O'Eeilly — Ringing of Bells in N. Spain and in Ireland. 491 



" Among the former of these is the use of yery large stones, and 

 the practice of roofing small buildings by advanciag each course some- 

 what nearer the centre than belo^y ; examples of both will be found in 

 plenty in Count Melchior de Yogiies' " Syrie Centrale." Although in 

 these buildings arched doorways are the most common, those formed 

 precisely in the same manner as the Irish examples, with one large 

 block for a lintel, are frequently found; and one of them ("Syrie 

 Centrale," p. 99, fig. 4) may almost pass for the original, of which the 

 lintel of Fore is the rough copy. The Irish buildings have far more 

 the appearance of such copies of the products of a cultivated school of 

 architecture, as might be achieved by native workmen, under the 

 direction of immigrants bringing with them recollections, rather than 

 accurate knowledge, of the edifices they had left behind, than that of 

 the fii'st rude essays of an uncivilized race. The Persians plundered 

 Syria in a.d. 573. The Saracens invaded it in 613, and Central Syria 

 seems to have been entirely depopulated about that period. It, at that 

 time, contained many monasteries and many monks, and it is quite 

 possible that among the numerous foreigners who sought an asylum in 

 Ireland at that period may have been Syrian monks. In the Litany of 

 St. ^ngus, written, it is believed, in the year 799 (Petrie, p. 137), 

 among the scores and even hundreds of strangers of various nations, 

 mention is made of seven Egyptian monks buried in Disert Ulidh. The 

 greater part of these immigrants are in the Litany simply called j[;er<?yr«??« 

 without indication of nationality. Dr. Petrie (p. 127), however, seems 

 to think the peculiarities of construction of these early buildings are 

 due to the colonisation of the country by the Firbolgs and Tuatha 

 De Dannan tribes, which our historians bring hither from Greece at a 

 very remote period. ' Which tribes,' he says, ' were accustomed to 

 build not only their fortresses but even their dome-roofed houses and 

 sepulchres of stone without cement, and in the style now usually 

 called Cyclopean and Pelasgic' " 



Page 385. — "Two peculiarities mark the ecclesiastical architecture 

 of Ireland; one, the altar end is invariably rectangular; the other, 

 that the towers, found near the early chui'ches, are always circular. 

 Perhaps the most probable explanation of the former is that the form 

 was originally used as that most suitable for a very small oratory, and 

 perpetuated in consequence of the extraordinary veneration which the 

 Irish have always entertained for anything connected with the 

 saints." 



■ This square or rectangular form of small oratory is still perpetuated 

 on the north coast of Spain, as may be seen by the accompanying sketch 



