Page:A History of Architecture in All Countries Vol 2.djvu/245

Rh Bk. VI. Ch. V. ORATORIES, 229 in length, and generally they are very much smaller, the most common dimensions being from 20 to 40 ft. long. Increase of magnificence was sought to be attained more by extending the number of churches tlian by augmenting their size. The favorite number for a complete ecclesiastical establishment was 7, as in Greece and Asia Minor, this number being identical with that of the 7 Apocalyptic Churches of Asia. Thus, there are 7 at Glendalough and 7 at Cashel ; the same sacred number is found in several other places, ^ and generally two or three at least are found grouped together. As in Greece, too, the smallness of the churches is remarkable. They were not places for the assembly of large congregations of wor- shippers, but were oratories, where the priest could celebrate the divine mysteries for the benefit of the laity In fact, no church is known to have existed in Ireland before the Norman Conquest that can be called a basilica, none of them being divided into aisles either by stone or wooden pillars, or possessing an apse, and no circular church has yet been found — nothing, in short, that would lead us to believe that Ireland obtained her architecture direct from Rome ; while everything, on the contrary, tends to confirm the belief of an intimate connection with the farther East, and that lier earlier Christianity and religious forms were derived from the East, by some of the more southerly .commercial routes which at that period seem to have touched on Ireland. A good deal of uncertainty and even of ridicule has been throwr on the subject of the Eastern origin of the Irish Church by the extreme enthusiasm of its advocates, but there seems to be no reason- able ground for doubting the fact. At all events, it may safely be asserted that' the Christian religion did not reach Ireland across Great Britain, or by any of the ordinary channels through the Continent. As a corollary to this, we must not look for the origin of her archi- tectural styles either in England or in P^i-ance, but in some more remote locality whose antiquities have not yet been so investigated as to enable us to jwint it out as the source whence they were derived. The Irish Celtic churches are generally rectangular apartments, a little longer than they are broad, like the small one on the island of Innisfallen on the lake of Killarney (Woodcut No. 663), To the larger cliurches a smaller apartment of the same proportions is added to the eastward, forming a chancel, with an ornamental arch between the two. The most remarkable of these now existing is that known as Cormac's Chapel, on the rock at Cashel (Woodcut No. 664), which Scattery and Innis Caltra in Clare, Tory I way. Island. Donegal, Rattoo in Kerry, Inch- ,
 * Seven cliurches are also found at clorin, Longford, and Arranmore in Gal-