Note 72 — ON AN OLD STONE-ROOFED CELL OR ORATORY IN THE ISLAND OF INCHCOLM.[16]

Such cells or oratories, as relics of the holy men who had been their founders, were always regarded by the Irish, like every other kind of relics, as their bells, croziers, books, etc. etc., with the deepest sentiments of veneration, and their injury or violation—"dishonouring," as the annalists often term it—was regarded as a sacrilege of the most revolting and sinful character. And to this pious feeling we may ascribe the singular preservation to our own times of so many of such buildings—though, indeed, in many instances, they may only retain the general form, or a portion of the walls, of the original structure—owing to the injuries inflicted by time, or, as more frequently, by foreign violence. Thus, in the great Aran of the Tiglach Enda, or "House of Enda," a portion only—the east end—is of the Saint's time, the rest is some centuries later; and of St. Ciarn's oratory at Clonmacnoise—called in the Irish Annals "Temple Ciaron," or "Eaglais-beag," and, sometimes, "Temple-beg," or "The Little Church," though the original form was carefully preserved, there was, when I first examined it, more than forty years ago, apparently no portion of its masonry that was not obviously of much later times—in parts even as late as the seventeenth century. Our annalists record the names of Airchinneachs of this oratory from 893 to 1097.—P.