Such are the more remarkable features of this singular structure, in the erection of which the architect appears studiously to have avoided every principle of Gothic composition except variety.
The well of St. Doulough, which was probably also used as a baptistery, is quite in keeping with the curious character of the church. The spring, which is covered by a stone-roofed octagonal building, rises through a circular basin, cut out of a single stone, and was, down to our own day, thought to possess miraculous powers. According to tradition the interior was once decorated with pictures, and holes are pointed out as having been made for the reception of iron pins, or holdfasts, by which they were secured to the wall. Adjoining is a curious subterranean bath. It is supplied by the well; and even yet the water rises to some depth within it. According to J. D’Alton, the historian of Co. Dublin, the well was dedicated to the Blessed Virgin, and the bath was called ‘St. Catherine’s Pond.’
St. Doulough’s Well.
There are many interesting old Churches in Fingal, the name by which the North of the Co. Dublin was known long before the Conquest. Their history is told in Canon Robert Walsh’s careful work, Fingal and its Churches. To a few of these we briefly refer.
* * * * *
Howth ‘Abbey.’—The Church of St. Mary or Collegiate Church, more commonly known as the ‘Abbey’ Church of Howth, stands near the edge of a cliff, the base of which was formerly washed by the sea. The original foundation is said to be by Sigtryg the Dane in 1042; and a portion of this church still remains at the west entrance. This was enlarged, chiefly by the addition of a north aisle in 1235 under Archbishop Luke, on the removal of the prebendal church of Inis Mac Nessan from Ireland’s Eye to the mainland, a grant of land having been given by Almaricius, Lord of Howth, for this purpose. Placed upon a precipitous bank, considerably elevated above the water’s edge, and surrounded by a strong embattled wall, it presents a striking evidence of the half-ecclesiastical, half-military character of the time. Considerable additions were made to the east side in the fifteenth century. The church was practically a two-aisled structure, the north aisle being a little shorter than the south. The arches dividing the aisles are six in number; and with the exception of the two adjoining the east end, which are separated by an octagonal pillar, they spring from rudely-formed quadrangular piers. The three to the west end denote the earlier addition; those to the east are more pointed and show the later extension. The porch in connection with the south doorway is a very unusual feature in churches found in Ireland—a fact not easily to be accounted for, as they appear to have been common in England during mediæval times. A bell-turret with three apertures rose from the west gable; the bells are said to be preserved in the castle.
A tomb usually ascribed to Christopher, the twentieth Lord of Howth, who died in 1589, but which, from its style, is more probably that of Christopher the thirteenth Lord (d. 1430), stands in the nave not far from the east gable. It is a good specimen of the altar-tomb; but an inscription which it bears, owing to the neglected state in which the monument until lately was suffered to lie, has become illegible.
* * * * *
St. Fintan’s.—The little church of St. Fintan, situated upon the Hill of Howth, not far from the village of Sutton, cannot be of earlier date than the ‘Abbey.’ This singular building measures upon the interior but 16½ feet in length, by 7 feet 8 inches in breadth, yet it contains five windows: one to the east, two to the south, one to the north, and one in the west gable. These lights are of various forms: that to the east has a semicircular head with a multifoil moulding; one of the windows in the south wall is covered with a single stone, out of which a semicircular arch-head is cut, while the other is quadrangular. All the windows splay widely upon the interior. A doorway in the Lancet form is placed in the west gable, which supports a bell-turret of considerable dimensions, and strangely out of proportion to the size of the structure. It contains one small Pointed aperture for the reception of a bell. Of the origin of this church nothing is known; and there were twelve saints of the name of Fintan; but the date is very fairly indicated by its architectural peculiarities, which are characteristic of the close of the thirteenth or early part of the fourteenth century.