456 



Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy, 



CONCLUDING NOTES. 



(A). — Architectural Remain^s. 



Having completed the actual Survey of the Churches, it seems 

 profitable to condense into a few brief notes the salient features of 

 the ruins, and collect a few facts as to their plate, furniture, and 

 bells. 



Earliest among the buildings seems the venerable church of Killulta, 

 on its high, abrupt rock, near the wooded ridge, where the most 

 modern of the castles of Limerick towers above its reedy lake. 

 Killulta has one remaining feature, its east window, with an angular 

 head of the most primitive description. Similar angular heads, but of 

 two pitched stones, occur on a window in Dysert Oenghus round tower, 

 and one in Cloncrewe Church.^ 



Slightly later are the features of the defaced churches of Donagh- 

 more and Clonshire, the better preserved north-east church at Mungret, 

 and the church of Kilrush. All have doors with inclined jambs and 

 large lintels ; the three latter have also round-headed windows, with, 

 as a rule, inclined jambs. The round tower of Dysert has a round- 

 headed window, with a linteled splay and a round- arched door ; the 

 latter we shall note again. There is a round-headed inclined jambed 

 window at Mahoonagh ; it has a hood moulding. Good examples of 

 moulded windows, round-headed as to splay and light, occur in several 

 churches, e.g. Killeedy, Kilmacow, and Clonkeen, but the east window 

 of the latter has a later light. There is a neatly-built round-headed 

 door at Clonelty, and one with several recessed arches was remembered 

 as at Killeedy a century ago. The massive remains of the door of 

 Dysert Church have a plain raised band running round the jamb and 

 lintel of a type so common in round towers, and found at Tomgraney 

 Church in Clare, ante 969, and other churches of the ninth and tenth 

 centuries.^ 



Limerick is poor in those attractive archways of rich Romanesque 

 work of which we find such fine examples at Clonmacnoise, Monaincha, 

 Dysert O'Dea, llahan, Inchagoill, Iniscaltra, Clonfert, &c. The 

 doorway of Clonkeen is of this type, dating circa 1100,^ and an 

 unexpected ornament of flutings and pellets occurs on the door of 

 Dysert tower. The latter structure is certainly original ; as the 



1 Plate X. - For all these, see Plate X. ^ piate XIII. 



