f the walls of the cell itself; and,
further, the passage has been coated over with the same dense plaster as
that still seen adhering at different points to the interior of the
oratory. It is impossible to fix the original height of the walls of
this passage, but probably these walls were so high at one time, near
the entrance at least into the oratory, as to be there arched over; for,
as stated in the text, the stones composing the outer or external arch
of the doorway offer that appearance of irregular fracturing which they
would necessarily show if the archway had been originally continued
forward, and subsequently broken across parallel with the line or face
of the south side wall. It is perhaps not uninteresting here to add,
that in Icolmkill a similar walled walk or entrance led into the small
house or building of unknown antiquity, named the "Culdee's Cell." In
the old _Statistical Account_ (1795), this cell is described as "the
foundation of a small circular house, upon a reclining plain. From the
door of the house a walk ascends to a small hillock, with the remains of
a wall upon each side of the walk, which grows wider to the
hillock."--(_Statistical Account of Scotland_, vol. xiv. p. 200.) At the
old heremetical establishment of St. Fechin, on High Island, Connemara,
there is "a covered passage, about 15 feet long and 3 wide," leading
from the oratory to the supposed nearly circular, dome-roofed cell of
the Abbot.--(Dr. Petrie's _Ecclesiastical Architecture_, p. 425.)]

[Footnote 51: This window seems very ancient, and no mistake! Compare it
with the window of the oratory near Kilmalkedar, in my _Towers_, p. 184.
First edition.--P.]

[Footnote 52: This fact is, I think, very interesting and important as
an evidence of the great antiquity of the building. Such built-passages
are often found in Ireland connected with small churches and oratories
of the sixth and seventh centuries, but never, to my knowledge, with any
of a later age. They may, in fact, be considered as characteristic
appendages, or accompanying features, to the ecclesiastical structures
of those times. There is one at Rathmichael, near Dublin, where there is
the butt of a round tower. I have seen many of them in various states of
preservation, and I think all were about 4 feet both in breadth and
height. They were, however, never arched, but roofed with large flags,
laid horizontally, and their upper surface level with the surrounding
ground.-