ormer
days upheld the central tower.

Other Cistercian foundations are commemorated in the names of
Abbey-leix in Queen's county, and Abbey-dorney and Abbey-feale in Kerry;
all three dating from after the reformation of the order by Saint
Bernard the Younger, though the work of that ardent missionary did not
apparently extend its influence to Ireland until a later date. This
reformer of the Cistercians must not be confused with the elder Saint
Bernard, whose hospice guards the pass of the Alps which bears his name.
Saint Bernard of the Alps died in 1008, while Saint Bernard the reformer
was born in 1093, dying sixty years later as abbot of Clara vallis or
Clairvaux, on the bank of the Aube in northern France. It was at this
Abbey of the Bright Vale, or Clara vallis, that Archbishop Maelmaedog
resigned his spirit to heaven, five years before the death of the
younger Saint Bernard, then abbot there. This is a link between the old
indigenous church and the continental orders of the Friars.

Killmallock Abbey, in Limerick, belonged to the order of the Dominicans,
founded by the scion of the Guzmans, the ardent apostle of Old Castile,
known to history as Saint Dominick. Here again we have a beautiful abbey
church with a square central tower, upborne on soaring and graceful
arches from the point where the nave joined the choir. There is only one
transept--on the south--so that the church is not fully cruciform, a
peculiarity shared by several other Dominican buildings. The eastern
window and the window of this transept are full of delicate grace and
beauty, each containing five lights, and marked by the singularly
charming manner in which the mullions are interlaced above. Enough
remains of the cloister and the domestic buildings for us to bring back
to life the picture of the old monastic days, when the good Friars
worked and prayed there, with the sunlight falling on them through the
delicate network of the windows.

Holycross Abbey, near Thurles in Tipperary, was another of the
Cistercian foundations, its charter, dating from 1182, being still in
existence. Its church is cruciform; the nave is separated from the north
aisle by round arches, and from the south aisle by pointed arches, which
gives it a singular and unusual beauty. The great western window of the
nave, with its six lights, is also very wonderful. Two chapels are
attached to the north transept, with a passage between them, its roof
supported by a double row