| Mounting our horses we rode off for Holy Cross, a village charmingly seated upon the river Suir, and surrounded by a fine country. // We entered the village over a bridge of nine or ten arches, and enquiring for the inn, were directed to a small house, the comfortless appearance of which gave but a bad earnest of its accommodations. Having conducted our horses through the second best room in the house, into the yard, we had the satisfaction of seeing them, however, well lodged, and while dinner was preparing we walked through the little garden of the inn to view the abbey; a most venerable piece of antiquity indeed, once giving its name to the surrounding district: its walls may be traced through all the neighbouring gardens, and half the houses in the village are composed of the spoils of this fine ruin. We entered from the back of the garden, by descending a very steep and broad flight of steps, into the south cross; nothing can exceed the elegant lightness of the decorations, and the whole being of black marble, the hardness and durability of which, firmly resisting the cor- // rosion of time, will probably descend to posterity a proud and tasteful monument of the style of the 10th century. The east end is so thickly mantled over with ivy that the great window is nearly choaked up, admitting but a few partial rays of the sun, but those fortunately rested upon the tomb of Donald, king of Limerick, the founder, and produced a most happy effect. Those rays, though feeble, were sufficient to disclose the beauties of this monument, in which simplicity and elegance are happily combined; the workmanship is exquisite and fresh as on the first day of its erection. In the south cross there are some curious remains of the shrine, in which was deposited (as the monks pretended) a piece of the cross on which Christ suffered; and to which this // abbey was dedicated, anno 1169. On the north chapel is a monument of Italian marble, the great slab is broken in two, the internal part full of bones. [pp. 33-36] |
