471 



on Do chomcmba lanlaiclie, Do aeo u ossin, las in 

 DercNao in chnossa. 



"A PRAYER FOR THE COMHARBA OF JARLATH, FOR AED OSSIN, 

 BY WHOM THIS CROSS WAS MADE." 



This inscription, which is accurately given in his " Eccle- 

 siastical Architecture of Ireland," is of considerable importance, 

 as it enables us to make a nearer approximation to the true 

 date of the re-erection of the Cathedral Church of Tuam, than 

 that — as it would appear — hypothetical^ given to it by Ware 

 and Harris ; and also to correct an error into which both of 

 those able antiquaries have fallen in the interpretation of it. 

 Speaking of the Cathedral Church of Tuam, Ware states it 

 to have been rebuilt " about the year 1152, by the Archbishop 

 Edan O'Hoisin, by the aid and assistance of Turlogh O'Conor, 

 King of Ireland." On this statement of Ware's, which has 

 been adopted by Harris, Dr. Petrie read the following re- 

 marks from his Essay on Irish Ecclesiastical Architecture, 

 pages 312 and 313:— 



" It may be doubted, however, that the date assigned to 

 the erection of the Church of Tuam, by Ware, is the true one, 

 and there is, I think, greater reason to believe that it was 

 erected many years earlier, — or, at least, previously to O'Hoi- 

 sin's having received the pall as an Archbishop in 1 152, or 

 even to his succession to the Archbishopric in 1150. For 

 though, in one of the inscriptions above given, he is called the 

 comharba of Jarlath, — which might equally imply that he was 

 Archbishop or Abbot of Tuam, — yet in the following inscrip- 

 tion on the base of the great stone cross, now lying in the 

 market-place, he is distinctly called Abbot ; and it is not in 

 any degree likely that this inferior title would have been ap- 

 plied-to him after his elevation to the Archbishopric ; for in one 

 of the inscriptions on the cross or crozier of the Archbishops 

 of Tuam or Connaught, — now, through the liberality of Pro- 

 fessor M'Cullagh, preserved in the Museum of the Eoyal Irish 



