mn part of it, from
without to within. Either the absence of architectural knowledge, or
the force of conservatism, or the advent of the Christian missionaries,
checked any further development on these lines.

Elsewhere the tomb, instead of developing as a tumulus or barrow,
produced the effect of greatness by huge circumvallations of earth, and
massive walls of stone. Such is the temple of Ned the war-god, called
Aula Neid, the court or palace of Ned, near the Foyle in the North. Had
the ethnic civilisation of Ireland been suffered to develop according to
its own laws, it is probable that, as the roofed central chamber of the
cairn would have grown until it filled the space occupied by the mound,
so the open-walled temple would have developed into a covered building,
by the elevation of the walls, and their gradual inclination to the
centre.

The bee-hive houses of the monks, the early churches, and the round
towers are a development of that architecture which constructed the
central chambers of the raths. In this fact lies, too, the explanation
of the cyclopean style of building which characterizes our most ancient
buildings. The cromlech alone, formed in very ancient times the central
chamber of the cairn; it is found in the centre of the raths on Moy
Tura, belonging to the stone age and that of the Firbolgs. When the
cromlech fell into disuse, the arched chamber above the ashes of the
hero was constructed with enormous stones, as a substitute for the
majestic appearance presented by the massive slab and supporting pillars
of the more ancient cromlech, and the early stone buildings preserved
the same characteristic to a certain extent.

The same sentiment which caused the mediaeval Christians to disinter and
enshrine the bones of their saints, and subsequently to re-enshrine
them with greater art and more precious materials, caused the ethnic
worshippers of heroes to erect nobler tombs over the inurned relics
of those whom they revered, as the meanness of the tomb was seen to
misrepresent and humiliate the sublimity of the conception. But the
Christians could never have imagined their saints to have been anything
but men--a fact which caused the retention and preservation of the
relics. When the Gentiles exalted their hero into a god, the charred
bones were forgotten or ascribed to another. The hero then became
immortal in his own right; he had feasted with Mananan and eaten his
life-giving food, and would not kno