Above : Cormac's Chapel     The first Christian architecture in Ireland was developed from the style of buildings that had been used by the pagan inhabitants of the country. The Christian missionaries adopted the same style of building that was practised by the natives at the time of their coming, and gradually made such modifications as their difiereut purposes required. They built their small oratories and round bee-hive huts within the boundaries of the stone fort or cashel. The oratories of the period were ... Read More

Above : One of Irish Stone Carving   The skill of the Irish Artists in stone-carving is principally shown in the great stone crosses, of which about forty-five remain. The earliest work of this kind in Ireland were the lapidary inscrip­tions in Roman lettering placed over the tombs of the dead in the first years of Christianity, and it dates from a time before the Irish artists in stone had time to form a style of their own. They seem, as Miss Stokes ... Read More