of pointed arches upheld by twisted pillars.
The roof is delicately groined, as is the roof of the choir, and the
whole abbey breathes a luxuriant richness of imagination, bearing
everywhere the signs of high creative genius. The same lavish
imagination is shown everywhere in the interlaced tracery, the black
limestone giving the artist an admirable vehicle for his work. Though
the charter dates from the twelfth century, some of the work is about
two centuries later, showing finely the continuity of life and spiritual
power in the old monastic days.

[Illustration: Holy Cross Abbey, Co. Tipperary.]

The Friars of Saint Augustine, who were in possession of the abbey at
Newtown on the Boyne, had another foundation not far from West port in
Mayo, in the Abbey of Ballintober, founded in 1216 by a son of the great
Ruaidri Ua Concobar. Here also we have the cruciform church, with four
splendid arches rising from the intersection of nave and choir, and once
supporting the tower. The Norman windows over the altar, with their
dog-tooth mouldings, are very perfect. In a chapel on the south of the
choir are figures of the old abbots carved in stone.

One of the Ui-Briain founded a Franciscan Abbey at Ennis in Clare about
1240, which is more perfectly preserved than any of those we have
described. The tower still stands, rising over the junction of nave and
choir; the refectory, chapter house, and some other buildings still
remain, while the figure of the patron, Saint Francis of Assisi, still
stands beside the altar at the north pier of the nave.

Clare Abbey, a mile from Ennis, was founded for the Augustine Friars in
1195, and here also the tower still stands, dominating the surrounding
plain. Three miles further south, on the shore of Killone Lake, was yet
another abbey of the same period, while twenty miles to the north, at
Corcomroe on the shore of Galway Bay, the Cistercians had yet
another home.

We might continue the list indefinitely. Some of the most beautiful of
our abbeys still remain to be recorded, but we can do no more than give
their names: Bonamargy was built for the Franciscans in Antrim in the
fifteenth century; the Dominican priory at Roscommon dates from 1257;
the Cistercian Abbey of Jerpoint in Kilkenny was begun in 1180; Molana
Abbey, in Waterford, was built for the Augustinians on the site of a
very old church; and finally Knockmoy Abbey in Galway, famous for its
fourteenth century frescoes, was begun