Thirteen centuries have passed away since the work of decay began, and nothing now remains of its ancient grandeur. All has been swept away, save some faint indications of the site of the noble banqueting-hall, whose magnificence was so vaunted in bardic song and story, and the raths upon which the principal habitations stood.
These raths or duns, which are found in every part of Ireland, often consist of only a circular intrenchment, but most frequently form a steep mound, flat at the top and strongly intrenched. The works usually enclosed a piece of ground upon which, it is presumed, the houses of lesser importance stood, the mound being occupied by the dwelling of the chief. The circular enclosures generally contain excavations of a beehive form, lined with uncemented stones, and connected by passages sufficiently large to admit a man. These chambers or artificial caverns are supposed to have been store-houses for food and treasure, and places of refuge for the women and children in time of war.
In the centre of the principal mound of Tara, the Forradh, now stands the Lia Fail—the great pillar-stone—the stone of destiny—moved from its primitive site to its present in order to mark the grave—“the croppies’ grave,” it is called—of some men killed in an encounter with British troops during the rising in 1798.
By the side of the hoary ruins of the earlier monastic houses is almost invariably seen one of those singular and, for many centuries, mysterious edifices, the Round Towers. The question of the origin and uses of these remarkable vestiges long occupied the attention of antiquaries. They were supposed to have been built by the Danes, or to have
a Phœnician or Indo-Scythic origin, and to have contained the sacred fire from whence all the fires in the kingdom were annually rekindled. There were almost as many theories concerning them as there were towers, and each succeeding theory appeared to involve the subject in deeper mystery than ever—a mystery that was proverbial until dispelled for ever by the learned Dr. Petrie. This gentleman has decided that the towers are of Christian and of ecclesiastical origin, and were erected at various periods between the fifth and thirteenth centuries—that they were designed to answer, at least, a twofold use, namely, to serve as belfries, and as keeps, or places of strength, in which the sacred utensils, books, relics, and other valuables were deposited, and into which the ecclesiastics to whom they belonged could retire for security in cases of sudden attack; and that they were probably also used, when occasion required, as beacons and watch-towers. These conclusions were arrived at after a long and patient investigation of the architectural peculiarities of the Round Towers, and also of the religious structures generally found in connection with them, and the vexed question is at rest.
The sites of a hundred and eighteen of these buildings have been discovered, the greater number in ruins; indeed, of some only the foundations remain; others are almost perfect in external shape. They vary from eighty to a hundred and ten feet in height, tapering gradually to the summit, and terminated by a high conical stone roof. The Tower of Clondalkin, near Dublin, is nearly perfect; but perhaps the most noble example is found at Monasterboice, where it combines, with the magnificent crosses we have described, and the ivy-grown ruined churches, to
form a group of sacred antiquities unsurpassed in interest and picturesque beauty.
Frightful as were the devastations of the Danes in Ireland—the unhappy land bore the brunt of their fury—and frequent as was the pillage of religious property, there have been found many beautiful relics of sacred objects belonging to the sacked and ravaged abbeys and churches. In newly-ploughed lands, in the beds of rivers, in the heaps of crumbled stones around the ruins, in the bogs have been discovered, among many other interesting evidences of early Irish civilization, pastoral crooks and crosiers, chalices of stone and of silver, and ancient quadrangular bells of bronze and of iron. These last appear to have been in use in Ireland as early as the time of St. Patrick. Some of them, we are told by Cambrensis, were so highly reverenced that both clergy and laity were more afraid of swearing falsely by them than by the Gospels—“because of some hidden and miraculous power with which they were gifted, and by the vengeance of the saint to whom they were particularly pleasing, their despisers and transgressors were severely punished.”
The crooks and crosiers are in general of exquisite workmanship, exhibiting a profusion of ornament of extreme beauty. Among these relics has been found one which affords the most striking evidence of the proficiency that Irish artificers had arrived at in many of the arts previous to the arrival of the English. It is known as the Cross of Cong, and was made at Roscommon, by native Irishmen, about the year 1123, in the reign of Turlogh O’Connor, father of Roderich, the last king of Ireland. The form is most elegant, and it is completely covered with minute and elaborate ornaments, a portion
worked in pure gold. The ornaments are, for the most part, tracery and grotesque animals fancifully combined, and similar in character to the decorations found upon crosses of stone of the same period. In the centre, at the intersection, is set a large crystal, through which is visible a piece of the true cross, as inscriptions in Irish and Latin distinctly record.