The Irish Penny Journal, Vol. 1 No. 07, August 15, 1840

by Various

THE IRISH PENNY JOURNAL.

Number 7.

SATURDAY, AUGUST 15, 1840.

Volume I.

REMAINS AT MONASTERBOICE. COUNTY LOUTH.

To the observing and imaginative traveller, our island must present a great number of peculiarities of aspect which will not fail to excite his notice, and impress themselves indelibly upon his mind. The scantiness of wood—for its natural timber has nearly all disappeared—and the abundance of water, are two of the characteristics that will most strike him; and, next to these, the great extent of prospect usually afforded to the eye in consequence of the undulating character of its surface. Sparkling streams are visible everywhere, and shining lakes and noble rivers come into view in rapid succession; while ranges of blue mountains are rarely wanting to bound the distant horizon. The colours with which Nature has painted the surface of our island are equally peculiar. There is no variety of green, whether of depth or vivid brightness, which is not to be found covering it; they are hues which can be seen nowhere else in equal force; and even our bogs, which are so numerous, with all their mutations of colour, now purple, and anon red, or brown, or black, by their vigorous contrasts give additional beauty and life to the landscape, and assist in imparting to it a sort of national individuality. Our very clouds have to a great degree a distinctive character—the result of the humidity of our climate; they have a grandeur of form and size, and a force of light and shadow, that are but rarely seen in other countries; they are Irish clouds—at one moment bright and sunny, and in the next flinging their dark shadows over the landscape, and involving it in gloomy grandeur. It is in this striking force of contrast in almost every thing that we look at, that the peculiarity of our scenery chiefly consists; and it appears to have stamped the general character of our people with those contrasting lights and shades so well exhibited in our exquisite and strongly-marked national music, in which all varieties of sentiment are so deeply yet harmoniously blended as to produce on the mind effects perhaps in some degree saddening, but withal most delightfully sweet and soothing. A country marked with such peculiarities is not the legitimate abode of the refined sensualist of modern times, or the man of artificial pleasure and heartless pursuits, and all such naturally remain away from it, or visit it with reluctance; but it is the proper habitation of the poet, the painter, and, above all, the philanthropist; for nowhere else can the latter find so extensive a field for the exercise of the godlike feelings of benevolence and patriotism.

Yet the natural features of scenery and climate which we have pointed out, interesting as all must admit them to be, are not the only ones that confer upon our country the peculiar and impressive character which it possesses. The relics of past epochs of various classes; the monuments of its Pagan times, as revealed to us in its religious, military, and sepulchral remains; the ruins of its primitive Christian ages, as exemplified in its simple and generally unadorned churches, and slender round towers; the more splendid monastic edifices of later date, and the gloomy castles of still more recent times—these are everywhere present to bestow historic interest on the landscape, and bring the successive conditions and changes of society in bygone ages forcibly before the mind; so that an additional interest, of a deep and poetical nature, is thus imparted to views in themselves impressive from their wild and picturesque appearance. So perfect, indeed, is this harmony of the natural and artificial characteristics of Irish scenery, so comprehensively do both tell the history of our country, to which Nature has been most bountiful, and in which, alas! man has not been happy, that if we were desirous of giving a stranger a true idea of Ireland, and one that would impress itself on his mind, we should conduct him to one of our green open landscapes, where the dark and ruined castle, seated on some rocky height, or the round tower, with its little parent church, in some sequestered valley, would be the only features to arrest his attention; and of such a scene we should say emphatically, This is Ireland! And such a scene is that which is presented by the ruins represented in our prefixed illustration.

Passing along the great northern road from Drogheda to Dundalk, and about four miles from the former, the traveller will find himself in an open pastoral country, finely undulating, thinly dotted with the cottages of the peasants, and but little adorned by art. On one side, to his left, he will see a little group of ruins, with a lofty but shattered round tower, giving index of their age and character. These are the ruins of the long since celebrated religious establishment of Monasterboice, one of the most interesting groups of their kind in Ireland. They consist of two small churches, a round tower, and three most gorgeously sculptured stone crosses, standing in the midst of a crowd of tombs and head-stones of various ages. Both the churches are of great antiquity, though, as their architectural features clearly show, of widely separated ages—the larger one exhibiting the peculiarities of the ecclesiastical structures of the twelfth century, and the smaller those of a much earlier date. Both are also simple oblongs, consisting of a nave and choir; and the round tower appears to be of coeval architecture with the earlier church.

The tower, which is of excellent construction, is built of the slatey limestone of the surrounding hills, and is divided into five stories by belts of stone slightly projecting. The upper story has four oblong apertures, and the lower ones are each lighted by an aperture having an angular top. The doorway, which faces the south-east, has a semicircular arch, and is constructed of chiselled freestone: it is of the usual height of five feet six inches, by one foot ten inches in breadth, and is six feet from the present surface of the ground. The circumference of the tower is fifty-one feet, and its height is one hundred and ten; but its original height was greater, as a considerable portion of its top has been destroyed by lightning.

In these churches and this tower Monasterboice has nothing which may not be found in many other early religious foundations in Ireland; but in the magnificence of its sculptured stone crosses it may be said to stand alone. They are the finest of their class in the country; but, as we shall make them the subjects of distinct notices, with illustrations, in our future numbers, it is not necessary for us to enter into a more particular description of them here.