Macamster — The History and Antiquities of Inis Cealtra. 163 



between St. Caimin's church and the Declienhoir cross-base. On this he makes 

 the following remarks : — " We return now to St. Columbkille's Chapel [i.e., the 

 chancel of St. Caimin's], a few yards distant to the South East corner of which, 

 the spot, where the twelve Saints are interred, who founded originally the 

 Churches on the island, is pointed out. A stone without an inscription 

 standing here marks the place, in which, is lying horizontally also another, 

 which covers the grave. The latter is nearly overspread with encroaching earth 

 and grass." Unfortunately O'Conor, though a praiseworthy observer, had not 

 the gift of style, and I find it difficult to " visualize" the monument from his 

 rather obscure description. In any case there is nothing like it now on the 

 indicated spot. Was it broken up to provide material for the new wall 

 round the graveyard ? Wakeman's sketch (CIIL ii, 41), which seems to be 

 taken from a point about the present south-east corner of the Saints' 

 Graveyard, shows four stones standing upright in the foreground, which are 

 not now to be seen. Brash says very little about the monuments beyond 

 quoting a very absurd reading of the Declienhoir inscription; but he tells us, "At 

 my visit in 1852, there were within the walls of [St. Caimin's] church several 

 ancient grave-slabs with crosses : these are all gone except one,' as I said 

 above. A short distance from the ruin called Teampuil-ne-Fearguntha \sic\, 

 there were then a number of incised sepulchral slabs, bearing crosses and 

 Inscriptions of the primitive age, traditionally known as the graves of the 

 (Tobhans ; I could not find one of them on my visit in the present year 

 (186.5)." 



Mr. Wakeman relates a story* which probably refers to one or other of 

 the above missing slabs. He says — " It so happens that a person with whom 

 I am well acquainted, and upon whose veracity every reliance can be placed, 

 during a visit to the island one fine day in the summer of 1888, witnessed 

 the appropriation of a cross-inscribed stone which lay in the cemetery by a 

 party of tourists who from their dress and style of speaking appeared to 

 have hailed from America, or perhaps from some part of Australia. The 

 stone was then placed in a cot or boat, one of the strangers remarking at the 

 moment ' how pretty it would look in the garden on the other side of the 

 water.' " 



XV. Mediaeval and Early Modern Monuments. 



(86). Plate XXIV, fig. 7. A beautiful slab, probably fourteenth-century, 

 which has been broken into pieces, of which three survive ; at least four 

 (probably smaller) fragments are lost. The fragments measure roughly 



No. 71 in the foregoing list, of which Brash gives a drawing. 

 ' Journal It.S.A.I., 1890, p. 274. 



