When excavating at Clonmacnoise a few years ago I visited the fine tower house at Coole near Ferbane in the company of some members of the excavation team. We met the owner, Jim Egan, who kindly gave us access to the interior, which he keeps locked. In conversation he mentioned that a date could be seen high up within the dark vaulted interior when the sun shone at a certain angle through one of the windows. Returning sometime later we were able to see an inscription above a fireplace on the second floor with the aid of a torch but were unable to get close to it because the wooden floors had not survived. The date 1575 was clearly visible but certainty regarding the remainder of the inscription was impossible because of its inaccessibility. Subsequently, through the courtesy of Mr. Egan, who borrowed an extending ladder for me, I was able to get a rubbing of the inscription. It is in perfect condition, having always had the protection of the stone vault above it, and reads as follows: SEAGHA MACOCHL DO TINDSCAIN O SEO SUAS *1575*

With the contractions expanded, the first two words read SEAGHAN MACOCHLAIN and the entire inscription can be translated: "John Mac Coghlan began from here up *1575*".

This man was the Mac Coghlan of his day, Sir John Mac Coghlan, who died in the year 1590, an event recorded in the Annals of the Four Masters as follows:
"Mac Coghlan (John, son of Art, son of Cormac) died. There was not a man of his property, of the race of Cormac Cas, who had better furnished or more commodious courts, castles, and comfortable seats, than this John. His son, John Oge, was appointed in his place." The Mac Coghlans were the chiefs of Delbna Bethra or Delvin Mac Coghlan, a territory roughly corresponding with the present barony of Garrycastle, Co. Offaly. We know from other sources, including his will, that Sir John owned Coole Castle. A second inscribed stone plaque also referring to him, this time in Latin, was recorded by Lord Walter Fitzgerald at Lawrencetown, Co. Galway, in 1913. It must have been taken from one of the Mac Coghlan castles in Offaly and was translated in its incomplete state as follows: "This tower was built by the energy of Sir John Mac Coghlan, Knight, chief of his sept, at the proper cost of Sabia O'Dallaghan, on the condition that she should have it for her lifetime, and afterwards each of her sons according to their seniority, with her...". This plaque is most likely to have come from Coole Castle because, in his will, Sir John left Coole to his wife "as long as she should live unmarried" but if she married it was to be restored to her son John (Oge) Mac Coghlan, who in fact succeeded his father as the Mac Coghlan. This Latin inscription could well have been incorporated over the now missing doorway of the tower house or over the gateway of the bawn if it had such a feature. I would be grateful for information on the present whereabouts of this stone because the house where it was in 1913 (Belview, Lawrencetown) has since been demolished and I have not been able to trace it.

The background to this was that Sabia ODallaghan was Mac Coghlan's second wife, whom he married while his first wife (O'Molloy's daughter) was still alive and had apparently borne him sons. Mathew de Renzy, writing scurrilously about the Mac Coghlans in 1616, states that Sir John "growing weary of her (his first wife) put her away and took the daughter of Hugh 0 Dalaghan from her owne marryed husband, a gentleman of Connaght, and begott on her 9 or 10 bastards whereof this Sir John (John Oge) is one". One can understand Sabia's concerns in having the Latin inscription erected to act as a permanent record of what could have been something like a prenuptial agreement. The tower house has some fine decorated features, such as patterned dressing on many of the quoin and jamb stones and five decorated ventilators. Two of these are in the form of a triscele, one of which is surrounded by a circle of interlacing. Two of the ventilators serve garderobes (toilets); the remaining three serve other small mural chambers. One is tempted to see the woman's touch in these fine decorative embellishments and in the provision of two garderobes, the equivalent, in their day, of en suite bathrooms.

The date on the new inscription is not inconsistent with the building but the reason for carving it is a puzzle. It would appear to indicate that the building operations were interrupted and then resumed by Sir John in 1575. As there is no noticeable change in the style of the masonry above the level of the inscription the interruption would not appear to have been of any great duration. The Annals of the Four Masters record an event which may have been responsible for the cessation of work and this was the rebellion of the sons of the Earl of Clanrickard in 1572 who actually went through Delvin Mac Coghlan with their army. Matters remained unsettled in Ireland until the return of Sir Henry Sidney as Lord Deputy in 1575, the same man who had knighted Mac Coghlan in 1570. The likelihood of peaceful conditions may have prompted Sir John to resume work on the tower house and record the event. It may be significant that what was probably the more public inscription was in Latin while the inscription in Irish was in a more private location within the building. He had his gravestone carved in the following year (the 19th year of Queen Elizabeth's reign) and this survives in the old graveyard in Banagher. The inscription, which is in Latin, also records that in that year the tribute payable to O'Melaghlin (the overlord of Mac Coghlan) was suppressed, probably by Sidney who, according to the Four Masters, was abolishing the exactions of lords and overlords in Munster in the year 1576.

