Wakeman — The BuUdns, or Roch-hasins, found in Ireland. 261 
lapidary inscription of Christian times found in Ireland. It is not, I 
believe, too much to assume that they were meant to purify the 
monument from its pagan associations and taint. 
The Kerry stones referred to by Petrie, together with their dedi- 
catory inscriptions, exhibit primitive incised or punched crosses, but 
no name of a person to be commemorated. The most important of 
these remains is a pillar-stone at Kilmalkedar, which, in addition to a 
cross and the letters dni (domini), exhibits on one of its sides the 
whole alphabet (with the exception of the A, which has been broken 
off) in the debased Eoman style of the sixth or following century. 
The carving of this ahecdarium would appear to have been an after- 
thought, and executed probably a century or so later than the 
dedicatory dni. 
That in the British Isles, and indeed elsewhere, certain pillar- 
stones, or other monuments venerated by pagans, were in the early 
days of the Church preserved, and even devoted to Christian purposes, 
is a fact concerning which there can be no question. We read, for 
instance, that when St. Patrick on a certain occasion was travelling in 
Connaught he arrived at a place in the present county of Galway, 
near Lough Hackett, where he found the people worshipping three 
idols in the form of pillar-stones. These the saint did not destroy, 
but upon them he caused to be inscribed the names of the Redeemer — 
Jesus, Salvator, Soter. (See Tripartite Life, ii., c. 52.) Many other 
cases of similar import might, if necessary, be brought forward, but 
let one suffice for the present. 
The county Dublin hullan rock is, as far as I know, the only 
lettered example of its class remaining in Ireland. (See Plate 
XVIII., fig. 2.) 
J^ot far from Enniskillen, close to the western shore of Drumgay 
Lough, may be seen a block of hard, red sandstone, rudely qua^ 
drangular in form, measuring ten feet in length by six in breadth, 
and rising to the height of about four feet above the present level 
of the ground. (See Plate XYIII., fig. 2.) Upon its upper 
surface has been sunk a fine hullan, one foot four inches in dia- 
meter by eight inches in depth. This cavity, which presents all 
the appearance of having been worked out with a punch, is bowl- 
shaped in section, and in form highly symmetrical. Upon its 
base appears a cross, in Eoman fashion, of the simplest kind. This 
figure, which has been well sunk into the stone, like the great 
majority of our early rock markings, must have been produced by aid 
of a pick. It is certainly not incised. The presence of a design of 
any kind within a hulldn would indicate that the hollow had not been 
