which the prisoners were kept, and above which was put up a Tribunal, in which the Judges and Jurors assembled." Now the prison-like rooms open into the vaulted sacristy by a low door, "above" which, at the east end, the wooden "tribunal" would naturally have been erected, no other trace of vaulting being apparent to the east or north of the cloister, or on the nave wall west of the garth. If so, the room may also be the historic chamber in which the great meeting of the ever-unfortunate landed gentry of Clare was held, in 1584, by Sir John Perrot, to ascertain and confirm their titles, and establish the

claims of the Crown. Indeed, though the position is unusual for a Chapter House, it may have played that part, for which it is most suitable, in the economy of the monastery.

A small door in the north-east corner leads by a narrow passage to a garderobe and a gloomy cell or prison, 7 feet x 8 feet 6 inches, with a cupboard and small fireplace, and some small slits, one tunnelled for five feet through the wall. The rooms overhead are much defaced; over the sacristy is a late window, divided into six by an upright mullion and two cross shafts. There also grows a sycamore to the great danger of the vaulting through which water drips freely in all directions, despite

which fact it was left untouched in the late repairs. The west end has vanished, leaving part of the well of a barrel-stair. Northward from this runs for 50 feet the defaced ivied east wall of the domicile. A fine double light with ogee heads is still visible in the lower story, but closed by the King monument. The eastern rooms seem to have been 10 feet wide. The upper had a plain square window at its north end. There seems no trace of vaulting. The north and west buildings are replaced by modern houses. The belfry is reached by a narrow walk along the north wall of the chancel; the two lower stories above the vaulting are ancient; the upper part was rebuilt after 1793. The Stamer and "H. B." views of 1780 circa show that the upper part had plain stepped battlements and a large pointed window to the east. There is a spiral stair of thirty-four steps in the south-east corner, and two flights of seven and eight steps lead down to the chancel walls. A corbel of the lower floor displays a monk's head.

Under the belfry is a grey marble screen of flamboyant tracery which, with the carvings and statues, will be fully described later in this Paper.

The nave retains most of its old features, though horribly defaced by the brickwork of two late windows on each side, and the barbarous hacking away of the hoods of sedilia and other features as a preparation for the thick mass of plaister and whitewash so dear to church authorities fifty years ago. The south side has a slit window in the south-east corner; then two neat pointed arches leading into the transept, in the eastern pier of which is the little "Ecce Homo" hereafter described. The head of the western one is modern, as a window had been broken through it; then a nearly perfect sedile with crockets and finials, a holy water stoup, and a closed archway, probably the south porch.

The north wall has a low window near the belfry looking into the cloister, as at Quin. Above this is the defaced double window already

alluded to, and further west four sedilia, one much injured by the modern window, below whose sill was an angular corbel probably to support a light or statue. The sedilia are 6 feet, 4 feet, and 6 feet long, and 5 feet 4 inches high, the eastern one has an inverted monk's head on the jamb, while the western has some remains of a grey marble tomb before it. The west gable has a window, with two interlacing shafts and cusping pieces. It and the gable have been rebuilt, or much tampered with, and a neat modern door inserted. In the outer face of the north wall is an arched recess. The cloister walk was 9 feet wide; several arches remain among the fragments now in the nave; they have plain chamfered ribs, and are formed of two stones each; the bases and caps filletted in a great variety of moulding; the piers octagonal, round or spirally fluted in couplets or groups of four, in the latter case with a sloping buttress on the outer side, one base has a clawed hammer cut on it.

The transept is very picturesque, with its stepped south gable and

sharp pointed windows, with roll
mouldings on the splay, and like the
nave window and those of the two
southern chapels, have two interlacing
shafts with cusped pieces over the
main lights.
The west wall has an
arched recess outside, and the remains
of a mural monument with two blank
shields, helmet, and mantling inside.
The outer south wall has a heavy
plinth of three courses, similar to the
base of the altar of St. Francis. The
lowest is square, then a heavy ogee
moulding, then one of trefoil section.
A string course also appears on the
large buttress at the south-east corner
of the chancel. The east side had three
chapels, their partitions coming out

as far as the arch into the nave, but now destroyed; the northern had a plaster or wooden vaulted roof, its arch springing from a corbel in the church wall. The south chapel had a stone arch, of which the south spring remains. The window of the north chapel consists of two shafts running into three quatrefoils boldly designed, and suggestive of one I saw in 1888 in Canterbury Cathedral; south of it a break in the wall, and change in the masonry suggests a later period for that part of the transept beyond the decorated window.

The window of the middle chapel had fallen before 1780, but most of the fragments have been recovered, and repaired with new shafts in 1893. The head alone is ancient in the south chapel; it was upheld by

knotted ivy; the lower part was removed before 1780. In the south wall of this chapel is a double piscina with square basins, pointed arches, and angular hoods; the central pier is modern. In the body of the north wall a break discloses the curious feature of a pier of smooth stone. This chapel and a trench of equal width inside the south wall were cleared out in the repairs, but have been needlessly filled in. The body of the transept is heaped with tombs.