The carving of inscriptions on tower houses and other buildings in Ireland became popular towards the end of the 16th century and continued throughout much of the following one. Often the inscription was carved on the lintel or arch stones of a fire-place and in many cases it consists only of the initials of the owner and his wife along with the date. This may only date the fireplace and not the entire building, as at Barryscourt in Co. Cork. The inscription at Coole is different from many of these in that it is not an integral part of the fireplace and in fact dates the resumption of building work. Mostly the inscriptions are in Latin. I have come across only one other inscription in Irish on a building of this general period and that is the plaque from the Mac Egan law school at Park, Co. Galway, dated 1627.

The first edition of this work, published in London in 1654, contains less information than the second edition and does not have this engraving. The better-known bird's-eye view of St Patrick's Purgatory, Lough Derg, as well as a number of other illustrations are in both editions.

The plan shows Clonmacnoise viewed from the west, with the boundary wall of the graveyard on the same line as today, apart from alterations made to the west boundary in the 1950s. The strange kick out in the wall at the bottom is the round tower as misinterpreted by the engraver, who must have been working from an original by someone else. The churches are shown more or less in their correct positions relative to each other, though C should be further to the north, while A and B should be more to the west. "Temple Finian" (K), depicted with its round tower belfry and three churches (G, H and I) which do not survive today, are shown also incorporated in the boundary. All of the churches are identified by letter and this is the earliest source for the names of the churches. Only two crosses are shown: the Cross of the Scriptures in front of the Cathedral and another in the south-east segment of the graveyard. Close to the latter is a small tomb-like feature. This could be the tomb of an early thirteenth-century bishop of Clonmacnoise called Murtogh O'Murry or Muiredach Ua Muirecén which Bishop Anthony Dopping described as being 'beyond the Cathedral on the east end' in 1664. The fact that all the churches are depicted with roofs need not be taken as evidence that all were roofed at this stage and certainly the aisles depicted on the Cathedral and 'Temple Conor' are fanciful.

The inscription at the base shows that the engraver was Wenceslaus Hollar (1607-1677) who also signed the other full-page illustrations in both editions of the book. Hollar is well known for illustrations of famous buildings in London and crowd scenes such as the trial and execution of the Earl of Strafford. There is a related sketch plan among the Ware manuscripts in the British Museum (Additional MS 4784- I am grateful to Siobhan de hÒir for this reference). It is not the original for the engraving but both are likely to be derived from a more complete original sketch.

The second oldest printed plan of Clonmacnoise is in Harris's edition of the works of James Ware, first published in 1739. As well as a plan, this large foldout engraving contains views and elevations based on a survey and sketches by Jonas Blaymires. Fortunately a letter from Blaymires to Harris, describing his work on the site in 1738, has been published (JRSAI 11(1870), 256-8). It is worth quoting here (right) at length as a commentary on the illustration and because it is both amusing and evocative of the period.

Blaymires's plan is of great interest in that it is much more accurate than the earlier bird's-eye view but shows some of the same detail such as the three extra churches and the east cross. The general view shows the couples of the roof of Temple Kieran still surviving along with the east gable of the Cathedral. Part of the roof of Temple Doolin, which then served as a Protestant parish church, can be seen. Temple Kelly, of which only fragments of the base of the wall survive today, is depicted as a substantial ruin. The chancel arch of the Nun's Church is depicted with only its inner order intact but precariously balanced. It remained thus until it fell in the middle of the last century and was subsequently reconstructed by the Kilkenny and South-east of Ireland Archaeological Society. All things considered, Blaymires did produce a remarkable record of the site and we can forgive him for boasting about it!

Francoise Henry used the 1658 plan as evidence that the cross at Bealin, Co. Westmeath was originally at Clonmacnoise. This is by no means certain and the east cross indicated on these plans may be represented by one of the cross fragments known from the site. Also, in an anonymous article in the 1951 number of the Journal of the Ardagh and Clonmacnoise Antiquarian Society, it is argued convincingly that Twyford, where the Bealin Cross formerly stood, was the site of Iseal Chiaráin, a place mentioned in the Lives of St Ciaran and in the annals. It may always have had this cross.

