plain schist doorway gives access to the mortuary chapel of the M'Duffies or M'Fies, which is about 25 feet long by 12 feet wide over the walls. These are unbonded into the south wall of the church, and were covered with a plain lean-to roof, in which there was evidently a priest's apartment. The chapel is lit from the south by two small windows, and in a recess on the north side is the burial-place of Abbot M'Duffie, covered with a carved slab representing the abbot fully vested, with his right hand raised in benediction, and a pastoral staff in his left. Pennant says:—"In the same place is a stone enriched with foliage, a stag surrounded with dogs, and a ship with full sail; round which is inscribed 'Hic jacet
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Fig. 1311.—Oronsay Priory. East End of Church.
Murchardus Macdufie de Collonsa An. Do. 1539 Meuse Mart Ora me ille, Ammen.'"[1] Beyond this chapel, at the south-east angle of the church, is a singularly massive buttress, at the bottom of which, on the level of the floor and accessible by a narrow opening from the interior of the church, is a curious ambry about 3 feet cube, strongly lintelled overhead, and designed, no doubt, for the safe keeping of the church treasure, but is now desecrated as a "bone-hole." The altar still remains built of freestone, evidently reused from some previous building.
On the north side of the chancel the arrangement is very peculiar.
- ↑ Pennant, Vol. II. p. 271.
