( ^'iv ) 



the Irish memhers to assist Sir John Lubbock in his praiseworthy 

 object. 



I should strongly urge upon you the great desirability of recom- 

 mending a uniform administration and consolidation of funds for the 

 preservation of tlie ancient monuments of this country, and that the 

 administration and direction of this work should be left in the hands 

 of the Irish Government. 



The second point to which I desire to draw your attention is, that 

 the list of ancient ecclesiastical monuments which is now before the 

 Church Temporalities Commissioners is extremely deficient. When 

 the great wealth of the country in important ecclesiastical remains is 

 considered; that only twenty monuments are specified is much to be 

 lamented. Out of the 125 Round Towers which are noticed as exist- 

 ing at the close of the last century, but seventy-five are still standing. 

 The great Crosses, so many in number, which exhibit the most 

 ancient and perfect examples of sculpture in the country, and a much 

 larger number of the most important and ancient churches, should be 

 included. It has been objected that there is a risk in sending in a 

 list which would be greater than there are funds to meet the necessi- 

 ties of : but this is surely a lesser evil than that the funds which may 

 be obtained should exceed the requirements of the list, in which case 

 such funds may be either too lavishly expended on certain monuments, 

 or may ultimately be altogether otherwise applied. 



When addressing you last year, I expressed much anxiety as to 

 the mode in which this work of preservation would possibly be car- 

 ried out. It is with much gratification that I have since seen the 

 admirable action of the Board of Works in entrusting the supervision 

 of these necessary repairs to Mr. Deane. The work already achieved at 

 Cashel and Ardmore, of preservation rather than restoration, gives the 

 best hopes for the cause of this department of Irish Archaeology. 



In illustration of the vandalism to which these great monuments 

 have been subject in many cases, I may mention that numbers of these 

 towers have been so plundered for their cut stone, that the safety of the 

 structure is gravely imperilled. It is not many years since one of the 

 finest of the towers in Ireland fell, and such was the strength of the 

 masonry, that the prostrate tower lay like a vast cylinder on the ground 

 till it was finally blown up with gunpowder by the owner of the 

 soil, for the purpose of obtaining building material. 



