Clare Island Survey — History and Archaeology. 2 31 



above its old level, as the slab of the recess is covered. In other parts the 

 filling is even 5 feet deep, and in the nave usually 3 and 4 feet. The 

 tracery rests on a segmental arch, with bold cuspings, and is enclosed in an 

 ogee frame with side pillars ending in three finials, the innermost being set 

 askew, evidently to show with better effect to persons at the archway of the 

 chancel. A defaced door leads into a vaulted sacristy, also filled for 4 

 to 5 feet. The east end is recessed, with a small east window which has two 

 trefoil-headed lights, with trefoils in the outer spandrels, under a bold 

 angular frame outside ; they had iron frames for the glass held by four little 

 tongues into each jamb, one at the top and one in the sill ; some of the iron 

 plugs remain. 1 The opes are 4 feet 2 inches high up the sides, or 4 feet 9 

 inches in all, and are 8 inches wide. The altar has at each outer corner an 

 attached octagonal shaft, and is covered with slabs neatly moulded at the 

 edge, one with a slot for a pillar or candlestick ; the whole is nearly buried. 

 To the south was a small tabernacle with half of a cinquefoil head in the left 

 jamb of a deep window recess, the light of which is single, but in other 

 respects, save its lack of a hood, is closely similar to the lights of the east 

 window. West from it is a rude, plain, pointed recess, or sedile. Its arch was 

 turned over a wicker centre; a small carving of a human face projects near it. 

 Between it and the chancel arch a door leads to the south stairs and was the 

 way (I believe) to the pulpit. The stair is lit by a defaced window at the 

 foot, and runs straight up the wall eastward with nineteen steps ; the 

 passage is only 22 inches wide. A number of very old-looking iron nails 

 have been driven into the south wall of the chancel. 



The Paintings. — The age of the paintings remaining in Irish abbeys has 

 never been examined on scientific lines, and in a paper intended to give facts 

 and avoid mere conjecture, I shall avoid dogmatism as far as I am able. 

 There were traces of colouring — deep crimson and light blue — when I first saw 

 the chapter house of Mellifont Abbey, county Louth, in 1880, usually in the 

 deep-cut capitals. Dim figures of saints in red and green were once visible 

 at Adare, and traces, I believe, remained so late as 1878. More elaborate 

 paintings in red, yellow, and brown, showing the Trinity, saints, and angels, 

 with foliage and other ornament, were found in the closed recesses in the south 

 aisle of St. Audoen's Church, Dublin. 2 Eed leaf-work and other ornament 

 remained on the pillars of St. Canice's Cathedral, Kilkenny. A notable specimen 

 of design, in black outline, was found in Knockmoy Abbey, of which Cliara was 



1 Otway gives a good illustration in his " Tour in Connaught," p. 300, and the K. S.A.I. 

 Handbook, No. VI, p. 3S, illustrates the interior. 



2 They have long since perished from soot and the weather, having been left open most inexcusably. 

 I have made coloured drawings of them, and Mr. T. F. Geoghegan lias an excellent photograph. An 

 illustration of them was published in the Keport of the Board of Public Works. 



