ABSTRACT
It depends entirely, if not on the * taste and fancy' of the mason, at least upon the degree of skill and the nature of the materials, locally available. Dry stone, mud, and (possibly in later buildings) mortar, often burnt from seashells; the crudest and most irregular rubble, and ashlar of almost all possible degrees of perfection ; in a word, all kinds of masonry that can be imagined, are illustrated in these rude buildings. Except within a single building, where a change of masonry sometimes betrays an addition or a reconstruction, we can make no chronological deduc tions whatever from the way in which any one of these architecturally primitive churches is built. It would be a complete mistake to assume that these
rude buildings are necessarily the earliest stone churches extant, and belong one and all to the centuries immedi ately following St Patrick's mission. This mistake vitiates much of the invaluable pioneer work of George Petrie. The monastic settlement on the rock called Sgeilig Mhichil, the Greater Skellig, was certainly still in existence in 1044, when the obit of one of the Community is recorded in the Annals of the Four Masters : and the remains on this Sgeilig Rock are among the rudest and crudest examples, both of building and sculpture, that are to be seen any where in the country.4 And if it be objected that nothing more could be expected on an isolated rock in the Atlantic, it could fairly be answered that a community marooned in such a place ought to have been only too glad to have had something to do, and that the erection of a worthy building for their devotions ought to have been a welcome occupation for their endless monotonous hours: a neces sary prophylactic, indeed, against mental and spiritual atrophy. Thirdly, there is a group of buildings, architecturally
similar to the second group, but differing from them in plan, in that they have a nave and a chancel; a perfectly plain arch of one order dividing the two members of the building. In a few cases a sacristy is added, as in St. Kevin's Church in Glendaloch : and this, as well as its twin structure Holy Trinity, in the same place, has a similar
belfry-tower.* 5 In other places the tower is detached: but that it is an intrinsic part of the structure is shown by its proximity to the church building, and by the observ ance of the usual rule, that the doorway of the church and that of the tower face one another. It is not infre quently the case that the nave and the chancel are in differ ent masonry, showing that the one or the other is an addition to an earlier plain rectangular church. Such are Clara Church, near Kilkenny, and the Church of Mac Duach at Kilmurvey on the greater Aran Island.8 In the latter, a comparison of the masonry of the two members of the building leaves the impression that the nave is the older part, the chancel the addition ; in the former the converse is the case. But though the chancel of Clara Church gives the impression of extreme primitiveness, it cannot really be of very high antiquity, because an Ogham stone has been appropriated to make a sill for the external face of the window. This could hardly have happened if the re presentatives of the owner of the stone were still alive and active, and therefore we may fix the eighth century as the earliest probable date for this very simple building. Fourthly, this third group of church buildings passes
almost imperceptibly into the Irish Romanesque; and when we approach the problems of Irish Romanesque we find that we are plunged into a maze from which at present we can hardly hope to extricate ourselves. On a previous page we sketched an outline of the pre
liminary work that would be necessary before any real progress could be made in the final establishment of the history of Celtic Art and its relation to Teutonic Art. We might almost repeat what was there said, mutatis mutandis, in reference to the history of the Romanesque style in Ireland. Every surviving specimen would need to be sought out and illustrated in detail; the west door way of Clonfert Cathedral (fig. 38) alone would need about thirty plates to illustrate it properly. Then, after a full analysis of the component decorative elements, a similar corpus would need to be prepared of Romanesque work
in England, France, and Germany, and of the art-motives that lie in the Hinterland: in Italy, Greece, Russia, and Armenia. Then perhaps we should be ready to begin the synthetic work of writing a history of Irish Romanesque. In the meanwhile we have to face the disconcerting fact already mentioned, that the only two inscribed specimens are not datable, and that there is not a single authentic record of the foundation or the building of any structure in the country, which can be identified with an extant Romanesque building. The cathedral at Clonmacnois is known to have been founded in a .d . 904 : but the building in its present form has suffered much subsequent modifi cation, and little that is distinctive in the original building remains. Cormac’s Chapel at Cashel7 is another excep tion, for that was built by Cormac mac Carthaigh, king of Munster at the end of the first quarter of the twelfth century. But again this does not help us much, for Cormac’s Chapel is an altogether exceptional building. It might have journeyed to Ireland, almost as it stands, out of the Rhineland : it was almost certainly built by German builders, or at any rate under German guidance. The square comer towers, the carved tympana over the door ways, the elaborate wall-arcades inside and out, are thoroughly un-Irish. The most characteristically Irish feature about the building is the double roof or ' over croft ’, a constructional feature which begins to appear in the third group of Church buildings described above. But even here, Cormac’s Chapel is exceptional in providing a stairway for access to this upper loft. In other examples, as in St. Kevin’s Glendaloch, St. Flannan’s Killaloe, and 4 St. Columba’s House ’ at Kells, it is necessary to use a ladder.8 For the present, all that we can say about Irish Roman
esque buildings-all indeed that it is necessary to say in a study like the present-is a statement of a few general principles. The plans are simple, consisting of nave and chancel on ly: there are no Romanesque churches with original aisles and transepts, until we come to the transi tional transepts of Christ Church Cathedral in Dublin,
T H E B U I L D E R S OF C H U R C H E S 251 another entirely non-Irish building. The only tower is the detached circular campanile. This, in some late exam ples, as at Timahoe (County of Leix) and Kildare,9 has a doorway with elaborate Romanesque decoration. The east end of the church is invariably square: an apse is unknown in Ireland. The entrance is most commonly in the west end; but a doorway in one of the side walls is not unknown. Windows are still of small size ; but they are more numerous, and we now begin to find them grouped, two or three lights together under a containing arch-the first step towards the elaborate windows of the Gothic period. The east window at Clonfert has a striking treat ment of the window-splay on each side with an arcading of two arches; 10 but as a rule the window openings dis play no ornament other than the mouldings, and these are usually simple. Only by exception axe the window arches decorated with the chevrons and other devices which enrich the doorways. These mouldings, it has been observed, frame the window completely, running along the horizontal s ill; and are not, as generally in English work, stopped at the base of the jamb. The walls are usually plain, having no decoration within
or without other than an occasional string-course. A remarkable arcading on the external face of the west wall of Ardmore Cathedral, having small figures under the arches, is altogether exceptional.11 Here again, we cannot say what, if any, applied ornament in the form of hangings, paint, or metal-work may have decorated the building when it was in use. We are again without any evidence of window-glazing during this period. The builders lavished their decoration chiefly upon the
entrance doorways and the chancel arches. These are circular, and are recessed in orders-two, three, or more, sometimes as many as six. In the most sumptuous exam ples, the voussoirs are all richly sculptured, with a resource ful variety in the scheme of decoration : each order being enriched in a way peculiar to itself. Even when the favourite chevron is the dominant motive of the whole design, its treatment varies from order to order.
