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LEINSTER 57
—Cyclopean architecture with a vengeance. But these
habitations of the dead are not exposed to daylight,
for over the whole structure was heaped a mound of
lesser stones, so huge that the whole thing covers an
acre of ground, and now, grass-grown and tree-covered,
stands out like a natural hill—into whose recesses
you may burrow fearfully along this amazing corridor.
Strange spiral ornamentation on the stones at New
Grange is the joy and bewilderment of archaeolo-
gists; and though we know the names of kings who
were buried there, we can only guess vaguely at the
builders of these structures, comparable to the tomb
under which Agamemnon rests in Mycenae.
Nearer to Drogheda, not less interesting, and far
more beautiful, are two monuments of Christian Ire-
land. One is the ancient monastic settlement of
Monasterboice, where stand a round tower, two small
ancient churches, and for its supreme interest, two
huge stone crosses covered with the most elaborate
sculpture, on Scriptural subjects, presenting churches,
monks, and warriors as they were in Ireland of the
ninth or tenth century. One of the two crosses is
signed by its deviser, Muiredach, probably the Muire-
dach whose death is recorded at 924 A.D., and purely
Celtic art has no more important monument.
A few miles off is the other ruin, which shows what
point monastic civilization had reached in Ireland