be correct, because the capitals, as they now appear, 
support nothing,—an architectural solecism of which the builders of the 
tower were doubtless never guilty. This door is 4 feet 7 inches high, 
2, feet 2 inches wide at the spring of the arch, and faces due east. The 
tower is divided into three floors: the first received light from the door, 
which is 13 feet from the ground; the tower below this, being hollow, 
the second floor was lighted by a very small triangular-headed window, 
which is quite of the early primature form of such openings, and is placed 
a 
