The Gentleman's Magazine

AND

HISTORICAL REVIEW.

NOTES ON THE ARCHITECTURE OF IRELAND.-III.

GLENDALOUGH.

THIS place, in the heart of the Wicklow mountains, is approached most readily from the Rathdrum Station on the Wicklow and Wexford Railway, from which place it is distant nine miles. The Avonmore, the principal tributary to the stream of the Ovoca valley, has some of its sources in the mountain recesses at Glendalough. In the "Acts of St. Kevin," compiled as early as the beginning of the twelfth century, the valley of Glendalough is thus described :

"A solitary place enclosed by lofty mountains and watered with fair streams; for there the waters of two lakes and of a beautiful river flowing down from the mountains unite, and in the upper part of the valley, where the mountains close in and terminate it, the lake stretches from the roots of one mountain to the foot of the other; and that valley was formerly called in Irish Gleand De, but now Gleanndaloch, that is, the valley of the two lakes."

The author of this description was evidently well acquainted with the valley, and would have prevented much conjecture and speculation, if he had pourtrayed the buildings of the famous monastery whose founder he was celebrating, with the fidelity and distinctness with which he has pictured the natural features around them.

St. Kevin is represented by this writer to have attained celebrity at the time of the death of St. Kieran of Clonmacnoise, and may therefore have founded his monastery at Glendalough as early as the middle of the sixth century. His death is pretty well ascertained to have occurred in the year 618, when he must have reached a venerable age, though we may doubt the accuracy of the annalists who report his life at 120 years. His actions at Glendalough, as gathered from the ancient writer before quoted, may be comprised in a few sentences as follows. Where the waters from the lakes and the river meet in the lower part of the valley he founded a great monastery, filling it with monks he had brought from another place, together with many who came to him from all parts, and of whom he made monks in that place. Over this monastery he appointed a ruler of sanctity and experience, assigning to each person of the religious body his duty. St. Kevin then withdrew to the upper GENT. MAG. 1864, VOL. I.

a

part of the valley, about a mile distant from the monastery, and formed for himself a humble dwelling in a narrow place, between the mountain and the south side of the lake, where was a clear rivulet and a denselywooded spot. Here he pursued the life of a recluse for four years, practising great austerity, and communicating with none except upon the most urgent necessity. At the end of this period he was prevailed upon by his monks to relax his self-denial, and they built for him at the same spot a beautiful cell (clara cella), where at the time of the writer there stood a fair monastery (clarum monasterium), called in Irish Disert Cavghin, and filled with most religious men. In this cell St. Kevin dwelt with his monks apparently seven years, but he seems still to have had his own private oratoriolum apart, constructed of branches and twigs. In the times of special fasts, as that of Lent, he retired to a cave in the rocks upon the side of the upper lake, accessible only by water. After this he made another change of residence. Divinely directed, he went to a spot east of the lower lake, where his interment and resurrection would take place, and where, according to a prophecy introduced at this part of the narrative, and delivered on the spot by an angel, a city and monastery would arise, eminent for its greatness, piety, and wealth. Upon the departure of the angel, the chieftain and owner of the valley, named Dymma, came directly to the Saint, who informed him of the events by which the spot where they stood would be hallowed. The chieftain consenting to the Saint's purposes, at once caused his sons, servants, and others attending, to convey the furniture and place of worship (supellectilem et ædes elevantes deposuerunt) to the spot, and sought to know where the church and cemetery should be constructed (ubi ecclesia et cemeterium illius loci ædificaretur). "Cut away," replied the Saint, "the thorns and thistles and begin here, for in this place you will be buried, and there after much time a temple will be built in my name, and under its altar you will lie." The chieftain granted to the Saint the whole valley, but upon the spot where a fresh church was thus commenced the Saint continued to dwell, practising great austerity and in solitude, till again prevailed upon by his monks to rejoin them; and in this spot, says the writer, a fair and religious city grew up in honour of St. Kevin.

Every locality mentioned in this narrative may at this day be identified in the valley. At the meeting of the waters from the lakes with the river stands the cathedral, with the adjacent round tower; near it St. Kevin's Church, and to the west of it, but within the bounds of the ancient city wall, the Church of Our Lady, and even one gate of the city wall remains. Here, then, was the first monastery of St. Kevin, of

a Cella, Irish cill, is the origin of the prefix to the names of many Irish ecclesiastical establishments, as Killmacduagh, Killfenora, &c.

which the cathedral seems to point out the precise site. The Church of Our Lady traditionally held the tomb of St. Kevin, and standing near to the lower lake agrees with the spot where the angel announced to him that his interment would take place, and where he held the conference with Dymma, at the site of a future church. A mile distant from the cathedral, and on the south shore of the upper lake, shrouded in coppice and foliage, is the Refeart Church; and here, leaping down the rocks and passing close to the church, is the stream which completes the picture of the retirement to which he betook himself as soon as he had settled his monks in the valley. Not far distant is the almost inaccessible cave called St. Kevin's Bed, where he occasionally found his most solitary seclusion.

Of the nature of the clara cella in this woody nook of the glen, of the buildings of the monastery at the meeting of the waters, or of the church which Dymma proposed to erect, we are absolutely without description or particulars.

From the death of St. Kevin the names of his successors the abbots of Glendalough are preserved, with probably few omissions, until the decay of the city and monastery in the thirteenth century. When the see of a bishop was first established here is by no means certain, but it cannot have been much before the beginning of the tenth century.

Glendalough was burned or plundered in 770, 833, 835, 886, 982, 983, 1012, 1020, 1061, 1071, 1083, 1095, and 1163, before the coming to Ireland of the Anglo-Normans. In these calamities we learn that in 835 the oratory (dertech) of Glendalough was burned, and the oratories (dertaigib) were burned in 1020. In 1061 the churches of Glendalough were burned, and again in 1083; and, lastly, in 1163 the church of St. Kevin, that of St. Kieran, and the church dedicated to the two saints Sinchell were burned.

The church of St. Kevin still exists and will be described hereafter; the other two churches named were both in existence towards the close of the last century, but of them scarcely a trace remains; they were close to St. Kevin's Church.

Notwithstanding the numerous calamities from marauders and accidental fires, the compiler of the " Acts of St. Kevin" regarded the city as in a state of prosperity commensurate with the sanctity of its patron saint and the fulfilment of the prophecies concerning it. He could hardly have been so satisfied if he had lived so late as the transfer of the see, with most of its wealth, to the Archbishop of Dublin, which was decreed in 1152; and that the compilation was made considerably later than the beginning of the previous century seems to be certain from his mention of the city of Dublin, which he says was then inhabited by a nation most able in war and skilled in the management of fleets, a description applicable to that city after the battle of Clontarf in 1014, by