36 CPi"OC. B.N.F.C., 



deep, religious calm which still seems to pervade its time- 

 stained walls. Mellowed by the evening light or the haze of 

 distance, we can scarce believe its holy occupants have vacated 

 the shelter it so long afforded them, and for the time we 

 fail to remember that Sir Richard Bingham and his rude 

 Elizabethan soldiery, their horses and their guns, were stabled 

 within its sanctuary. Then the end came and the friars were 

 driven to the bogs; the bells had sounded their last '' angelus " 

 and the roofs had fallen in, exposing to time's devastation 

 some of the richest and rarest of man's handiwork, dedicated 

 to God's glory and the beauty of His house by the piety of 

 those who had long been laid to rest within its sacred walls in 

 the fond hope that His sanctuary should ever be preserved 

 by pious hands throughout the coming ages. Vain hope, 

 indeed; what man had reared man has destroyed. The 

 church originally consisted of a nave and choir, a short south 

 aisle and a south transept being subsequently added, the aisle 

 being continued along the west side of this transept and an 

 eastern chapel added to it called the O'Donnellan Chapel. 

 At the junction of the transept with the nave the tower rises, 

 and it, too, as is evident from the masonry, was added at a 

 later date. The cloisters lie on the north side of the church, 

 and the domestic apartments range along their eastern side. 

 A cloistered porch with an upper chamber rests against the 

 north wall of the tower in the cloister garth, and from it a 

 doorway opens on the circular stairs which lead to the tower. 

 Along the cloister side of the north wall of the choir there 

 is a passage and a slype leading to the chamber now occupied 

 by the tomb of Baron Trimblestone. From the south wall of 

 the choir at the east end, built at right angles, is a chamber, 

 with a built-up south window, which may have been a 

 sacristy — it is the most modern of all the buildings, with no 

 features of interest, and at present is filled with loose carved 

 stones from the Abbey, Two semi-circular arches connect 

 the nave with the south aisle, and two arches of a similar 

 class, of unequal size however, are continued along the west 

 side of the transept, ending in a very beautiful two-light 