The most important of the monuments, and one of the most interesting in Ireland, is the "ROYAL" or MAC MAHON TOMB, built against the north wall of the chancel near the east gable. Some still living remember it a mere heap of carved stones. Its principal sculptures have been rebuilt into its successor by the Creaghs of Dangan, about 1843. The plinth is 9 feet 6 inches long, and projects 3 feet, each slab being 31 inches long and 24 inches high, and occupying the entire space between each pair of buttresses in the modern tomb as they did in its predecessor. They show some affinity to German2 designs of the period, and form probably the finest and most spirited series of late fifteenth-century carvings of the Passion in our Irish monasteries, and as such they call for minute description.

The west slab has two panels, 63 inches and 24 inches long (see 4, p. 147). A bishop, blessing with his right hand, and holding a crosier in his left. The arrest of our Lord in Gethsemane. The hideous figure of Judas embraces our Saviour, whose robe is clutched by a soldier in full armour and drawing his sword. Christ blesses the prostrate Malchus, who grovels along the foot of the panel over his lantern and halbert, holding his left ear. Peter stands to the left, sheathing his sword, behind are three soldiers (two with battle-axes), and a man holding a lantern. All the soldiers in these panels wear neck-pieces, breast-plates, brassarts, greaves, and conical helmets, without vizors.

The south face has three panels. (1) The flagellation. Our Lord, clad only in a waist cloth, has his hands round a moulded pillar to which they are tied. He stands in front of a platform on which are a soldier to the left, and a mitred priest to the right, and below two more soldiers, one a dwarf, with an accurately-formed "horribile flagellum," weighted with

So I am informed by Dr. H. King and Dr. Stamer, who remember the cutting of the stonework and inscriptions of the present canopy. The origin and descent of the Creaghs from 1350, is traced in a letter of Archbishop Creagh from the Tower of London, 1583-MS. T.C.D., E. 3. 16, p. 182. The O'Neills settled at Baile Thomas in Kildare, and thence removed to land of the Earls of Kildare, near Adare, at Clogh-an-creich, whence they took the name Creagh. David, first of the Creaghs of Adare. 2. David. 3. Nicholas. 4. John. 5. David (Mayor, 1488-91). 6. Thomas, grandfather of the writer. They first appear in Limerick, 1351, Robert being Provost that year. Piers Creagh was "transplanted" to Dangan in 1653.

2 In the previous century an Ennis monk got license to travel in Germanyperhaps a similar incident occurred about 1460.

3 The crushing of the lantern, and holding the wrong ear, are often seen in German works of the later fifteenth century.

angular plummets, the other scourges being of knotted cords, the handles ending in knobs. (2) The crucifixion. This, like the last panel, is grievously injured; having miraculously escaped "Cromvelli marte furentis," it suffered by modern barbarism. The cross is supported by two kneeling angels, while two others (perhaps of the sun and moon) float, one near each arm. To the left, John and the Marys support the Virgin. Two soldiers stand behind them, one, Longinus, thrusting the lance into our Saviour's side. To the right are three soldiers, the centurion pointing to a long label with a defaced inscription in black letter. (3) The entombment. Joseph, in a cylindrical hat and studded girdle, at the head, and Nicodemus, in a mitre and with a bag at his belt, at the feet, lower the swathed body of Christ into a neatly-moulded tomb, panelled with two little ogee-headed niches, with richly-carved flowers and finials. Four figures (the Virgin distinguished by her nimbus and lily) stand behind the tomb, the first and third are praying, the second (perhaps St. John) sadly uncovers the dead face, while a small kneelin gfigure (perhaps Mary Magdalene) in front of the tomb grasps our Saviour's right hand; near her lies a jar of perfume. This group is well preserved. The back figures wear cloaks, clasped with brooches at the neck. The east side has one slab in two panels. (6) The Resurrection. The majestic figure of Christ rises apparently through the top slab of the tomb, the shroud falling off his shoulders. He is bearded, has no nimbus, raises his right hand in blessing, and holds in his left a cross with a twopointed banner marked with a suastica in relief-a strange meeting of pagan and Christian symbolism. He steps over a sleeping soldier, armed with a halbert; a second, holding a spear, sleeps with his elbows on the tomb, behind which stands a third with a battle-axe; and in front sits a fourth with a huge two-handed sword. Two angels, waving censers, float overhead. On a narrow panel, the figure of a lady, aged and austere, in a close-fitting, long-sleeved gown, holding a large prayer-book and wearing a huge double-arched head-dress, enriched with quatrefoils and with a rose in the centre, very suggestive of Tenniel's picture of "The Duchess." It very probably represents More ni Brien, the foundress of the tomb, about 1460.

The canopy of the Royal tomb, with its massive groining and blocks of carved grey marble, proving too heavy for the delicate piers, which only measured 8 inches across, fell down in hopeless ruin when exposed

1 Illustrated on page 149, fig. V.

2 Like the figures on Archbishop Bourchier's tomb, late fifteenth century, at Canterbury Cathedral.

This pre-Christian, and, in this country, favourite device on early Christian tombs seems to have been re-introduced from the East by the Crusaders. It occurs

on priest's stoles (see Boutell's "Monumental Brasses"). I have seen it represented in early paintings of St. Thomas à Becket, and on the later tomb of George, Duke of Clarence, at Tewkesbury. Rev. L. Hassé tells me of an instance on a mediæval marble pulpit at Milan.