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158 apparently part of the same work. The whole is built of a soft sandstone, brought from a place about seven miles distant, and all of squared stones. The round tower is precisely of the same material and apparently the same work as the rest, excepting that it has two or three layers of the hard stone of the country, as if the supply of soft stone had run short.

In the roof of the chapel above the vault are small cells, or chambers, with a fireplace and other conveniences for habitation. These apartments are not on the same level; the one over the nave is about six feet higher than the one over the chancel, with a doorway and steps from one to the other; each apartment is lighted by two small windows, square-headed and widely splayed; the fireplace is at the west end, with a chimney in the thickness of the wall, and hot-air lines from it extending along the side-walls nearly level with the floor. This arrangement is believed to be perfectly unique at that period, and shows more attention to comfort than was then usual. The outer roof is formed of sandstone, but lined with tufa for the sake both of lightness and dryness. There are the corbels of a wooden floor, showing that there was an upper chamber, which was lighted by a small square window in the east gable. The carving of the capitals, mouldings, ribs, bases, and doorways, and the sculptures in the tympanum, are equal to anything in England or Normandy of the same period. Similar sculptured capitals and bases occur in the Church of the Nuns in the valley of Glendalough, also of soft stone, brought from some distance. The tomb of the founder, which has been removed from the arched recess on the outside of the chapel near the rich north doorway, is ornamented with the interlaced work popularly called Runic, but which has, I think, been clearly shown to be an Irish fashion originating in the imitation of wicker-work. Similar work and the same style of carving occur on the crosses at Kells.

The cathedral and castle of Cashel, which join to and partly inclose Cormac's chapel, are chiefly of the thirteenth century; the lower part of the castle, which forms the west end of the cathedral, and the lower part of the south transept, are of the end of the twelfth. In the roof of the cathedral over the vault is a series of chambers connected with the castle, and, in fact, forming part of it. The tower and parapets of the cathedral are all fortified, just in the same manner as the castle itself. In these apartments are some fine fireplaces; one in particular is a beautiful piece of construction of the kind called joggling, with a singular side-corbel to resist the thrust of the flat arch ; there are also several garderobes, and other usual marks of habitation.

The next building of this class is known by the name of