O'Reilly — Old Churches of Da Ike y Totin and Island. 211 



the lintel is 27 cm., and on the sill is 30 cm., while the height of the 

 opening is ahout 55-5 cm. The inclination of the jambs is therefore 

 well marked, and more marked and distinct than in the case of the 

 door. The splay of the sides on the inside gives an interior breadth 

 of opening of 75 cm. 



This window was seemingly intended to light a small room placed 

 above the floor, at the west end of the building, and of which traces 

 still remain on the interior surfaces of the walls. It seems to have 

 formed part of the original design. The larger vrindow in the south 

 wall, situated at the south-east end, sketched and briefly described by 

 "Wakeman, is by him considered as quite recent ; and be gives testi- 

 mony in support of that view. As the masonry has been exposed to 

 the action of the air and weather for at least a century or so, since 

 the period of the alterations referred to by him, it does not show with 

 marked evidence the certainty of this change, unless by the relative 

 smallness of the material employed on the sides of the opening and 

 the presence of the two sill-stones so strangely placed across the 

 opening (PL XYI., fig. 1). That the space underneath these stones has 

 been the result of quite recent work, and is roughly a hole broken in 

 the wall, may be at once granted. But it is probable that there was 

 originally at the south-east end of this south wall an opening or 

 window of the same character as that still existing in the western 

 part of Dalkey Town church (PI. XVI., figs. 2, 3, 4, and 5). 



This is a tall, narrow slit, so placed as to throw light on the altar 

 at the east end of the church ; possibly that of Dalkey Island was 

 divided towards the mid height by a cross-stone or sill, as in the case 

 of the Dalkey Town church window referred to, and of the two stones 

 remaining across this south-east end opening; the upper one was pro- 

 bably the middle sill of the original window. This is to some extent 

 suggested by a comparison of the relative distances of the two windows 

 in question from the respective south-east corners of the buildings. In 

 the Dalkey Town church the distance of the eastern vertical edge of 

 the opening from the south-east corner of that building is 186 cm.; 

 while the same measurement in the case of Dalkey Island church gives 

 182 cm. — practically the same — and so far suggests that an entirely 

 new window was not broken in the wall, but rather that the narrow 

 light or opening, such as that of Dalkey Town church, was enlarged 

 towards the west side to its present breadth. It is proposed to dis- 

 cuss hereinafter the possible usage of this narrow opening for the 

 purpose of the determination of the periods of the solstices, by means 

 of the relative positions of the patches of light formed by the sun's 



K.I. A. PROC, VOL. XXIV., SEC. c] [1'] 