In an article in Archaeology Ireland some years ago (Vol. 8, No. 1) I described early published plans of Clonmacnoise: (1) engraved by Hollar in the second edition of Sir James Ware's Hibernia et antiquitatibus eius disquisitiones (1658) and (2) by Blaymires in Harris's edition of Ware's works (1739). I referred in the article to a manuscript plan among the Ware Manuscripts in the British Library (Additional MS 4784) which, though related, was not the source for Hollar's engraving, but at the time I was not aware of a more original plan in the same collection. William O'Sullivan, having read my article, was kind enough to inform me of its existence in Add. MS 4787 and of the fact that the words Taken in Octob. 1621' are written on it. He added the important information that it is in Ware's hand but is likely to be a copy of a plan perhaps prepared for James Ussher when the latter was exploring his new diocese of Meath in the year of his appointment as bishop. In the Established Church, Clonmacnoise had been united with Meath since 1569.

The plan is here published, I think, for the first time. I qualify this because in the last article I claimed that Hollar's engraving was there published for the first time since 1658, only to discover subsequently that a version of it appeared in the translated edition of Ware's works (1705) and again in a Latin edition published in the nineteenth century. There can be no doubt that the original plan of 1621, of which the plan here reproduced is probably a reasonable copy, is the ultimate source of Hollar's engraving of 1658, and that therefore the information in that engraving, with certain provisos, refers to the year 1621 and not to the 1650s. The main caveat regarding the 1658 plan is that the three-dimensional depiction the churches complete with roofs is fanciful. Ussher, in a report on the diocese of Meath dated 28 May 1622, recorded ten churches in the graveyard of Clonmacnoise, of which only two were in reasonably good repair. Which two these were he does not say. They may or may not be the same two recorded by Bishop Dopping as being roofed in 1684: 'Temple Keran' and 'Temple Hurpan'. The cathedral was repaired in 1647 but had again become ruined by 1684.

The manuscript plan is a sketch of the graveyard at Clonmacnoise with its churches crosses and enclosing wall. The churches are identified by letters, referring to a list at the bottom of the page. Figures indicate the length in feet of different stretches of the polygonal enclosing wall, the length of "Temple Finin" and 'Temple Killeene', the length and breadth of 'Temple Kelly' (34ft x 24ft) and possibly the depth (l6ft) of the vaulted sanctuary of the cathedral or 'Temple McDermot'. Three crosses are marked: the Cross of the Scripture very prominently, the South Cross, and a further cross, only faintly marked, to the south east. Near the latter is a small rectangular feature which might be the tomb of an early thirteenth-century bishop, referred to specifically in the 1684 account by Dopping The North Cross, of which only the shaft survives, was presumably overlooked. In the south-east corner of the graveyard a rectangular building is shown with cross-hatching. The foundations of this late medieval domestic structure are still visible and Blaymires identified it as 'The residentiary house of the Dean, Archdeacon etc.' Entrances are shown in the enclosing wall facing north, south, east and west; those to the west and south are shown as gaps, but the other two are depicted as arched openings. Similar arch symbols are used to indicate the famous north door of the cathedral and the south door of 'Temple Finin', which must have been complete at that time.

A note in Latin in the top right-hand corner refers to the fact that the see was united with Meath in the 11th year of Elizabeth (1569). Below the bottom right-hand corner of the sketch are the words 'Taken in Octob. [corrected from 'about August'] 1621'. A crease, fold or stretch-mark in the paper, running horizontally across the page, causes a line of distortion affecting the enclosing wall at each side and 'Temple Rey' and 'Temple Keran'.

Hollar's engraving of 1658 contains most of the information in the manuscript plan but he converted it into a bird's-eye view and showed all the churches roofed. He mistook the depiction of the round tower in the sketch-plan for a strange protrusion in the enclosing wall. The south cross and the residential building got overlooked along the way, and presumably the measurements were deliberately omitted. The sketch is reasonably accurate with regard to the relative proportions and positions of the churches, whereas the engraving places 'Temple Keran' and 'Temple Rey' too far from the others and 'Temple Conner' too close. The care taken with the original sketch allows us to conclude that what we now call Temple Hurpan, attached to the east end of Temple Dowling, did not exist in 1621. It is, however, clearly shown in Blaymires's plan of 1738 and therefore must date from the intervening period.

This plan is an important document, more authentic and reliable in every way than Hollar's print and much closer to the original of 1621. It further pushes back the age of the enclosing wall of the graveyard and provides additional evidence for the east cross, last shown by Blaymires in 1738, and the tomb-like feature beside it which Blaymires does not show. It must be among the earliest surviving antiquarian plans of an Irish site.