Stokes — On Existing National Monuments of Ireland. 21 



Till. — A List of the Existing National Monuments of Ireland, in 

 the County of Kerry, furnished in Reply to the Circular Let- 

 ter of the Committee of Antiquities of the Royal Irish Academy. 

 By Henry Stokes, C. S., &c. 



[Read 9th January, 1871.] 



1. Round Tower at Rattoo, Barony of Clanmaurice (Ordnance Map, 

 sheet 9. 1st Rattoo Church. See No. 8.) — This tower is in good pre- 

 servation, and is now the only one left in Kerry. It is ninety-four feet 

 high, and only a few stones off the top of the conical roof have fallen 

 down. It is in the demesne of Rattoo, with a small graveyard walled 

 in around it; the present proprietor, Air. Wilson Gun, takes very 

 good care that no injury shall be done to it. 



2. Artfert Abbey Ruins, same Barony (Sheet 20). — This is one of 

 our most interesting monastic ruins, and being in the demesne of Ard- 

 fert, and well guarded by its present proprietor, Mr. William T. Crosbie, 

 its preservation is secure. 



3. Ardfert Church, called the Cathedral and Chapel, same Barony, 

 (Sheet 20). — Here is in one group the remains of the ecclesiastical 

 architecture of four centuries before the Reformation. There is an 

 eastern church window of singular beauty in a gable of about 35 feet 

 high, which is in clanger of being lost from decay and the increasing 

 departure of its side-walls. There is a church of about 100 feet long, 

 with long narrow windows in the south wall, which overhangs 7 or 8 

 inches in its height of about 22 feet, and which I offered to draw back 

 by alternating shrinking iron bars, for a small sum to cover expenses, 

 but nobody would pay. 



It is the intention of the Roman Catholic Bishop of Kerry to pur- 

 chase the old parish church (now condemned) and the ruins attached 

 to it, from the Commissioners of the Irish Church Temporalities, 

 and to "restore" the ancient Cathedral. [See Lord Dunraven's 

 photograph.] The remains of the round tower, which fell about 

 ninety-five years ago, are all gone from sinking graves, and from tombs 

 being built with the stones of it. 



4. Lislouyhtin Abbey, Barony of Irayhticonnor ( Ordnance Map, Sheet 

 3). — This appears to have been a monastery of the same kind as Ard- 

 fert, but of a poorer and coarser kind. It is situated near the Lower 

 Shannon, within a mile of Ballylongford. There was a fine square 

 tower in the middle of the ruins which fell last year from being 

 undermined by people rooting for treasure, which tradition and 

 dreamers made certain of finding there. I believe the whole of the 

 buildings will be levelled in due time by this practice, as the present 

 proprietor, Major James Crosbie, of Bally heigue Castle, who is tenant 

 to Trinity College, Dublin, does not care to prevent it, and stones are 

 scarce thereabouts. 



5. Killahan Cross, Barony of Clanmaurice (Sheet 15). — This is one of 

 the only two large old stone crosses I know in Kerry. The second is 



E. I. A. PROC. — VOL. I., SER. II., POL. LIT. AND AX1IQ. E 



