ページの画像
PDF
ePub

windows. The east window is filled with stained glass by Warrington; two upon the sides by Ward and Nixon; a third by Willement; the fourth is the work of a lady amateur. The pillars and clerestory of the nave are Late Transitional Decorated; the west window, which is a triplet, and the west windows of the aisles, Perpendicular, contain glass by Warrington. The roof is a flattened cove; the font octagonal. Some statues are of great interest; those of SS. Andrew and George have the characteristics of the German school of Late Gothic sculpture. Two statues of bishops of the early half of the 16th century are simply treated, and have graceful drapery.

Arms: same as Canterbury.

Cashel.

Yet do we love these ancient ruins ;
We never trod upon them, but we set
Our foot upon some reverend history;
And questionless here in this open court
(Which now lies naked to the injuries

Of stormy tempests) some men sleep interred
Who loved the church right well, gave largely to it,
And thought it should have canopied their bones
Till doomsday. But all things have their end;
Churches and cities, which have decease like men,
Must have like death that we have.

KILLARN and Doddry, two swineherds, had kept ward on the Hill Drumpava—“the woodlands,”—for several months, when on a sudden appeared a vision, bright as the sun, which with a voice sweeter than any music, prophesied of St. Patrick's coming, and consecrated the hill. Upon it Cork, King of Munster, hearing of the apparition, built his palace, called Lis na Chree-" Fort of Heroes,"—and, as his tribute was paid here, named the name Cios ail-" Rock of tribute-money."

With its commanding situation, its massive proportions and singular variety of outline, the range of buildings is the most

remarkable in Ireland, perhaps in Europe. The Cathedral stands on a huge limestone cliff, partly precipitous and wholly isolated, conspicuous for miles round, in the midst of the Golden Vale, with the tall dark Galtee mountains on one side, and in every other direction the open plain without a tree. Within the ruined wall of enclosure, are these limestone buildings-the hall of the vicars choral, the old palace, a strong castle at the west end-both were repaired by Archbishop O’Hedian, 1421; McCormack's chapel, built of sandstone, and the round tower, of freestone, which is 50 ft. round, 90 ft. high, with a door 12 ft. from the ground, and four apertures at top.

The CATHEDRAL, begun 1169, by King Donald O'Brien of Limerick, and completed in the 13th century, consists of a nave, choir, and transept without aisles, and a square central tower. The windows are lancets. It is 210 ft. long, and 170 ft. broad at the transept. Archbishop Price, not being able to drive up to the doors, procured an Act of Parliament to change his see to the church of St. John, and unroofed them the cathedral 1744-1752. On the south side of the choir are the monument and mitred effigy of Primate Miler Magrath; on the south side of the cathedral is the effigy of St. Patrick on a slab, said to be the original tribute-stone: on it the kings of Munster were crowned. In 1101, there was a meeting of all Munster here, when Murtough made a great offering on the altar. In 1172, King Henry II. received the homage of Donald O'Brien, and the bishops in synod conferred the kingdom upon him. In a chapel of the north transept is the font and the tomb of the founder McCarthy, which was removed from the north wall between the doorway and tower, in McCormack's chapel. In the wars of the Butlers and FitzGeralds, the Earl of Kildare burned the cathedral, 1495, and excused himself to the king, on the plea that he should never have committed such a sacrilege, but he was told that of a certainty Archbishop Creagh was inside: the king answered the bishop of Meath, who complained of his turbulence "If all Ireland cannot govern this man, who so fit as he to govern her?"—and he constituted him viceroy, August 6, 1496. In 1647, Lord Inchiquin and the Parliamentarians summoned the citizens to pay him £3,000 to retire; but they bravely

took to the rocks, and numbers, with twenty monks, were slain at the storming. McCarwell, assassinated with a skeine by a competitor for his throne, from Rome; Nicolson, the Earl of Normanton, and Lawrence, have been archbishops; and among the dignitaries occur the names of Dean Cotton, author of the "Fasti Hibernici;" Sir Harcourt Lees, and C. Forster, the author. There are five vicars choral.

