purpose different from a simple cell. There is an arcade of two arches in the north western corner of the Oratory. This has led to speculation that an aisle was built in this position at the time the tower house was built, in order to accommodate a larger congregation. By 1406 the Normans were firmly established in their sphere of influence, The Pale. One of their colonising projects was Norman control of the Church. The Norman method of operating suggests that they established at some time, at their convenience, their own incumbent priest in St Doulough's. The tower house could well have been built for such a person, to provide better accommodation and to project a sense of power. The building of the tower house might suggest consolidation rather than significant expansion since a rural population, possibly poor, was unlikely to expand. Funds for the tower house might otherwise have come from tithes, were funds from tithes available. A decree of the Synod of Cashel in 1170 ordered that tithes be paid by every man to his parish. However Geraldus Cambrensis stated in 1185 that the Irish do not yet pay tithes. Norman efficiency may well have rectified that. There are records of tithes being granted to the Abbey of St Thomas in Dublin in the late 1100s. In 1506 a grant of lands was made by John Burnell of Ballygriffin (Balgriffin) to John Young, chaplin of St Douloughs for a chantry in the chapel of St Douloughs. (Moss, 2002) This would have provided funds for the saying of Masses for Burnell, patron of the church and would have enables him to be buried within the church. An investigation by Leo Swan in 1987 found evidence of a late medieval burial in the north wall. This may the grave of John Burnell. There is nothing to suggest that the chantry involved the building of a separate chapel. In medieval times tombs in such a position were used as ‘Easter Sepulchres’, the devotional practice of placing the consecrated host on such a tomb on Good Friday and Holy Saturday, symbolic of the entombment of Jesus. (O’Keefe, 2015) That at least might be a possibility here. By 1630 St Douloughs had fallen on hard times. In visiting the building that year, Archbishop Burkeley found that the church was in a ruinous state with no ornaments and that the parishioners and indeed the