rebuilding and considerable alteration and mutilation of portions of the church took place late in the fifteenth century. To this period belong its north doorway and east window. The sacristy, commonly called "the Black Hag's Cell," is also an after-thought, and not bonded into the church; the south window is of late and bad design. The sacristy closes an older doorway in the western wall. The kitchen, though rude and plain, is also late, abutting against the refectory in awkward contiguity with an early window. A small structure, possibly a garderobe, projects near its south-eastern angle.

The orchard and garden of Old Abbey House probably correspond to ancient enclosures. The old fish-pond remains in the latter. Another walled field, nearly surrounded by two little streams, seems of conventual origin; and, to the south of it, old earthworks and an ancient gateway with the curious circular pigeon-house mark the limit of the ancient precinct.

The CHURCH, like some of the other parts of the building, is "off the square." It is 82 feet long to the south, 83 feet to the north, and is 18 feet 6 inches wide to the east, and 17 feet 11 inches to the west. Buttresses project from each face of the angles at the east end; they seem of the fifteenth century, and embody older cut stones. The present east window is inserted in the arch of a larger and older window, and has the remains of two ambries under the sill. It has a slight external hood-moulding, and had two simple chamfered shafts, plainly interlacing overhead, without heading pieces or cusps (1). The shafts and tracery have disappeared; but the framework is intact, and shows slotholes for metal frames, both in the sides and sills. The stonework

shows late dressing with toothed and pick chisels; the splay (and that of the second window in the south wall) were turned over planks. The holes for a long bar remain inside the window-shafts to either side of the splay.

The south wall, going from the east, retains the following features:A window with a round splay, the light (which is partly built up) has a pointed head, and is recessed and chamfered, being of the same type as the window opposite to it in the north wall, and, in fact, save for its shortness, identical with the remaining window-light of the refectory and that removed from it, and now in the garden-house. This type is very common in the monasteries and churches built by the Normans or under English masons from 1180 to about 1230, and is found with

round heads, but in other respects identical design, through the eleventh and early twelfth century. Below its sill are a small piscina with a quatrefoil basin, neatly moulded side shafts with capitals and bases, and an unusually flat trefoil arch, suggesting by its crooked and cramped appearance that the original head was replaced in later times (2). This was probably done when the upper part of the church walls was rebuilt, the recesses deprived of their arches, and in one case of their capitals, and the side windows lowered to their present stumpy proportions, perhaps in the late fifteenth century. Next we find a tall round-headed recess, probably once containing a picture. It has moulded capitals, bases,

and sill, and round corner-shafts (1). The arch is manifestly a later feature. Still more manifest signs of tampering occur in a window farther westward (5), where the capitals have been removed, and an awkward roundheaded arch rests directly on the shafts; the outer light is now destroyed. Another window with an ambrey in the sill is entirely defaced. Portions of the sill, jambs, and two fragments of the shaft are built into the outer face, and these pieces of shaft exactly correspond to the lost shaft of a double-light window with ogee heads cut out of a single block 8 inches thick, and chamfered on both sides. This block now lies in the garden,

and is figured on page 61, fig. 9. We may regard it as the actual outer head of this window. At the extreme west end is the plain late-looking pointed door of the sacristy, before which, says tradition, the last "Abbess " of the convent was found lying dead. The wall is rebuilt in the upper part for (apparently) its entire length, and has a

slightly sloped cornice coarsely dressed, without corbels or moulding. A massive block of the old gable barge still remains. The north wall does not bond into the cloister wall.

The features of the north wall going from the east are-A low window, or "squint," built up internally in early times. It is plainly

chamfered, but only its eastern jamb and the splay remain. Next it is a stunted window, recessed and chamfered, with pointed head,' like those in the opposite wall and the refectory; it has been a later insertion in smaller masonry. An arch of a large window remains, and it was probably closed when the north doorway was inserted. The doorway is pointed, and dates after the middle of the fifteenth century (about 146080). It has well-executed shallow mouldings, convex, concave, and square, without capitals or bases, and has a raised stone threshold. The rest of the wall is blank; there are unusual numbers of unstopped putlog holes in the walls of this church and the refectory and kitchen.

A

OLD ABBEY, COUNTY LIMERICK-WEST DOOR OF CHURCH.
1, 2. 3. North Jamb. 4, 5, 6. South Jamb.

curious little tombstone leans against this wall, a solid block, 134 inches to 9 inches broad, and about 30 inches high, adorned by a delicately incised Latin cross with round bosses and concave curves at the intersection of the arms.3

The west gable is capped with a bell-chamber, I believe of one arch, but too thickly ivied to be clearly seen. Below this is a window built up; it was also too closely ivied (even at the time of my visit in 1875) to reveal its design. The beautiful pointed western doorway is of the same period as the side shafts of the piscina and recesses, of the purest Gothic, and appears to be of the earlier thirteenth century, recalling features of the period (say 1230-50) in other Munster churches. It is best described by the drawings and sections given herewith; its 1 Page 56, fig. 4. 2 Page 57. Pages 41, 58.

3

Page 56, fig. 3.

4