114 Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy. 



Round Tower : Pointed. The clay filling, which formed a floor at the level of the 



door, entii-ely dug out. 

 Cottage : Cleared out. 

 Monuments : A number were found and clamped to the wall of St. Caimin's. Some 



of these were found in St. Mary's, and ought to have been left there. On the 



other hand, excellent work was done in finding and fitting together some of 



the broken crosses. 



I am glad to be able to omit from the above list the erection of an 

 extraordinary makeshift reredos behind the structure that now does duty as 

 an altar in St. Mary's Church. The true history of this work of art is given 

 below. On the other hand, some mistakes in detail were committed, as it 

 seems to me, without necessity. If I call attention to these, as in the case 

 of mistakes on the Ordnance Map,' I hope it will be clearly understood that 

 I am making no attack on anyone, living or dead, or on any public body. 

 But the mistakes are there, to show that there is something wrong some- 

 where; and it is not difficult to see that the fault lies in a tacit assumption, 

 not infrequent in Government services, that a specialist enjoys a day more 

 than twenty-four hours long. A body with the enormously complicated and 

 varied duties of the Board of Public Works, to whose hands are committed 

 almost the whole machinery of modern civilization, is saddled with the 

 incongruous task of caring for ancient monuments. A surveyor of the 

 highest qualifications, whose maps are marvels of accuracy, is expected ipso 

 facto to possess the training in archaeology necessary to enable him to record 

 antiquities properly, and the skill in phonology requisite for writing down 

 place-names in an unknown tongue. A busy Dublin architect is expected to 

 superintend restoration works on a remote island in the heart of Ireland. 

 The repair and preservation of the monuments of Inis Cealtra was a great 

 work, a necessary work, and one with which every reasonable person must be 

 in entire sympathy. But the officer charged with the duty should have been 

 enabled, and required, to encamp on the island for the whole time of its 

 continuance. He should have personally watched and recorded the turning 

 over of every stone.- In fact, the work should have been an archaeological 

 exploration as much as a work of repair ; and the final report, instead of 

 beuig contained in sixty-one lines of print (not free from careless mistakes), 

 accompanied by seven sketchy and not over-accurate plates, and bound up 

 with all sorts of matter, important but irrelevant, about police barracks. 



' The errors of the Ordnance Map referred to in this paper are, I understand, now 

 (December 1915) being corrected. 



- For example, we can find no record of where the various fragments of the broken 

 crosses that were pieced together were found — a point not without some historical im- 

 portance. 



