IRISH ECCLESIASTICAL ARCHITECTURE.*

IT is seldom that it falls to the reviewer to notice a book which deals with matter hitherto untreated, and when the book is of

the proportions and pretensions of a "standard work" his task is a responsible one. If he is able to commend those pretensions it is an agreeable one also, and in the present case it is fortunately possible to declare the author's enterprise well justified by result.

Irish ecclesiastical architecture is a subject which has practically no literature, as may be learnt from the biblio- graphy in Mr. Champneys's volume, which contains among

many works of general information only two especially rele- vant books, both limited in scope—Brash's Ecclesiastical Architecture of Ireland to the close of the XIIth Century and Petrie's Ecclesiastical Architecture of Ireland anterior to the Anglo-Norman Invasion.

Mr. Champneys is therefore attempting to do for Ireland that which has been so ably done for Scotland by Messrs.

McGibbon and Ross—to provide an ordered history of a difficult subject, useful alike for study and for reference. The test of his achievement is the degree of his success in these directions, and that is certainly considerable. Short of an especial knowledge as great as that of the author, there is no means of gauging the completeness of his collection of material, but, whatever may be lacking, all that he includes is admirably arranged and, incidentally, admirably indexed ; and although two hundred and four pages, supplemented by an appendix, can contain of necessity little of minute detail, the student will find sufficient indications to guide him in the selection of buildings for original investigation.

To the lay reader the book should appeal no less strongly. Ireland possesses a number of remarkable buildings, many of which are largely visited by lovers of the picturesque. In most cases they are become mere featureless ruins, but in some there is enough of the original design remaining to show the peculiarities of the national art in a very striking fashion.

The impression made by such buildings as Ennis Abbey, Jerpoint, or Moyne must suggest to those most unversed in architectural lore that mediaeval art in Ireland differs radically from contemporary work in England. Save at Iona and in some other parts of Scotland and Wales, there is neither parallel nor precedent for many of the forms which characterize late Irish Gothic, nor are the earlier styles without their singularities. From the Bronze Age to the present time the history of the national architecture can be traced through periods of influence from without and of development from within, through times of prosperity and pauses of arrest, through the vigour of progress and through the stupor of relapse.

The earliest buildings in the island—always excepting the much-discussed cromlechs — are the " beehive " buts and their enclosing forts of such places as Fallen and Cahirdor- gan. Mr. Champneys, who is advisedly cautious in assigning dates to these structures, considers that they probably have stood "for a period which may approach (or even exceed) three thousand years." The first building, however, of any architectural pretension that can be dated with certainty is the church at Tomgraney, the western part of which appears to have been built in the middle of the tenth century. In this structure two antao or buttresses and a square-headed doorway combine to produce a rude but indisputably aesthetic quality. The west door of Fore Church and the church on Friar's Island, Killaloe, evince a similar effort towards comeliness, and the introduction of the arch gave to the later buildings of this epoch a character

• Irish Ecclesiastical Architecture, 'with some notice of simllar or related worts in Ragland, Scotland, and elsewhere. By Arthur C. Champnoys, M.A. London I Bell and Sons. Dublin : Hodges, Figgie and Co. jkl Ile. ed. nat.]

anticipatorily suggestive of Romanesque design. In fact, as Mr. Champneys reminds us, these buildings in their original condition must have possessed considerable decorative preten- sions. " It must be remembered," he says, " that what is left of them is like a ruined and deserted house, which naturally seems plain and hare; that, though there is little carving of the stonework, the decoration may have been, and doubtless often was, supplied by woodwork, painted, and by hang-

ings no doubt showing the beautiful Irish orna- mentation to be seen in the manuscripts and elsewhere—not to speak of the met al-work, such as chalices, reliquaries, book-

shrines, and bell-shrines, some specimens of which may be seen in the Dublin Museum."

At this point in the book the round towers of Ireland are described and discussed—buildings about which there has been so much foolish and wild speculation. This should now finally be silenced, since there appears to be no doubt that they were built for purposes of defence, to which they were admirably adapted. Before resuming the history of architecture proper, Mr. Champneys devotes two chapters to Early Irish ornament and stone-carving, which are of great interest. He then traces the main current of the art through a transitional epoch into the full flood of Romanesque, a period to which belong the magnificent monuments of Cashel and Jerpoint. Petrie's recantation of his mistaken theory of dates is printed here, though this doubtless will not prevent his imputation of pre-Norman date to monuments undoubtedly Romanesque continuing to be quoted for some time to come.

The beauties of this style in the Irish version are many and singular ; no less beautiful, though less original, is the Early Gothic that followed it. The need of fortified churches was the cause of some peculiar features, among them the characteristic Irish battlement, but in the main there is little departure from the forms general at this time in other countries.

Infinitely more interesting is the art of the fifteenth cen- tury, for which Mr. Champneys claims the title of a "com- posite national style." His words in this connexion may be quoted:—

" The condition of things architectural in Ireland towards 11.13, 1400 appear to have been somewhat as follows. It was a com- paratively short time since the lancet window and other points of Early Gothic architecture had been in use, and, as the building of churches had of late been so largely in abeyance, that style can hardly be said to have been definitely superseded. On the other hand there were examples of the newer or " decorated" style in Ireland, and across the Channel plenty of these, along with a growing quantity of Perpendicular work which could hardly have been altogether disregarded. It seems natural that when Irish building again became active these influences should have united to produce a vernacular or national style which owed a debt to all of them."

This delightful style and its later developments are composed of so great a variety of features and forms that it is useless to attempt a description of it here. The able way in which it has been handled by Mr. Champneys should be a strong induce- ment—if such be needed—to buy his book. As he points out, the immense amount of building which has taken place in Ireland in the last century has included scarcely one attempt to follow a national style. From such mid-Victorian designers as Ashlin, McCarthy, and the Hansons this was to be expected, but it is sad to find no evidence that men of genius such as 'Thomas Deane and Mr. W. H. Lynn have lacked either the opportunity or the inclination to carry on the traditions that survived even until the building of Derry Cathedral in 1633.

The Ronan Church has always been curiously indifferent to local tradition in architecture, but it may be hoped that the future will see the patriotic sentiments of which the Irishman is so lavish inducing him to pay some attention to his particular heritage in Art.