to re-examine. It rises usually 11′ over the main fosse. There are three deep fosses, the depths are—the inner 10′ to 11′, the next 13′ to 15′, and the outer 6′ to 8′. The rings between, rising to the same heights, are 27′ to 30′ thick below and 6′ to 9′ on top. The outer is 6′ over the field. The whole measures about 400′ over all N. and S.
(12) The church, as we know from the Lives, was built in a fort.[1] The south section of this is well marked—a curved terrace round the modern church. At its foot lie some large rude blocks. On its platform we find (13) A pillar stone 6′ 4″ high by 16″ by 13″; on the north side is a deep slit 4″ long. It has no tradition. (14) A stone with a reveal 3″ by 4″; it measures 30″ by 25″ by 10″, and resembles the slabs at Slane, Co. Meath, and elsewhere,[2] forming “bone boxes” or late, angular cists, with two slab covers and end pieces. (15) Another slab, nearly buried, is seen south of the church, and is probably that noted by Wilde as of the “Slane type.”[3] There are also an old font and a Plunkett tombstone dated 1575.
(16) There are no remains of the ancient church of Telltown. It was dedicated to St. Catherine and lay in an unfenced little burial spot near the modern house of the name.[4]
The importance of the primitive religion and ceremonies of the Celts is getting widely recognized. Ireland preserved
- ↑ Tripart. Life, i. p. 68, ii. pp. 464-5 and 284. In return for the grant he dug a fort for Crimthann opposite the door, i.e. to the west (for “his vessels lay in the east” of his churches). The circular plantation to the west of the church may follow the lines of the older rath, but 1 found no certain trace there.
- ↑ Kilchorna, Aranmore; Kilnacananagh, Inishere; Termon Cronain, Co. Clare; and Killabuonia, Co. Kerry.
- ↑ Beauties of the Boyne and Blackwater, p. 181; see also R. Soc. Antt. Ir. xxxi. p. 418.
- ↑ It is strange that no church site was on the actual Óenach fields. We read how “a trench for a church was marked in the name of the Lord of the elements for the first time” at Brugh in A.D. 499, and St. Brigid’s wicker church was at a sacred grove and fire shrine and near the mounds of a cemetery and óenach on the Curragh of Kildare.
