Corpus of Electronic Texts Edition
Researches in the South of Ireland (Author: Thomas Crofton Croker)

section 14


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Architecture and ancient buildings

    1. O tract of tyme, that all consumes to dust,
      We hold thee not, for thou art bald behinde:
      The fairest sword, or mettall, thou wilt rust,
      And brightest things bring quickly out of minde.
      The trimmest towers, and castles great and gay
      In processe long at length thou doest decay:
      The bravest house, and princely buildings rare
      Thou wasts and weares and leaves the walles but bare.
Thomas Churchyard's Worthines of Wales.The Worthines of Wales (1587), a valuable antiquarian work in prose and verse, anticipating Michael Drayton.

In the foregoing papers considerable space has been devoted to descriptions of such architectural antiquities as have come under my immediate observation. Monuments of former ages are identified with national history, and are objects, not only of interest but importance to every country, as the unquestionable and faithful record of the past. The character of nations and of governments lives in the edifices reared under them; and had the annals of Egypt, of Greece, or of Rome descended to us without the glorious structures that still ennoble these fallen countries, how many casuists would have flung the odium of barbarism on their former population!


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The origin of the Irish round tower is involved in as profound obscurity as that of the Egyptian pyramids, and if the latter extraordinary monuments excite our curiosity in a country where the same gigantic taste pervaded every work of sculpture as well as architecture, how much more impressive is this solitary remain, that stands

    1. Sublime and sad,
      Bearing the weight of years!

A recent writer on the subject, warmed into enthusiastic declamation, apostrophises — ‘The unrivalled pillar tower in all its primitive beauty, venerated, undisturbed, and, after a reign of fourteen hundred years, still the pride and the ornament of modern, as it heretofore had been of ancient Ireland.’

Beside these buildings, of which more than fifty are at present standing, none others in Ireland deserve notice as works of art, the date of whose formation is not known. On the Round Tower, therefore, rests the only proof of the skill and knowledge of the early inhabitants of Ireland: ponderous masses of uncouth stones, tumuli and mounds being works equally common to the rude state of other nations.

The vulgar belief that these pillar towers were the produce of supernatural agency has been already mentioned. ‘Travellers into the east,’ says Sir Joshua Reynolds in his Discourses, ‘tell us that when the ignorant inhabitants of these countries are interrogated concerning the ruins of stately edifices yet remaining amongst them, the melancholy monuments of their former grandeur and long lost science, they always answer that they were built by magicians. The untaught mind finds a vast gulph between its own powers and those works of complicated art, which it is utterly unable to fathom, and it supposes that such a void can only be passed by supernatural means.’


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The conjectures offered as to the use of the Round Tower are at once numerous and unsatisfactory.33 By some they are supposed to have been the abodes of solitary anchorites; by others, to have contained the sacred fire worshipped before the Christian era; some, again, maintain that they were places of temporary penance, and others state them to have been belfries; nor does any peculiarity of situation, except the vicinity of a church, assist the antiquary in his inquiry. It may be tiresome, and would answer little purpose, to recapitulate the various arguments produced in favour of these several opinions, but the latter, that of their being belfries, is the one commonly received.

It is needless also to enter into particular descriptions, as the drawings and measurement of those at Cloyne and Ardmore convey a general idea of Irish round towers, and embrace the most remarkable difference between them, that of circular stone belts, which are rather unusual. All that seems certain about these buildings is, their existence before the invasion of the English in the time of Henry II. as Giraldus Cambrensis expressly mentions ‘turres ecclesiasticæ, quæ more patrio arctæ sunt et altæ necnon et rotundæ.’ From their very great similarity it is evident that they were the work of the same age and the same people, and they have been attributed to the missionaries who first introduced Christianity into Ireland. There are many almost conclusive arguments in favour of this conjecture; one, however, which I have not heard, is, that every round tower has


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its patron saint, whose legendary fame still survives in the surrounding districts as well as in old chronicles: St. Colman and St. Declan are the tutelary guardians of those at Cloyne and Ardmore.

After the round towers should be noticed the oratories, or stoneroofed chapels, so often to be found near them. These are very small heavy buildings, with wedge-like shaped roofs of stone, of which the one at Killaloe affords a characteristic specimen.

When King Henry II. visited Dublin in 1171, we are told by historians that there was no house there capable of containing that monarch's retinue; ‘and therefore,’ to use the words of Sir Richard Cox, ‘he was necessitated to build a long cabin with smoothed wattles after the fashion of the country, and almost in the nature of a tent, which (being well furnished with plate, household stuff and good cheer) made a better appearance than ever had been seen in Ireland before that time, and accordingly it was admired and applauded by the Irish potentates, who flocked thither to pay their duty to the king.’

