Page:Archaeological Journal, Volume 3.djvu/200

172 "'Et ecce Patricius perrexit ad agrum qui dicitur Foirrgea filiorum Amolngid ad dividendum inter filios Amolngid, et fecit ibi æclesiam terrenam de humo quadratam quia non prope erat silva.'"—Fol. 14, b. 2.

"And lastly, in the Life of the virgin St. Monnenna, compiled by Conchubran in the twelfth century, as quoted by Usher, it is similarly stated that she founded a monastery which was made of smooth timber, according to the fashion of the Scotic nations, who were not accustomed to erect stone walls, or get them erected.

"'E lapide enim sacras ædes efficere, tam Scotis quàm Britonibus morem fuisse insolitum, ex Bedâ quoq; didicimus. Indeq; in S. Monennæ monasterio Ecclesiam constructam fuisse notat Conchubranus tabulis de dolatis, juxta morem Scoficarum gentium: eo quòd macerias Scoti non solent facere, nec factas habere.'—Primordla, p. 737.

"I have given these passages in full—and I believe they are all that have been found to sustain the opinions alluded to—in order that the reader may have the whole of the evidences unfavourable to the antiquity of our ecclesiastical remains fairly placed before him; and I confess it does not surprise me that, considering how little attention has hitherto been paid to our existing architectural monuments, the learned in the sister countries should have adopted the conclusion which such evidences should naturally lead to; or even that the learned and judicious Dr. Lanigan, who was anxious to uphold the antiquity of those monuments, should have expressed his adoption of a similar conclusion in the following words:

"'Prior to those of the twelfth century we find very few monuments of ecclesiastical architecture in Ireland. This is not to be wondered at, because the general fashion of the country was to erect their buildings of wood, a fashion, which in great part continues to this day in several parts of Europe. As consequently their churches also were usually built of wood, it cannot be expected that there should be any remains of such churches at present.'"—''Eccl. Hist.'', vol. iv. pp. 391, 392.

"It is by no means my wish to deny that the houses built by the Scotic race in Ireland were visually of wood, or that very many of the churches erected by that people, immediately after their conversion to Christianity, were not of the same perishable material. I have already proved these facts in my Essay on the Ancient Military Architecture of Ireland anterior to the Anglo-Norman Conquest. But I have also shewn, in that Essay, that the earlier colonists in the country, the Firbolg and Tuatha De Danann tribes, which our historians bring hither from Greece at a very remote period, were accustomed to build, not only their fortresses but even their dome-roofed houses and sepulchres, of stone without cement, and in the style now usually called Cyclopean and Pelasgic. I have also shewn that this custom, as applied to their forts and houses, was continued in those parts of Ireland in which those ancient settlers remained, even after the introduction of Christianity, and, as I shall presently shew, was adopted by the Christians in their religious structures." pp. 122—24.

Many examples of these remarkable structures are given in Mr. Petrie's