Dingle's beautiful enigma

One of the most beautiful ancient buildings in Ireland, the mysterious and serene Gallarus Oratory, is also the most distinctive single monument of the Dingle Peninsula - an area rich in archaeology, particularly early church sites, beehive huts and related objects of religious and pilgrimage significance.

The oratory is the best preserved, though not the sole surviving - as is often wrongly assumed - early-Irish, boat-shaped small church built along the same corbel technique used in the construction of beehive huts. There are about 20 such structures in Ireland, mainly on the Dingle Peninsula but the others, including Teampull Manchβin, or Templemanaghan, are far less celebrated, their stone roofs having long since collapsed.

There is little doubt the corbel technique is better suited to the round beehive huts. With rectangular structures such as these boat-shaped churches, the long sides create an obvious weak point, as is evident from their tendency to collapse inwards.

Gallarus, however, while there are signs of sagging, has not yet faltered. It is a superb example of the art of dry stone masonry at its most skilled and elegant. The flat-headed or lintelled doorway most likely once contained a wooden door or a curtain hung over the entrance, as a line of stones above the doorway suggests. The square, open entrance allows some light in.

Further light enters the dark, cave-like and peaceful building through its simple rounded window in the east wall. The little chapel, near which stands a cross-inscribed stone, is well situated in an open site with fine views of Smerwick Harbour to the west. From the east-facing window, the brooding presence of Mount Brandon adds an element of drama.

Aside from the great mountain's visual impact, there is also its significance as a place of pilgrimage. As Peter Harbison outlines in his award-winning study, Pilgrimage in Ireland (London,1991), Gallarus Oratory, located only a few hundred yards from the Saint's Road, along which pilgrims would have made their way up to the summit of Mount Brandon to honour St Brendan, must have been a pilgrimage site.

The slight physical detour seems to have been caused not only to facilitate the views but also to enable pilgrims to assess Brandon - a 3,000-feet climb.

As atmospheric as the magnificent Cormac's Chapel on the Rock of Cashel, Gallarus Oratory possesses an austere simplicity. Having invariably visited it at early morning or late evening, never at a busy time, I have yet personally to see the widely reported antics of some visitors posing on the roof for photographs. It is a shame that anyone could endanger such a wonderful monument.

THERE was a local custom by which people, mainly children, used to climb out of the oratory by way of the window in order to secure their place in Heaven. This custom has since fallen out of use, possibly because we are trusting more to faith or fate - or hopefully because of increased conservation awareness. Gallarus Oratory is a legally protected national monument in State care but attention is also needed at a local level.

Far more positive was a recent event. The oratory was beautifully celebrated in 1998 when Dingle's arts and literary festival, Feile Na Bealtaine, organised an early morning vigil of song, 'Ceolfhoireann Gealadh an Lae' (the Brightening Chorus of the Dawn, or the Dawn Chorus) at 6a.m. one May morning. The little church is an inspiring place. An early poem by Seamus Heaney, 'In Gallarus Oratory' (from Door into the Dark, Faber, 1969), evokes the sense of this wonderful building as an active place of prayer.

You can still feel the community pack

This place; it's like going into a turfstack,

A core of old dark walled up with stone

A yard thick. When you're in it alone

You might have dropped, a reduced creature

To the heart of the globe. No worshipper

Would leap up to his God off this floor.

The poet's response to Gallarus is the most eloquent statement, a fitting tribute to a miracle of art and engineering that continues to withhold the exact date of its construction.

For all the fame of its physical image, the oratory does not feature in any historic documentary source. Its location along a pilgrimage route can not be mere coincidence, its pilgrimage status is clearly secure. Suggested dates of origin vary from the 7th Century to as late as the 12th. No one knows. While early in style, its perfection may well be due to its being built later - possibly benefiting from the experience of earlier, less refined attempts. Even so, its enigma remains intact, as enduring as its beauty.