Having such models as the round tower, it is evident that the want of stone buildings in Ireland cannot be ascribed to ignorance. Sir John Davies appears to point at the real cause in the customs of tannistry and gavelkind, both of which rendered the inheritance and division of property a matter of much uncertainty, and the cause of frequent disputes. It was certainly, remarks that writer, ‘against all common sense and reason’ to expect any man ‘would plant, or improve, or build upon that land which a stranger whom he knew not should possess after his death.’

The English adventurers seem, immediately after their landing, to have built castles for their defence and the protection of the districts they had overcome, there being few if any fortifications in the country the work of the Irish. The towns of Dublin, Cork and Waterford were walled, and probably founded by the Danes. The Irish appear to have been the inhabitants of forests and of mountains, where they


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dwelt in a kind of savage freedom, despising restraint, from their ignorance of its advantage.

When Sir John De Courcy, one of the first English settlers who built many castles in the north of Ireland, gave two of them as a mark of friendship to Mac Mahon, a native chieftain, the latter almost immediately destroyed these buildings, declaring that he valued not stones like land, and that it was contrary to his nature to live within cold walls whilst the green woods were within his reach. Story mentions that the first castle ever built in Ireland, ‘as to any pile of lime and stone,’ was at Tuam, in the year 1161, by Roderick O'Connor, which was called, on account of its rarity, ‘Castrum Mirificum.’ So long after this as 1584, Stanihurst tells us that such of the Irish chieftains as possessed castles annexed to them a large mud cabin, in which they dwelt, only retreating to the castle at night for security. To the present day the same feeling exists; and it is no uncommon circumstance for a peasant, on a principle of comfort, to strip the slates off the cottage of which lie has become the tenant and replace them with thatch, alleging as his reason ‘the couldness of the slates,’ though most probably, owing to his slovenly method of thatching, the wind and rain are admitted through numerous crevices. To an English observer this practice must appear absurd — but it is nevertheless characteristic.

‘The fern forms and fern tables’ of O'Neil, spread under the stately canopy of heaven, are mentioned by Sir John Harrington, who wrote about fifteen years after Stanihurst.

Dr. Smith, in his History of Cork, gives an inscription discovered on a chimney-piece in throwing down some old walls at Castle Lyons. ‘Lehan O'Cullane Hoc fecit MCIIII.’ This has been repeatedly produced as proof that stone dwellings were used by the Irish in the twelfth century; but the inscription on which an assertion so important has been grounded appears to me either to have been inaccurately copied, the C being substituted for D, or that letter having


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been reversed in the original, thus , and the perpendicular line defaced, as neither the style nor expression of this legend belongs to the period to which Dr. Smith would refer it; had it been engraven at that time, the characters (waving the probability of the inscription being in Irish) could not have been deciphered with so much facility by the Doctor; and if the reading of 1504 be admitted it will be found in accordance with the taste and manner of that age.

From the landing of the English, down to the time of Elizabeth, castles rapidly multiplied in Ireland — the English settlers gradually connected themselves with the natives and assimilated to most of their habits; but the Irish seem to have availed themselves of the English mode of defence, and at every opportunity to have destroyed or possessed themselves of the castles and fortifications formed by the English colonists, whom they regarded as invaders, and from whose dominion they sought, by a series of insurrections, to emancipate themselves.

In 1438 an act was passed directing the inclosure of all towns and villages within the Pale, as a protection against the frequent attacks of the Irish.

The achievements of Thomas O'Reilly, a native chieftain, who ruined no less than eighteen castles belonging to the English, are celebrated in some Irish verses still extant, commencing ‘The wailing of the English mourner over the losses of Englishmen is a sound that I lament not.’ And when the town of Athenry in the county Galway was burned by a party of Irish in the reign of Elizabeth, whose fury spared not even the church, the leader, on being told that this building contained the bones of his mother, ferociously replied, ‘I care not — were she alive I would sooner burn her and it together than that any English churl should fortify there.’ It was even proposed in the parliament assembled at Dublin by James II. during his last struggle for the crown of England, and the motion is upon record, ‘that all the fine houses and every thing that looked


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like improvement should be destroyed,’ that Ireland might thus seem a country unworthy of conquest. Notwithstanding this system of destruction, every defile became protected and every important position occupied by towers that, in a time when the art of gunnery was imperfectly understood, appeared to present impregnable barriers. These fortresses, though numerous, were inconsiderable, and few of them now deserve notice except as picturesque and romantic objects.

