Westropp — Ancient Churches in Co. Limerick. 461 



Donchad O'Erien, 1206, who completed the choir. Some leaves under 

 it seem later than his time, but may have been recut. The monu- 

 mental effigies of Bishop Cornelius O'Dea in the Cathedral, and King 

 Donchad Cairbrech O'Brien, 1242, in the Dominican Abbey, have 

 disappeared; the other monuments are not earlier than the year 1400. 

 An early tomb with the effigy of a knight remains at Hospital; it is 

 supposed to be that of Geffry fitz Maurice, the founder. There is an 

 early incised cross on a tapering stone in Old Abbey. It is very 

 disappointing to find no other tombs with epitaphs or carvings of the 

 thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. 



After 1400 we find the monuments of Budston, Bultingford, and 

 Galwey in the cathedral, and fragments of the beautiful canopied 

 tomb of James, Earl of Desmond, 1459 (destroyed by Malbie in 

 1579), in Askeaton Friary. A dare yields us no tombs of this 

 century ; nor are any such found at Kilmallock, Rathkeale, Monas- 

 teranenagh, or Abbey Owney. We omit the Elizabethan and later 

 tombs. 



Othi':r Stetjctures. — Columbaria are found at the Trinitarian and 

 Black Abbeys of Adare ; the former closely resembles the pigeon -house 

 of Old Abbey, but it is far more perfect. The sanitation of some of 

 the abbeys is very good, the drainage of the Franciscan house at 

 Adare being discharged down the mill-race ; Old Abbey and Askeaton 

 into the neighbouring stream and river. A certain degree of comfort 

 is marked in the fireplaces and ovens at Askeaton, Kilmallock, and 

 Adare ; none remains at Old Abbey. The little water-mill of the 

 Franciscans, with the narrow channel for the wheel and the broken 

 millstones, is to be seen at Adare. 



(B). — Chtjech Fuki^iture and Plate. 



Carvings and Pictures. — Paintings of saints, possibly of the seven- 

 teenth-century revival, were once visible in the Franciscan Church, 

 Adare; slight traces of these were to be found even in 1878. The 

 oak misereres in the Cathedral must be noted in another section. The 

 Cathedral possesses the very peculiar bracket with carvings of 

 St. Michael and the dragon, the Crucifixion, and St. Michael and Satan, 

 also one of the pelican reviving its dead young, and of the seven-headed 

 dragon (Christ and Antichrist) on the Stacpoles' monument. Figures 

 of ecclesiastics are found in the Franciscan houses of Adare and Askea- 

 ton ; St. Catherine and another saint at the latter place. A figure of 

 a squirrel was carved at Monasternenagh. Sheelanagigs, which occur 