McCormack's chapel, which after 1169 was used as the chapter-house, was built by Cormac M'Carthy, a priest-king, who had been deposed 1127: it was consecrated 1134 by the archbishop and prelates, in the presence of the assembled Irish nobility. It stands between the choir and south transept of the cathedral. It is 55 ft. long, and composed of a nave 18 ft. by 29 ft., and chancel 12 ft. square, and at their junction on either side is a slender square tower, like an outer transept. The north door is the chief entrance, and has a curious sculpture between a centaur and a lion; there is a corresponding south, but no west door originally. The south tower is ornamented with eight projecting bands, without a roof, and is 55 ft. high, 10 ft. long, and 6 ft. 8 in. broad. The upper stories were used as apartments, and a spiral stair leads to crofts above the nave and chancel, which were dormitories. The north tower has a pyramidal roof, and is 50 ft. high. The walls of the chapel are decorated with arcades, both within and externally; in the choir, on the inside, they rest on columns, but in the nave on square pilasters, with chevron mouldings; above them in the north and south sides is a series of stunted columns, resting on a string course, and from the capitals spring square ribs, as in the crypt at Repton, to support the semicircular roof, which is of stone, highpitched, and supported on external corbels. The chancel has an intersecting vault, the nave a tunnel vault with transverse beams. In place of an east window is an arched quadrangular recess for a throne or altar. The chancel-arch is of four orders, with two spirally-fluted pillars. The great "Magician of the North" was on his way to London, when, astonished by the unexpected magnificence of the ruins, he forgot his intended journey, and was found at midnight wandering through the lonely aisles.

There are some beautiful ruins in Cashel of St. Mary's Abbey, and remains of the Franciscan Priory, of the time of Henry III. four effigies of the 13th century, which were rifled from the crypt, are now built into St. John's Church-yard wall.

Arms: Gules, two keys addorsed in saltier or.

Clogher.

THE Cathedral of this poor remote village was built in 1041, rebuilt by Bishop M'Cathasaidh 1295, who gave it bells; considerable alterations after a fire, 1396, were made by Bishop M'Cannæil. It is a poor plain building, dedicated to St. Macaslin, and cruciform. Among the bishops occur the names of St. Patrick, Spottiswoode, Leslie, Boyle, and Sterne, founder of the University press, Dublin.

Arms: Az. a bishop pontifically habited or.

Clonfert.

THE Cathedral of St. Brendan, a dingy, small building of the time of Henry II., is situated in the midst of a miserable hamlet of poor cabins, on a gentle rise, near an expanse of bog, a dreary waste scarcely relieved by some woods: the name well describes the situation-" a place of retirement;" near it are the ruins of St. Brendan's Abbey.

Arms: Az., two crosses addorsed in saltier or.

Clonmacnoise.

CLONMACNOISE, Cluan mac nois "the secluded retreat of the noble's sons," was the site of a Culdee monastery, and the

great school of the Irish nobility. In the midst of a dreary sameness of red bog, on the ridge of low hills which bisect it and slope down to the slowly-flowing Shannon, is this Iona of Ireland. Where there is only the call of the curlew and heron to break the silence, rise two round towers, churches, a cell, chapel, cross, palace, and castle, from the earliest Irish style of architecture to that of the close of the 12th century, extend in desolate ruin. One round tower, near Macarthy's church, is very perfect, 55 ft. high, and 7 ft. in diameter, and has a spiral staircase to the top. The second, or O'Rourke's tower, is of ash-grey limestone, covered with lichen and many-tinted mosses, 55 ft. high, with a tier 10 ft. higher of rough masonry; the walls are 3 ft. thick, and the door 14 ft. from the ground:

Those lonely columns stand sublime,

Flinging their shadows from on high;
Like dials which the wizard Time

Had raised to count his ages by.

St. Keran's cell has an octangular belfry. The Temple M'Dermot possesses a good west entrance, and on the north a Pointed door, one of the most ornate in the country, of hard blue limestone, repaired 1645, with three figures in alto-relievo, and a group above. Near the west door is a fine stone cross, 15 ft. high, with rude but elaborate carvings. The moated palace is built of rounded pebble stones.

Arms: Az. between three mitres; a pastoral staff in bend sinister, debruised by an inescutcheon arg.

The Cathedral of the diocese of Meath, dedicated to St. Keran, was built at the beginning of the 14th century by Bishop Tornillach M'Dermot, who died 1336. The north door is of the 15th century, built by Dean Hugh; it retains three statues of SS. Patrick, Francis, and Dominic. The great western doorway of sandstone has been destroyed. Near it is a cross 15 ft. high. The church is a small venerable building, utterly spoiled and shuttered up.

Arms: Sa., three mitres labelled or, 2 and 1.

« 前へ次へ »