From some elevated stations the ruins of so many as ten or twelve castles may be often comprehended in the same view. When one of these towers is within sight of another, the peasant who follows the visitor usually relates a traditionary anecdote of their being built by two sisters who held a kind of telegraphic communication. Dean Story has recorded the legend with great minuteness: ‘they say,’ writes that author, ‘in former times two Brehons, or Irish judges, lived in those two castles, who happened at last to have some disputes about their properties, and their wives, though they were sisters, used to stand upon the battlements of their own houses and scold at one another for several hours together: which at length one of them being weary of, she found out a trick only to appear and begin the fray, then she would place an image that she had dressed up in her own clothes in such a posture as her sister could not discern it from herself at that distance, who not sensible of the cheat, used to scold on, and at last fretted herself to death because she could not be answered in her own language. But I am afraid,’ adds the Dean, ‘the women in this country will scarce pardon this story.’

Throughout the majority of Irish castles there is the same uniformity of plan; their extent seldom exceeded a single square tower of three or four stories, the confined and gloomy chambers of which were lighted through a massive wall by narrow loop holes. An intrenched or walled plot of ground called the bawn surrounded or adjoined the tower, into which the cattle were driven at night to


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secure them from wolves, or the almost as rapacious neighbouring chieftains. The bawn also afforded protection, in times of danger, to the followers of the owner of the castle; and, in the internal feuds which continually harassed and distracted Ireland, when one chief invaded or appeared with a hostile disposition on the possessions of another, the clan immediately fled with their cattle to the bawn of their lord's castle for refuge.

    1. By force not law men held uncertain wealth,
      And neighbouring chiefs for plunder or for pride,
      Their vassals mustering on each other's powers,
      Waged petty war! Hence all those tall remains
      Of former strength that mid our verdant fields
      Stand venerable!

In the square tower, tradition points out, and probably with correctness, the upper story as the best or state apartment; for each story seldom contained more than one room, having, in the thickness of the wall, recesses for sleeping in.

Such were the dwellings of the leading men of Ireland for nearly four centuries, many of which were attacked and ruined during the turbulent reign of Elizabeth.34 The fact that the massive walls of a dismal tower afforded but feeble protection against an enemy before whose cannon the embattled keep crumbled into ruins, seems to have given rise to a new species of national architecture, modelled upon the ancient English manor-house, retaining, however, the same solidity of style as these castles, which, about the year 1600, began to be disused, from the faith in their security being


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destroyed. Of the taste at this period the town of Kilmallock is perhaps the finest specimen in Ireland, that town
    1. most fayre, that long a building was,
      Where now, God wot, there growes nothing but grasse,
      The stones lye waste, the walles seeme but a shell
      Of little worth, where once a prince might dwell.

Scattered through the south of Ireland the walls of these castellated houses, or courts as they are sometimes called, may be seen in the proportion to the single tower of one to four, the commanding situations selected for which still implied a feeling of insecurity. Their most peculiar feature is a large marble chimney piece, about twelve feet in height and ten in breadth, well carved, and generally bearing the date of the building and initials of the builder's name, the family arms and a religious or historical inscription. These houses gave place, in the reign of William III., to the heavy red brick mansion, with its avenues of venerable trees, which is now the hospitable abode of the resident landholder, or the forsaken and neglected patrimony of the absentee.

So numerous are abandoned edifices in Ireland, that they keep alive a train of melancholy ideas in the mind of the traveller. They who reared these piles and filled their rooms with mirth, who gave plenty and employment to the poor, are now in their tombs; and their living successors, dead to their patriotism, dwell in other lands, and leave the home of their ancestors a wilderness, where long rows of majestic oak and elm appear destined only for the axe. Every one must wish such absentees could be made to reside in their own country — to enrich it with their fortunes, ornament it with their taste, improve the morals of the people by their example, refine them by their politeness, and protect them by their authority — then might we hope to see the laws respected, the rich beloved, and Ireland tranquil and happy.35


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The monastic buildings of Ireland, to those accustomed to the magnificence of similar continental or English works, are coarse and meagre, and in their style set classification completely at defiance. Every architect seems to have pursued his own taste rather than that of any particular period, and in some instances to have built in opposition to every thing approaching to system. The manner of masonry followed in most of the old religious houses is accurately described in Mr. Townshend's Statistical Survey of the County of Cork, and I cannot do better than quote the words of that gentleman.

