The ruins of the great church of Boyle, like the ruins of Cashel, and like the historic hill of Tara, have been spoiled by the erection of modern buildings near them. Some parson has erected here a new, intensely vulgar gimcrack house that almost touches the hoary ruins, it is so close to them. It entirely spoils their effect, and would disgust any one with any veneration for the past. In no other country, perhaps, in the world has the want of respect for the antique been more manifest among the masses than in Ireland. In no other country have so many monuments of the past been more wantonly destroyed, more defaced, and less respected. If it had not been for the care exercised by the Board of Works, during the last thirty years, most of the ruins of Ireland would now be either entirely uprooted, or so marred, like the Rock of Cashel, or the Monastery of Boyle, by the erection of new buildings in their vicinity, that they would have little attraction for any one in whose soul there remained the slightest reverence for the past. There are, however, unmistakable signs that more patriotic and enlightened ideas about their country, and everything relating to it, are rapidly gaining ground among all classes of the Irish people, but especially among the more educated. Irish history, Irish antiquities, and even the Irish language get more of the attention of the upper and middle classes in Ireland now than they ever got before. It seems almost a certainty that the ancient monument-defacing epoch has passed, or is rapidly passing away from a country to which it has been a disgrace so long. It is not enough that the Board of Works should continue to do the good work it has been doing for the last quarter of a century in the preservation of our ruins, it should prevent such outrageous bad taste as the erection of new buildings in the very centre of time-honoured monuments like those on the Rock of Cashel and on the Boyle river.