ofing.

[Illustration: Fig. 11. Section of St. Flannan's Church at Killaloe.]

[Illustration: Fig. 12. Section of the Church of Killaghy.]

Like some oratories and churches in Ireland, more simple and primitive
than those just alluded to, the building on Inchcolm is an edifice
consisting of a single vaulted chamber, analogous in form to the
over-croft of the larger oratories or minor churches. The accompanying
section of the old and small stone-roofed church of Killaghy, at the
village of Cloghereen, near Killarney, is the result of an accurate
examination of that building by Mr. Brash of Cork. Its stones look
better dressed and more equal in size, but otherwise it is so exactly a
section of the Inchcolm oratory, that it might well be regarded as a
plan of it, intended to display the figure and mode of construction of
its walls and stone roof, formed as that roof is of three layers--viz.,
1. The layer consisting of the proper stones of the arch of the cell
interiorly; 2. The layer of outer roofing stones placed exteriorly; and
3. The intermediate layer of lime, and grit or small stones, cementing
and binding together these other two courses.[93]

It was once suggested to me as an argument against the Irish
architectural character and antiquity of the Inchcolm oratory, that its
vault or arch was slightly but distinctly pointed, and that pointed
arches did not become an architectural feature in ecclesiastical
buildings before the latter half of the twelfth century. But if there
existed any truth in this objection, it would equally disprove the early
character and antiquity of those ecclesiastical buildings at Killaloe,
Glendalough, and Kells, in which the arch of the over-croft is of the
same pointed form. The over-croft in King Cormac's Chapel at Cashel
shows also a similar pointed vault or arch; and no one now ventures to
challenge it as an established fact in ecclesiological history, that
this edifice was consecrated in 1134, or at a date anterior to the
introduction[94] of Gothic church architecture or pointed arches in
sacred buildings in England.[95] In truth, the pointed form of arched
vault was sometimes used by Irish ecclesiastics structurally, and for
the sake of more simply and easily sustaining the stone roof, long
before that arch became the distinctive mark of any architectural style.
Indeed, in the very oldest existing Irish oratory--viz. that of
Gallerus, which is generally reckoned[96] as early as, if