‘Each wall is composed of a double range of large stones, having one fair or flat side, which, being brought to the face of the wall both within and without, gives it at a little distance the appearance of being built with hewn stone. In other respects, the stones are of an unfavourable shape for laying, being of a lumpish and irregular form, except on the flat side. As none of them reach far into the wall, or have what masons call a good bed, it was necessary to its durability that they should be well cemented; this was effectually done by means of a very strong mortar, composed of small stones, gravel and lime, with which the central part of the wall is filled.’ The same kind of masonry is found in many of the old castles, and, when the thickness of the wall was considerable, the centre was merely filled by small rubbish stones thrown loosely between the crevices.

The number of monastic foundations in Ireland, including hospitals, friaries and chantries, may be estimated at about 1500; the ruins of between seven and eight hundred of which are still in existance. Both hospitals and friaries were simple, heavy buildings,


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without ornament or embellishment of any kind. The former were houses under the direction of monks of the order of St. Augustine, and, as their name implies, were intended as retreats for the indigent and impotent. Many buildings of this description were devoted solely to the reception of lepers, and fell into disuse and ruin on the disappearance of leprosy in the country.36

The old name of Castle Martyr, a village in the county Cork, was Leper's Town, and in particular the province of Munster is stated to have formerly abounded with persons afflicted by this loathsome disease. Dr. Boate, in his Natural History of Ireland, attributes the miserable state of leprosy that prevailed in Munster, to ‘the foul gluttony of the inhabitants in the devouring of unwholesome salmons;’ and accounts for its suppression by the strict observance of severe laws made by the English, against taking that fish during the spawning season. Some authors have ascribed so severe a national affliction to the almost raw state in which the Irish used to eat their animal food.

    1. 'Twas blood-raw meat
      Which they for constant food did eat,
      Affirming that all meat was spoil'd,
      That either roasted was, or boil'd!
It is also known, that pork induces cutaneous diseases, and of this meat, it appears from many writers, the Irish possessed abundance and were insatiably fond. An anecdote is related of a guest of O'Neil's, who asked one of that chieftain's attendants whether veal was not more delicate than pork — The reply was, ‘that question is, as if you asked me, am I more noble than O'Neil?’


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Friaries were the dwellings of mendicants, and had seldom any endowment; notwithstanding which, they were respectably supported by the ingenuity of the fraternity. An instance of this occurs in a memorial from some Irish friars to the Pretender, beseeching his majesty to pay a debt of a thousand crowns due by their order; and, to enforce their request, they add, ‘when that sum is paid, we will then be in a condition to pray more devoutly — more fervently — and more effectually for your majesty's restoration and welfare.’ It may not be irrelevant to add, that, as a piece of policy, the money was paid by the Stuarts, and it is evident their cause derived considerable support from such agency.

Chantries were shrines or little chapels, attached to larger buildings, or standing unconnected and alone; they were founded and endowed by the opulent for the maintenance of a priest, to perform masses for the benefit of the founder's soul; and hence their name, from the chaunting of the ceremony.

The old parochial chapels should not be forgotten in enumerating the buildings of Ireland; the roofless walls and gable ends of which are very generally to be seen,

    1. the grandeur-loving ivy wound,
      In folds of never-fading green around,
      Preserving the rude mass it crowns.
The dimensions of these chapels are extremely confined; the measurement of one at Rathcooney near Glenmire will serve as an example. It is forty-two feet in length, and twenty-one in breadth, and has, beside that at the east end, two small and narrow windows on the south, and one on the north side: some chapels are of still lesser dimensions. In the thickness of the wall on the right hand side of the altar is commonly a hollow space, three or four feet square, about eighteen or twenty inches in depth, where the

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priest's vestments, the mass books and the holy chalice were deposited.

The Rock of Cashel and the Abbey of Holy Cross, both in the county Tipperary, are said to be the finest architectural remains in the south of Ireland. The former I have visited, but, as it is many years since, and my examination was hurried, I am not enabled to speak of it with as much precision as I could wish. As far as my recollection serves, it is the most extensive building with any claim to antiquity that I have seen in Ireland. Seated on a rocky eminence close to the town of Cashel, this venerable pile is supposed to have been at once a regal and monastic edifice, and from the want of regularity in plan, as well as peculiarities in the manner of ornamenting and style of workmanship, appears to have been the work of several different periods.

