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 angular oblong structures with the walls sloping in a curve to­wards the poof. They measure on the average fourteen feet long, nine feet wide, ami twelve feet high. A good example of the early type of oratory is found at Gallerus in Kerry.

The earliest buildings were made without cement, and with undressed masonry, and the transition to the cemented walls and dressed stones of the later buildings took place in the period dating from the sixth to the eighth century. The doorway of the churches built at this time was constructed of very large stones, which inclined inwards towards the top, with a great horizontal lintel stone. They had a round-headed or arched eastern window, the arch being scooped out of the stone, or a pointed window. They consisted at first of a single chamber, but as time went on a chancel was often added at the east end, and the churches became gradually larger and more orna­mental.

Native architecture in Ireland reached its highest development in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, in the style known as Irish Romanesque. We learn from the remains of many of the churches which were built before this period that a distinct style of building prevailed in the country at the time when the Romanesque archi­tecture was introduced from Normandy. " Rude," says Miss Stokes, " as runny of its examples are, this primitive architecture still had sufficient char­acter and vitality to modify the incoming Romanesque, and to live on manifesting itself, notwithstanding the fresh forms grafted upon it." The Irish Romanesque therefore exhibits native traditions handed down from earlier native build­ings, pagan and Christian, and is characterised by the horizontal lintel of the entablature, the reten­tion of the inclined jambs of the primitive door­ways, rich and delicate decoration, and the con­stant use of certain ornamental designs character­istic of the late Celtic period. The churches are small and have a simple ground plan. A splendid example of Irish Romanesque Architecture is found in King Cormac’s chapel at Cashel. Much has been written about the origin and dale of the round towers which are such a distinctive feature in our native architecture. Dr. Petrie has fixed the date of their erection from a period ranging from the sixth to the thirteenth century, and he has firmly established their ecclesiastical character. They were used as belfries, and as places where the inhabitants of a monastery might retire with their most treasured possessions in case of a sudden attack. The Irish ecclesiastic had possessed his church in comparative peace until the invasion of the Northmen, but when they first commenced to make their inroads into the country, and to show their bitterest hatred towards everything that sprung from Christianity, the monks found it necessary to protect their churches and cells by means of this lofty tower. Its great height, and its small doorway, generally about fourteen feet from the ground, enabled them to resist the attacks of an enemy chiefly armed with bows and arrows.