Note 563 — Chapter VII · THE COÄRBS OF COLUMCILLE.

In examining the existing ruins there is a peculiarity which cannot fail to be observed. On the north side of the abbey church, and at a little distance from it, is a chapel or oratory, about 33 feet long by 16 broad. This chapel, however, is not parallel to the abbey church, but has an entirely different orientation. It points more to the north, and the deflection amounts to no less than fourteen degrees. If the chapel was connected with the abbey church, it is impossible to account for this variation; but if it existed before the abbey church was built, we can quite understand that the orientation of the latter may have been quite irrespective of the former. Alongside of this chapel are the foundations of a large hall, probably a refectory, which have the same orientation. Then on the west of the ruins is a building which goes by the name of Columba’s House, and this, too, has nearly the same orientation. It was, no doubt, the abbot’s house. On the south side of the present ruins there is, at a little distance, another chapel called St. Mary’s Chapel, and here again we find the same orientation. It can hardly be doubted that these buildings formed part of the establishment which preceded the Benedictine monastery, and this is confirmed by the discovery, between the abbot’s house and the abbey church, of the foundations of an enclosure, the pavement of which consists of monumental stones, two of them bearing Irish inscriptions of the same character as the two oldest in the Relic Orain.