IRISH NATIONAL MONUMENTS.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume IV, Issue 188, 3 November 1876, Page 13

IRISH NATIONAL MONUMENTS.

The report of the Commissioners of Public Works in Ireland for the year ending 31st of March, 1876, has been printed. We find under the head of National monuments that fifteen most interesting groups of ruins have been taken possession of by the Board. The list includes the Rock of Cashel, the Churches and Round Towers and Crosses of Devenish, Donoughmore (Tyrone), Monaslerboice, Donaghmore (Meaih), Killala, Killamery, Kilkieran, Kilclespeen, Glendalough, St. Colj^nb's House, Kells, the Cathedrals of Ardmore and Ardfert, and CWfierus Church. The Board has given strict orders to its officers to carefully preserve these ruins, but not in any way to make any attempt at restoration. We miss from the list a great number of structures of the first interest, and especially note the absence of the beautiful monastic ruins with which Ireland is so rich. The monuments arp a treasure which every Irishman should prize ; and the following item of news relative to them, which came by one of the late mails, is calculated to afford pleasure : " At a general meeting of the Royal Irish Academy, the President, Dr. Stokes, delivered an inaugural address, in the course of which, after referring to several of the most interesting papers read before the Academy during the last session, he said he sincerely hoped that Sir John Lubbock's Ancient Monuments' Bill would be passed during the next session of Parliament. No effort should be spared by Irish members in support of the measure. He would strongly urge on the Academy the desirability of recommending a uniform administration and consolidation of funds for the preservation of ancient monuments in Ireland, and that the direction and administration of this work should be left in the hands of the Irish Government. He also desired to draw attention to the extremely defective character of the list of ancient Irish monuments now before the Church Temporalities Commissioners, a list which only specified twenty monuments. Of the one hundred and twenty-five Round Towers which -were noticed as in existence at the close of the last century, only seventy-five were now standing. The great Crosses, which exhibited the most ancient and perfect examples of sculpture in the country, and a much larger number of the most important and ancient churches, could be included in the list. Dr. Stokes added that the work of preservation, rather than restoration, already achieved at Cashel and at Ardmore, gave the best hopes for the cause of this department of archaeology." What Irishman, at home or abroad, but wilAeel grateful to Dr. Stokes for his enlightened and patriotic 'efforts to preserve from destruction the ancient monuments of Ireland ? The statement is saddening that "of the one hundred and twenty-five Round Towers which were noted as in existence at the close of the last century, only seventy-five are now standing." It will be truly a shame if, through the neglect and carelessness of the present generation, they are allowed to perish after having for centuries so nobly resisted the wasting power of Time ! The verses of Dennis Florence McCarthy on " The Pillar Towers of Ireland" contain a mute appeal for their preservation. may be permitted to cite the first two stanzas : The Pillar Towers of Ireland, how vondrously they staid By the '.vkes aud rushiug jivers, through tho valleys of our l,md • lv mystic file throughout ibe isle, they l'ft their heads subume These gray old pi liar temples— these conquerors of Time ! Beside these gray old pillars how perishing and weak The Homau'B aich of triumph, and the temple of the Greek • And the gold domes of Byzantium and the poiuted Gothic spires ■ All are goue, one by one, but the temples of our sires. We earnestly hope that effective measures will be taken to preserve these relics of Ireland's past greatness. The preservation of her ancient language and literature will be the surest means of keeping alive the spirit of nationality, and of transmitting from generation to generation that love of country for which her children have been remarkable. — ' Boston Pilot.'