An ancient Round Tower of much earlier date stands beside it like a campanile, nearly a hundred feet in height.
There is a legend that Rinuccini wanted to buy and carry away one of the great windows of this Cathedral, in which mass was celebrated while he was here.

The Cathedral contains some interesting monuments of the Butlers, and there are many curiously channelled burial slabs in the floor, like some still preserved in the ruins of Abbeyleix.

Lord de Vesci pointed out to me several tombs of families of English origin once powerful here, but now sunk into the farmer class.

On one of these I think it was that we saw a remarkably well-preserved effigy of a lady, wearing a plaited cap under a "Waterford cloak"-- one of the neatest varieties of the Irish women's cloak--garment so picturesque at once, and so well adapted to the climate, that I am not surprised to learn from Lady de Vesci that it is very fast going out of fashion.

This morning before we left Abbeyleix she showed us two such cloaks, types from two different provinces, each in its way admirable.