In like manner, there is an unbroken series of monuments through the early Christian epoch, beginning with the oratories of the sixth century, continuing through the early churches of Killiney, Moville, Dalkey, Glendalough and Monasterboice, from before the Norse inroads; followed by the epoch of Round Towers, or protected belfries, with their churches, nearly three score of these Round Towers remaining in fair preservation, while many are perfect from base to apex; and culminating in Cormac’s chapel and the beautiful group of buildings on Cashel Rock.  For the next period, the age of transition after the waning of the Norsemen and the coming of the first Normans, we have many monuments in the Norman style, like the door of Christ Church Cathedral in Dublin, with its romance of Danish conversion and Norse religious fervor.

Finally, we come to the age whose progress we have just recorded, which covers the whole of the Middle Ages.  For this period, which was for Ireland an epoch of foreign influence much more than of foreign rule, we have many beautiful Abbeys, built for those foreign orders whose coming was in a sense a return tide, a backward flow of the old missionary spirit which went forth from Ireland over nascent modern Europe.  The life of these abbeys was full of rich imaginative and religious power; it abounded in urbanity and ripe culture of a somewhat selfish and exclusive type.  Yet we cannot but feel a limitless affection and sympathy for the abbots and friars of the days of old who have left us such a rich heritage of beauty and grace.

All these abbeys seem to have been formed on a single plan:  a cruciform church symbolized the source of all their inspiration, its choir extending towards the east, whence the Light had come; the nave, or main body of the church, was entered by the great western door, and the arms of the cross, the transepts, extended to the north and south.  Here is a very beautiful symbol, a true embodiment of the whole spirit and inspiration of the monastic orders.  From one of the transepts a side door generally led to the domestic buildings, the dormitory, the refectory, the chapter house, where the friars assembled in conclave under the presidency of the abbot.  There were lesser buildings, store-rooms, granaries, work-rooms, but these were the kernel of the establishment.  The church was the center of all things, and under its floor the friars were at last laid to rest, while brother friars carved tombs for them and epitaphs, adding a new richness of decoration to the already beautiful church.

We may record a few of these old foundations, showing at the same time the present state of the old abbey buildings.  At Newtown on the northern bank of the Boyne, about a mile below Trim, Simon Rochfort founded an abbey for the Augustinian Canons in 1206, dedicating it to Saint Peter and Saint Paul.  The capitals of the pillars in the church, the vaulting of the roof and the shafts of the arches which supported