The morning star and Catholic messenger. [volume] (New Orleans [La.]) 1868-1881, 1874-05-03

also is o stone-roofed edihce, with Norman
man decorations. Near il rise the magni6oent
cathedral found by Douough OBrien, King
of Thomond, about 1152 and on the plain
beside the rock, Hear Abbey. the ancient castle
of the archbishops perfect Round Tower,
and numerous crosses.
And one of the grandest of these ancient
holy piles, Newton Abbey, now lies crumblipg
was may, however, still be conceived of from
the exquisite beauty of some of the remaining
capitals, wanting and shafts, and from the
many fragments of its noble windows which
are strewn about the neighbcring cemetery
This, alas! like many another of the magnid-
cent ruins of Ireland, has been used o
quarry; not by the unlettered peasant, who
is rarely found wanting in devotional feeling
that leads him to regard antiquities, and es-
pecially those of an eccle origin, with
n sentiment of profound veneration but by
contractors for the erection of new buildings,
and sometimes even by men Of station and
education, who seem to have forgotten that
age and neglect cannot deprive structures
once consecrated to God and applied to the
service of religion, of any portion of their
sacred character.
Beehive Abbey, not far from Newton, is an
other wonderful wreck, which seems to com
bine ecclesiastical with military and domestic
architecture in tue most singular manner. 1t
presents indeed striking evidence of the
half monk, half soldier character of its found
and rooms with great fire places; the fues
carried up through the tn thickness of the walls,
and continued through tapsring chimney
shafts seem to have made the Abbey of Bee
tive kind of mOnastic castle, and previous to
the use of artillery it must have been place
Of great strength.
Perhaps one of the most beautiful edfices
ever erected in Ireland was the church of
killesbln, near Carlow, once decorated with
richly sculptured capitals representing human
heads. the hair intertwined with serpents.
This magnificent building was moro hardly
treated by the destructivcness of ndivd-
ual who, absut forty years since, resided in the
neighborhood, than by the storms and frosts
and thunderbolts of ages. The detestable
vandai wanto,iy defaced the exquisite capitals
and almost entirely obliterated an Irish in
scription which extended round the abacus!
On the romantic shores of the beautiful
Lake of Killarney stands the venerable ruins
of Muckross Abbey. No vestge of its former
grandeur remains its antic pillars, massy
proof" are all ground into dust, and a magni-
fcent yew-tree that has grown in the very
centre of the wreck spreads its mighty, sombre
branches like funeral pail over the fallen
temple: And in the lake on the 'holy island"
of lnnisfallen, on gentle verdant slope, sur
rounded by thick groves are still to be seen
the few crumbling stones that mark where
stood the abbey once SO renowned throughout
Christendom for its learning and piety.
But it would be q vain task to attempt to
enumerate all the beautiful memorials of Ire
lands splendor whose ivy-grown ruins still
| adorn the land they once made 50 famous.
" Her temples grew grows the grass =
and popular tradition tells US that numbers
have been hidden from mortal eye, ever since
the pious monks who pray ed within them were
barbarously driven forth or slain.
I'm yonder dim a nd pat bless wood
strange sounds are heard at twilis hit hour,
And peas OF solemn muse swell
As from some minister's lofty tower.
From age to age thcse sounds are heard,
=, Borne on the breeze at twilight hour
pa aEs sse the f1S1 sa.e fE11a
| Mingled among the messy marbles of fallen
| altaro; among the mouldering stones and the
rusted iron of crumbled cloisters; beneath the
chnrchyard's bowers;" by the bleak hilIsides;
on the margins of the sunlit lakes, under
| the shadow of the mysterious Round Towers,
iie almost countless, the defaced, mutilated
| emblems of Ireland's heart deep faith-broken
crosses-innumerableb broken crosses-eloquen
of the piety of those by-gone days, eloquent
| of the ruthlessness of the devastator. They
are found altered over tho whole island, and
are as various in their les as in the perfec
| tion OF their Northumberland differ ing in
| nothing from the pillar stones of tho pagans
save that they are rudely sculptured with q
| saints-others have the upper part of tho
shaft hewn into the form of circle, from
which the arms and the top extend. Crosses,
| highly sculptured, appear to date from the
| ninth and tive fth centuries In these the
circle, instead of being simply cut into the
face of stone, is represented by ring, binding
of the cross together. There are scores of
these beautiful remains in Ireland, but the
| finest, perhaps, are those at Mouasterboice,
near Drogheda; they are singularly sym
enthusiasm of every learned Archaeological who
| has seen them.
There were originally three crosses at Mon
asterboice; two still exist. we'll preserved;
the third was broken, tradition says, by Crom-
well The larger of the two nearly perfect
crosses measures twenty-seven feet in height
| and is composed Of three stones. The shaft,
at its junction with the base, is two feet in
| breadth and one foot three inches in thickness.
1t is divided upon the western side by fillets
into seven compartments, each of which con-
! tains two or more boldly cut figures, now much
worn by the rain and wind of nine centuries.
The sides of the cross are ornamented with
| figures and scroll-work alternately.
| The smaller cross, fifteen feet high, is ex-
quisrely beautiful" says Mr.. Wakeman, in the
ArchGoligia Hibernica, and has suffered little
from the effects of time. 1t stands almost as
| perfect as when first erected nine hundred
years ago. The figures retain almost all their
| original sharpness and beauty of execution.
| Within the circular head of the cross, on its
eastern face our Saviour is represented sit
ting in Judgment. choir of angels occupy
the arm to tho right of the figure Several
hold musical Instruments, among which is
seen the ancient small and triangular Irish
harp. The space to the left of our Saviour is
crowded with figures, several of which are in
Mt npfH air ed far 10 Iriyy