- Chapter Thirty-Seven -
Figure 37.3 Above: Gallarus oratory, Co. Kerry. OverleaJ-St McDara's Church, Cruach Mac
Dara, Galway, prior to restoration by the Office of Public Works, Ireland. Certain Irish
stone churches have distinctive gable finials and antae (projections of the side walls beyond
the gable ends), and it has been suggested that the earliest examples are those displaying
wooden skeuomorphic features (i.e. borrowed from wooden structures). Few bear elaborate
architectural carving, in contrast with those in Northumbria, and it is likely that early stone
buildings were rare, most surviving examples probably dating to the eleventh or twelfth
centuries. The boat-shaped, corbelled oratories sueh as Gallarus are probably of similar date,
though the earlier (possible eighth-century) beehive cells of Skellig Michael, Co. Kerry, may
represent a stone version of timber buildings. (Photos: The Office of Public Works, Ireland.)
comprised some thirty-three burials aligned on a small wooden structure, interpreted
as a tiny chapel or oratory. Evidence for a small wooden round-house was found to
the east. Phase 2 involved the replacement of the chapel with a larger, stone church,
on which some eight burials were aligned. The wooden round-house appears to have
been replaced about the same time with one of stone. The presence of a female
amongst the phase I burials suggests that the buildings may have served the local
people, under a priest. A seventh-eighth-century ogam stone on the site was not
found in situ, and the stone church may be as late as the twelfth century.
At Reask, on the Dingle peninsula (Co. Kerry; Figure 37.2, no. 6) early activity
is indicated by postholes possibly belonging to a circular structure whose hearth
has been radiocarbon-dated to between the late third and mid-seventh centuries. The