The form of the main body, like that of most cathedrals, is a cross; its extreme length from west to east about two hundred feet. Joining the eastern angle of the north transept is a round tower, similar to those usually found detached, and evidently constructed at a much earlier date than most other parts of the building with which it is connected. The entrance to this tower is by a long gallery or passage in the wall of the transept, about twenty feet above the ground. On the opposite side, sheltered under the other transept or arm of the cross, and at an angle with the choir and chancel, is Cormac's chapel, ‘itself an host,’ to use the expression of Sir Richard Hoare, in point of remote and singular antiquity. Semi-circular arches ornamented with an abundance of carving, and small, heavy, circular columns form the peculiarities of Cormac's chapel, the interior of which is in excellent preservation, being protected from exposure to the weather by its stone roof. I know not where to refer the reader for an accurate and satisfactory account of the Rock of Cashel, although there are few writers on Irish history, topography, or antiquity, by whom it is not frequently mentioned.


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The ‘right famous’ abbey of Holy Cross, as Camden calls it, is so minutely described in a letter addressed to me by a friend whose general correctness may be depended on, that I transcribe his words, as the best description I am acquainted with.

‘The main body of Holy Cross Abbey is still in tolerable preservation, its tower forming a fine centre. To the right of the ancient entrance were the cloisters, of which no vestiges are visible, except two rows of cells; the ground once occupied by them is now planted with potatoes, which an old woman, The sad historian of the pensive place,’’

The Deserted Village, Oliver Goldsmith

with the usual ignorance of such persons, points out as having been the monks' flower-garden.’

‘Beyond the cloisters were various other buildings, the naked walls of which remain, but the rain prevented our ascertaining their former destinations. To the left are also considerable ruins, which we were equally unable to visit. The extreme length of the Abbey church is about one hundred and sixty-two feet, and that of the transepts eighty-seven feet.37 The nave has four arches on each side, which were originally built sharp pointed and then rounded. The roof of the transepts and the four chapels off them is still perfect, and formed by Gothic arches resting on corbels, with from seven to eleven cross-springers or ribs.’

‘Unaccustomed to any thing of the kind, Irish visitors look up to this roof as the perfection of architecture; but to the English traveller it will appear clumsy, and, from the want of ornament, comparatively poor. The cross-springers in the north transept indeed are curious, having a prickly surface like the stem of a briar. Possibly this part was consecrated to some peculiar commemoration of our Saviour's passion. The east window is very fine and remains in good preservation.


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Not far from the altar against the south wall is a tomb profusely ornamented, above and below, with rich tabernacle work coarsely executed. Beneath this, the bones of the founder, Donald or Donough O'Brien, king of Limerick, are said to rest.’

‘The division between the small chapels on the south side of the choir is by a double row of pillars, forming a kind of open tomb, called the Priest's Wake, from a tradition that the coffins of the clergy remained in it the night previous to interment, which is not improbable. From hence we ascended by a narrow staircase to the apartments over the chapels, to which various, and possibly very erroneous names are now attached, and with some difficulty we made our way to the top of the tower. It commands an extensive and beautiful prospect, including the Rock of Cashel, distant about twelve miles. But the stormy sky cautioned us to seek for shelter, and we had scarcely reached the choir when the storm was renewed with increased violence. The old woman, our guide, crouched on a low tomb to tell her beads, and my companion and I were left to our silent meditations. The rain poured down in torrents, rattling over our heads, beating and splashing against the walls in front, and streaming from off them and the flat grave-stones which covered the whole surface of the abbey; while the wind in furious gusts drove it in clouds of mist through the open tracery of the chapel window upon us; and the slow, harsh, hollow creaking of the boughs of the old trees was an accompaniment in unison with the dreary and melancholy scene around us.’

In closing these remarks on the ancient buildings of Ireland, it is scarcely necessary to observe, that, notwithstanding their number, little exists to reward the inquiry of the architect. The agitated state of the country for a series of ages may be read in the works of defence with which Ireland is said to have been ‘sown,’ and this very circumstance appears to be a fair reason why so little attention was paid to architectural embellishment. The irregularity observable


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in the ancient ecclesiastical edifices may be attributed to the same cause; as it is highly probable, that the unsettled state of the times produced continual interruptions to the execution of any extensive works, and that they were performed at various periods and by different hands, the architects building according to their own plan, instead of falling into that of their predecessor; this appears to be the only mode of reconciling the wild and whimsical varieties of style that are to be found. Moorish and Grecian, Saxon and Gothic peculiarities are sometimes jumbled in the strangest combinations, and with the most singular effect. To a mind schooled in the knowledge of orders and the classification of relative ages, such associations are frequently very ludicrous, as much so as the appearance at the present day of a school-boy with A wisdom-giving wig — from barber bought For judge’’

or of a grave prelate in the cap and coat of a Christ's Hospital scholar.