In the preceding chapters early churches and other Christian remains possessing characteristics distinctively Irish have been described. It has been stated that at the Anglo-Norman Conquest Irish architecture may be said to have ceased, the invaders having brought with them their own fashion of building, which was afterwards adopted by the Irish. How far the stone-roof style of building, which reached its culmination in King Cormac’s Chapel, could have been carried by builders working on their own free and independent lines we need not discuss. But never at any time could it be said that Ireland lay without the sphere of new influences, as we have tried to indicate in tracing this sketch of her pagan and early Christian remains. Irish-Romanesque work reached its highest development in the twelfth century; and during the latter half, to the beginning of the thirteenth century, a great change was witnessed in the style of architecture as applied to ecclesiastical edifices throughout the land. The rapid growth of the great monastic orders in England in time affected Ireland. From the Norman Conquest to the close of the reign of Edward III. it has been computed that 1200 institutions were founded in England, and of these 228 were established in the reigns of Stephen and Henry II.--a development which was more or less felt in the sister kingdom. A complete change was made at this period in the old monastic system which had existed from the first days of Christianity in Ireland. This was due to St. Malachy O’Morgair, the friend of St. Bernard of Clairvaux, and who died there when on a visit to him in 1148. He introduced the Cistercian Order, the greatest builders of all the Orders, and founded for them the first of their great monasteries in Ireland. Mellifont was established by St. Malachy in 1142; and in nine years Bective, Newry, Athlone, Monasteranenagh, Boyle, and Baltinglas were founded and affiliated to it; and before 1172 we are told that twenty-five Cistercian monasteries were established in the land. This is sufficient to show that modifying forces were at work before the Anglo-Norman invasion touched Irish shores. As we have seen, for several centuries previous to it, Irish architecture had been gradually undergoing a development, and had in some measure become what in England is known as the Norman style. Towards the close of the twelfth century the Irish kings and chiefs, and the Anglo-Norman earls and barons settled in Ireland, appear to have vied with each other in the erection of abbeys, the ruins of which, to this day, attest the zeal and power of their founders. Most of the monastic structures of this period, in their larger arches, exhibit beautiful examples of the earliest Pointed style, while the doorways and smaller openings remain semicircular, and frequently exhibit pure Norman details. Almost the last traces of peculiarly Celtic architectural art appear to have died out in Ireland about the close of the twelfth century.