Page:Archaeological Journal, Volume 3.djvu/202

174 that, except in one instance, that of Gallerus, their doorways are extremely low, as in the pagan forts and houses.

"As an example of these most interesting structures, which, the historian of Kerry truly says, 'may possibly challenge even the round towers as to point of antiquity,' I annex a view of the oratory at Gallerus, the most beautifully constructed and perfectly preserved of those ancient structures now remaining; and views of similar oratories will be found in the succeeding part of this work.

"This oratory, which is wholly built of the green stone of the district, is externally twenty-three feet long by ten broad, and is sixteen feet high on the outside to the apex of the pyramid. The doorway, which is placed, as is usual in all our ancient churches, in its west-end wall, is five feet seven inches high, two feet four inches wide at the base, and one foot nine inches at the top; and the walls are four feet in thickness at the base. It is lighted by a single window in its east side, and each of the gables was terminated by small stone crosses, only the sockets of which now remain.

"That these oratories,—though not, as Dr. Smith supposes, the first edifices of stone that were erected in Ireland,—were the first erected for Christian uses, is, I think, extremely probable; and I am strongly inclined to believe that they may be even more ancient than the period assigned for the conversion of the Irish generally by their great apostle Patrick. I should state, in proof of this antiquity, that adjacent to each of these oratories may be seen the remains of the circular stone houses, which were the habitations of their founders; and, what is of more importance, that their