Clare Island Survey — History and Archaeology. 2 33 



arch, and finials and thin lines at each point. At this place the fact of the 

 plaster of the painted ceiling and its corbels overlaying the red painted stucco 

 is very well seen. The Board of Public Works has done everything to preserve 

 the ceding, but in vain ; the damage had too long set up from water soaking 

 through the floor above for anything now to be effective. The colours used 

 are a fine and rich scarlet in the older painting ; an orange red, a chocolate 

 brown, a rich golden yellow, and a dark slate blue, the last for the ribs and 

 corbels. There was a fifth colour which alone has faded out ; it is, where 

 most evident, a faint grey, and was probably purple or light blue. I will call 

 it " blue " for brevity, making no assertion thereby. The Eev. E. A. Lavelle, 

 curate on the island, informs me that he has been told that even in 1862, 

 when the new chapel was commenced, the paintings were in good preservation. 

 Unfortunately no one sketched them so far as is known. The present 

 attempt has come nearly too late. (Plates IV- VI.) 



The east wall was decorated with yellow sprays and bands on a " blue " 

 ground. The shallow arch over the altar recess had two thin bands of yellow 

 on the outer edge, and a broader one next the vault and sides. From the 

 bands spikes or leaves projected inwards, with here and there a trefoil or fleur- 

 de-lys in the central space. Between this and the outer bands were V-like 

 ornaments, like chevrons. Pound the arch and sides of the splay were bands 

 with curved ornaments or leaves between, and all the flat surfaces facing 

 westward were relieved by tree-like ornaments, branching out into spirals, 

 - curves, and pear-like fruit, perhaps a reminiscence of the flowers, " knops," 

 and branches in Solomon's Temple. Only slight traces of the plaster remain 

 inside the splays ; it seems to be scribed all over with angular patterns, 

 impost, and other broad bands, and rows of shield-shaped beading. 



The roof is far more complex. We may examine it from the west 

 numbering the spaces between the ribs eastward, first along the north side, 

 and then along the south, as we might examine it in the building. The 

 framework consists of five ribs, one up the west edge, three in the centre of 

 the vault, and one on the east edge. In each of the four bays so made are 

 two ribs crossing at the crown of the vault ; they run into long, thin wedges, 

 where they join the main ribs, the last being parallel, or at least of fairly 

 even width. Where the joined groining ribs reach the spring of the vault is 

 a corbel painted on the wall. The corbels along the north have — 1, three 

 leaves ; 2, a volute ; the 3rd is defaced. On the south the middle one 

 ends in an equilateral triangle, the others are defaced. The framework is 

 deeply scribed, very carefully, to the square, into about eleven oblongs to 

 each main rib, painted dark blue grey, and looks like inset tiles. 



The designs so framed are very heterogeneous, for so far as one can see 



B.I. A. PKOC, VOL. XXXI. E 2 



