8o Irish Archaeology. 



manuscripts, and everything they could take they destroyed. 

 To form a correct idea of a Celtic monastery you should exclude 

 from your minds everything you have read or seen of Gothic 

 Romanesque architecture, such as the ruins of monasteries like 

 Adare, Quin, Holycross, Mellifont, Jerpoint or Greyabbey. 

 These were all Anglo-Norman, not Celtic. The Celtic monastery 

 consisted of a collection of circular, wattled, or stone beehive 

 huts surrounded by a circular eastern rampart called a rath, 

 or a huge dry stone built wall, lo or 12 feet thick, called a 

 cashel. Each brother had a separate little hut or cell, in which 

 he studied and slept. The students constructed similar huts 

 or booths, which assumed the form of a village. Those who 

 were able paid for their food, and those who were not received 

 their support from the people of the district. It was in schools 

 like these that Columba, Columbanus, Galus, Colman, Adamnan, 

 and others were educated, who became great missionaries and 

 teachers, and preached the Gospel to various European nations. 

 From the peculiar habits and traditions of the Irish race, 

 architecture at that period had not attained that position to 

 which it was entitled, and to which at a later period it reached. 

 No doubt the round towers were erected about the end of the 

 time we are referring to, and for graceful proportions and 

 excellent workmanship stand unequalled. It would seem that the 

 men who built them were capable of doing work of a much more 

 elaborate kind. In the nth century the Irish did direct their 

 attention to the erection of better churches, and such as Cromac's 

 Chapel and Queen Dervorgille's Church at Clonmacnois, both 

 built by native workmen. They invented a peculiar style of 

 stone roofing, unique in its way, and almost indestructible. 

 English writers who dispute our claims to a higher culture and 

 earlier civilisation than theirs generally ignore reference to the 

 remote ages, and point to the condition of Ireland in the Eliza- 

 bethan age in proof of their statements. It is well known that the 

 decadence of the country had reached its lowest point at the close 

 of the Elizabethan wars. The social condition of the common 

 people was deplorable, being hunted to the woods like wild 



