Stone" was a small, cross-inscribed jet-black
piece of slate or marble, approximately--2" or 3" x 1 1/2". Formerly
it seems to have had a small silver cross inset and was in great demand
locally as an amulet for cattle curing. It disappeared however, some
fifty years or so since, but very probably it could still be recovered
in Dungarvan.

Far the most striking of all the monuments at Ardmore is, of course, the
Round Tower which, in an excellent state of preservation, stands with
its conical cap of stone nearly a hundred feet high. Two remarkable, if
not unique, features of the tower are the series of sculptured corbels
which project between the floors on the inside, and the four projecting
belts or zones of masonry which divide the tower into storeys
externally. The tower's architectural anomalies are paralleled by its
history which is correspondingly unique: it stood a regular siege in
1642, when ordnance was brought to bear on it and it was defended
by forty confederates against the English under Lords Dungarvan and
Broghil.

A few yards to north of the Round Tower stands "The Cathedral"
illustrating almost every phase of ecclesiastical architecture which
flourished in Ireland from St. Patrick to the Reformation--Cyclopean,
Celtic-Romanesque, Transitional and Pointed. The chancel arch is
possibly the most remarkable and beautiful illustration of the
Transitional that we have. An extraordinary feature of the church is
the wonderful series of Celtic arcades and panels filled with archaic
sculptures in relief which occupy the whole external face of the west
gable.

St. Declan's foundation at Ardmore seems (teste Moran's Archdall) to
have been one of the Irish religious houses which accepted the reform of
Pope Innocent at the Lateran Council and to have transformed itself
into a Regular Canonry. It would however be possible to hold, on the
evidence, that it degenerated into a mere parochial church. We hear
indeed of two or three episcopal successors of the saint, scil.:--Ultan
who immediately followed him, Eugene who witnessed a charter to the
abbey of Cork in 1174, and Moelettrim O Duibhe-rathre who died in
1303 after he had, according to the annals of Inisfallen, "erected and
finished the Church" of Ardmore. The "Wars of the Gaedhil and Gall"
have reference, circa 824 or 825, to plunder by the Northmen of Disert
Tipraite which is almost certainly the church of Dysert by the Holy Well
at Ardmore. The same fleet, on