esidences, as well as the
chapels, of their original inhabitants; and subsequently the house of
St. Kevin at Glendalough, of St. Flannan at Killaloe, etc., were
publicly used as chapels or churches.[71] In all probability the
_capellula_ of the hermit on Inchcolm was, in the same way, at once both
the habitation and the oratory of this solitary anchorite, and
apparently the only building on the island when Alexander was tossed
upon its shores. The sacred character of the humble cell, as the
dwelling and oratory of a holy Columbite hermit, and possibly also the
interest attached to it as an edifice which had afforded for three days
such welcome and grateful shelter to King Alexander and his suite, would
in all probability--judging from the numerous analogies which we might
trace elsewhere--led to its preservation, and perhaps its repair and
restoration, when, a few years afterwards, the monastery rose in its
immediate neighbourhood, in pious fulfilment of the royal vow.[72]

Indeed, that the holy cell or chapel of the Inchcolm anchorite would,
under the circumstances in question, be carefully saved and preserved by
King Alexander I., is a step which we would specially expect, from all
that we know of the religious character of that prince, and his peculiar
love for sacred buildings and the relics of saints. For, according to
Fordun, Alexander "vir literatus et pius" "erat in construendis
ecclesiis, et reliquis Sanctorum perquirendis, in vestibus
sacerdotalibus librisque sacris conficiendis et ordinandis,
studiosissimus."

For the antiquity of the Inchcolm cell there yet remains an additional
argument, and perhaps the strongest of all. I have already stated that,
in its whole architectural type and features, the cell or oratory is
manifestly older, and more rude and primitive, than any of the diverse
monastic buildings erected on the island from the twelfth century
downwards. But more, the Inchcolm cell or oratory corresponds in all its
leading architectural features and specialities with the cells,
oratories, or small chapels, raised from the sixth and eighth, down to
the tenth and twelfth centuries, in different parts of Ireland, and in
some districts in Scotland, by the early Irish ecclesiastics, and their
Irish or Scoto-Irish disciples and followers, of these distant times and
dates.

It is now acknowledged on all sides, that, though not the first
preachers of Christianity in Scotland,[73] the Irish were at least b