134 Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy. 



sufficiently emphasize the remarkable group of four rude pillar-stones 

 occupying so much floor-space in such a small building, seems to have no 

 doubt that it was a Confessional. Lord Duuraveu took it for a tomb ; in this 

 he is followed by the Board of "Works Eeport, which gives two very good 

 perspective drawings of the building, and a plan, which is not so good. There 

 is this much to be said for the " tomb " theory : that the foui- standing stones 

 look like nothing so much as the supporting stones of a small dolmen. 

 Indeed, I would feel almost certain that is what they originally were, had it 

 not been for the slab inserted beneath them, which would not be found in a 

 dolmen, and could not have been inserted if the stones had been in position. 

 There is, however, no objection against supposing that a rude stone structure 

 of some sort — a dolmen or a stone circle — once stood on the little plateau 

 where the cella now stands, and that it was despoiled to aJford material for 

 the building. The large stones in the stmcture, and one extra stone lying 

 unused against the outside of the west wall (measuring 3 feet 6 inches long 

 and 1 foot 1 inch across) mighc have come from such a source. The sanctity 

 of the Holy Island, as we have already seen, probably stretches back into the 

 days of paganism, and it would not be surprising if it once had borne 

 megalithic structures. The desire to capture the shrine for Christianity 

 might have been a leading motive with those who first chose the site for the 

 monastery. 



That the building was intended for the sacrament of Confession seems to 

 me perfectly inadmissible : and I see that ilr. Champneys expresses the same 

 opinion, and for the same ob\'ious reason' — that a structure would not be 

 made for so solemn a rite that could not be entered by priest or penitent 

 without a fatal sacrifice of dignity. Mr. Champneys gives the explanation 

 that occurred to myself mdependently the moment I first set eyes on the 

 bmlding: that it is the abode of an indusus, who submitted himself to a 

 peculiarly rigid self-mortification. The outer part of the ceUa was meant for 

 those who came to consult or to minister to the holy man, who was buUt in 

 between the four standing stones. The comparative spaciousness of the 

 well known anchorites' cells at St. Duilech's, near Dublin, and at Fore, 

 Co. Westmeath, or even the mediaeval dungeon called Little-ease, were as 

 palaces compared with the restraint of this living sepulchre. A person 

 confined thus might well be spoken of as " the miserable one ": and when we 

 find in the Annals of the Four Masters the obit, A.D. 898, of one Coscrach, 

 anchorite of Inis Cealtra, who was known by this appellation, we are, as I 

 venture to think, justified in r^arding this building, with a fair measure of 



' Irish Ecclesiastical ArchiteGtore, p. 110. 



