I
Cannot Describe It As An Architect Or Antiquarian, And These Classes
Know All About It Better Than I Do, But I Want To Convey As Far As I Can
The Impression It Made Upon Me To Others As Delightfully Ignorant On The
Subject.
The roof is made in the same way as all arched roofs of old
castles which I have yet seen, of thin stones laid edge-wise to form the
arch and cemented together.
The country people tell me that a frame of
wood was made over which they formed the arch and then poured among the
stones thin mortar boiling hot. On the inside of the arch run along ribs
of hewn stone cemented into their places, running up to meet in a carved
point at the extreme top. These groinings spring from short pillars of
hewn stone that only reach part way down the wall to the floor and run
to a point. These consoles are highly ornamented with sculpture. The
mouldings round the doors, and the stone window frames and sashes, are
wonderfully well done, and would highly ornament a church of the
nineteenth century.
I think we undervalue the civilization of the far past of Connaught.
Those who erected such churches, such abbeys and such castles were both
intelligent and possessed of wealth in no small degree. The ingenuity of
the cut stone hinge on the stone that closes the tomb in the chancel,
the carving on the tomb of the Prince of the O'Connor line, the staunch
solidness of every wall, the immense strength of every arched roof, show
skilled builders, whether they worked under the direction, of the Gobhan
Saer or another man.
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