Priest's House

National Monument in state ownership No. 134. Situated within the main graveyard to the SW of the cathedral. A small rectangular building (dims. c. 4.5m x 2.4m) probably of twelfth-century date. Apart from the lower parts of the walls the remainder is a reconstruction. There is a Romanesque arched recess in the exterior of the E wall now closed by a thin wall with a small window opening. A shelf or seat forms the bottom of the recess. A door in the S wall features a fragmentary tympanum with three figures. The function of this building is uncertain; it became known as the 'Priest's House' as priests of the parish were buried there in the 18th century. A roughly quadrangular enclosure (dims. 30.5m x 22.9m) surrounded this structure and its north-east angle touched the south-west quoin of the cathedral. At about the centre of its E wall stands St Kevin's Cross (WI023-008013-). Healy describes five cross-slabs, thirty undecorated slabs, a cross-base and portion of a millstone within the enclosure. (Leask 1950, 18-20; Healy 1972, 6, 9, 16; Barrow 1992, 33-7)