Your curiosity is, no doubt, excited to know how so circumscribed a little spot could have been chosen as the nucleus of such ecclesiastical ambition? The answer is found in the circumstance of this having been one of the strongholds of Budhism, in the days of its corruscations, which made it now be singled out, in common with other places memorable for that creed, as the appropriate locality for Christian superincumbency.
Two Round Towers, the chief object of emulation, are, as you may have supposed, here to be encountered: and these are the very ones, which the reader may recollect have been alluded to at p. 38, as ridiculously claimed by Montmorency for Christian—because, forsooth, in the vagueness of popular titles, they are recently distinguished by the names of MacCarthy and O’Rourke!
The Eastern columns, denominated after Pompey[411] and Cleopatra,[412] have been equally productive of historical mistakes; until, at last, it has appeared that those celebrated lovers have had no more to do with such erections, than have had the O’Rourkes or MacCarthys with our Round Towers!
Here also are three crosses belonging to the same religion, to one of which only shall I now direct your observation. It is fifteen feet high, composed of a single stone, and sculptured with imagery of the most elegant execution.
The devices upon this sculpture are such as you would have expected from the authors of the Allegory of the Paradisiacal Fall: and here, accordingly, it presents itself, just as in language they had clothed it, in all the mysteriousness of the figurative tree.
Immediately over the equestrian and chariot sports, which decorate the pedestal, you see Adam and Eve conversing at each side of this symbol of their dearly-bought knowledge! Farther up are other emblems of mythological allusion: while, in the centre above, you observe a Cabir priest, alias, a Freemason, holding the implements of his craft—a high honour—in his hand;[413] and encompassed by a retinue of several more persons, all in the glow of joy!
The other sides, though less complex, are not less graceful, nor less significant, than the two which I have introduced. In them, also, everything bears reference to the Budhist ceremonial. Nor are the mouldings and the flowerings, the networks, and other ornaments which figure upon them, the least essential constituent of that fruitful code,[414]—while the personation of a dog,—an invariable accompaniment, as it is also amongst the sculptures at Persepolis, and other places in the East,—would, in itself be sufficient to fix the appropriation of those crosses, as that animal can have no possible relation to Christianity, whereas, by the Tuath-de-danaans, it was accounted sacred, and its maintenance enjoined by the ordinances of the state, as it is still in the Zend books, which remain after Zoroaster.
To Clondalkin Tower, represented at p. 101, there belongs also a stone cross, and bearing its own history upon its Tuath-de-danaan countenance. In Armagh is another. I cannot afford time to point out any more, but that at Finglas is too remarkable to be quite neglected.
Every body is acquainted with the legendary tale of St. Patrick having banished all venomous reptiles from this island. Now, I am very willing, as has been shown, to give this apostle all the credit which he deserves; but I am a chronicler of truth, and from me he shall have no romances. Solinus, who flourished A.D. 190, that is, above two centuries before St. Patrick was born, has noticed the phenomenon of there being no vipers here. Isidore has repeated it in the seventh century; as has Bede in the eighth; and, in the ninth, Donatus, the famous bishop of Fesula. This exemption, therefore, cannot be attributable to St. Patrick, whose honour would be better consulted by his religious admirers in confining themselves to facts, which are numerous enough, than in shocking credibility by their pious frauds.