SNIPPET: At Monasterboice, ornate Celtic crosses and round tower are some of the remains of a monastery founded by St. Buithe in the 5th century. This ruined monastery is visit-worthy - the ornately carved high crosses are some of the best in Ireland. In the Dark Ages, these crosses, illustrated from top to bottom with Bible stories, gave monks a teaching tool as they preached to the illiterate masses. Today, Monasterboice, basically an old graveyard, is always open and free. The 18-foot tall Cross of Murdock (Muiredach's cross, A. D. 923) was named after an abbot. The carved sandstone's center panel shows the Last Judgment, with Christ under a dove symbolizing the Holy Spirit. Those going to heaven are on Christ's right, and the damned are being ushered away by devils on the left. Other scenes depict the Magi, Moses, scenes from the life of David, Adam, Eve, and Cain slaying Abel. Richard LOVETT, an English traveller to Ireland in 1888, wrote - "The graveyard is still in use, and within the more ancient church is a circular granite stone, probably the shaft of an ancient font. Whenever a funeral takes place, the body is carried around the enclosure and then placed for a few minutes upon this stone." Quoting now from somewhat earlier literature -- "In the 'Dublin Penny Journal' is a description of this scene, interesting for its own sake, and also because it came from the pen of Dr. PETRIE, with which we close our sketch of Monasterboice -- 'In its present deserted and ruined state it is a scene of the deepest and most solemn interest; and the mind must indeed be dull and earthly in which it fails to awaken feelings of touching and permanent interest. Silence and solitude the most profound are impressed on all its time-worn features. We are among the dead only, and we are forced, as it were, to converse with men of other days. In all our frequent visi! ts to these ruins we never saw a living human being among them but once. It was during a terrific thunderstorm, which obliged us to seek shelter behind one of the stone crosses for an hour. The rain poured down in impetuous torrents, and the clouds were so black as to give day the appearance of night. It was at such an awful hour that a woman of middle age, finely formed, and of noble countenance, entered the cemetery, and regardless of the storm raging around, flung herself down upon a grave, and commenced singing an Irish lamentation in tones of heart-rending melancholy and surpassing beauty. This she carried on as long as we remained; and her voice, coming on the ear between the thunder peals, had an effect singularly wild and unearthly; it would be fruitless to attempt a description of it. The reader, if he knows what an Irishwoman's song of sorrow is, must imagine the effect it would have at such a moment among those lightening-shattered ruins, and chanted by such a liv! ing vocal monument of human woe and desolation. We subsequently learned, on inquiry, that this poor creature's history was a sad one; she was slightly crazed, in consequence of the death of her only son, who had been drowned; and her mania lay in a persuasion, which nothing could remove, that he was not lost, but would yet return to bless her, and close her long-weeping eyes in peace.'"