The Round Towers of Ireland.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXX, Issue 27, 3 July 1902, Page 20

The Round Towers of Ireland.

There are no structures in Europe, or perhaps in the world (say* an exchange"), that have caused so much discussion as che Round Towers of Ireland ; for, as there are no literary memorials of the exact time of their erection, nor by whom, conjecture has been nearly exhausted in the inquiries concerning- them. Though history is silent as to the time of erection, founders, or use, yet the minute researches of antiquarioi leave little room to doubt of their having: been erected for belfries ; which opinion is confirmed aomewhat by their shape, for though they differ in many respects, yet all have four apertures near the top, answering to the cardinal points, pro. bably to let out the sound. The tower of Ardmore, in the county of Waterfcrd, ttrengtbens the opinion that they v ere belfries: for near the top, inside, are still three pieoes of oak, evidently for hanging a bell. There «re also two channels cut in the sill of the door, where the rope may be supposed to have oome out, the ringer standing outside. This tower in well built of hewn stone, which leads to the conjecture that its erection is much later than some have imagined probable— in the ninth or tenth oentury. The first foreign writer who was struck with the singular appearanoe of these towers was Giraldus Cambrenßia, who landed in Ireland a few years after the English invasion in the twelth century. Cambrensia called them ' Ecclesiastical towers, which, after the fashion of the country, are slender, high, and round. 1 Taking ecclesiastical in the widest sense — belonging to a place for religious worship — it does not determine the time of the ereotion nor the particular use for which they were intended. The arguments of Molyneaux, or any other writer, that the ancient round towers of Ireland were the work of the Daneß are fallacious. The Danes never erected such in their own country, nor in England, or Sootland, which they possessed longer than they did Ireland. In fact, so far from the Danes introducing stone architecture into Ireland, they found it flounphing in that country, and burned and ruined the fineßt buildings and destroyed every kind of civilisation wherever their ravages extended — thus doing in Ireland precisely as they did in France and England, as all historians teßtify. The late Dr. George Petrie, the most distinguished Irish antiquarian who has investigated, ia of opinion that the round towers were the work of Christian architects from the sixth to the tenth oentury, and that they were used : (1) as belfries (2) as strongholds or houses of shelter into whioh, in times of danger, the people might retreat ; and (3 > aR watch tow«ra ami beacons. His work was published in 1845. In its preparation be had the aid of the best Celtic scholars of the day ; and it is admitted that thi« work contains more solid information on the antiquities of Ireland than any other ever published. Of the remains of some 120 round towers to be seen in Ireland at the present day, few of them can be said to be perfect One at Drumkeen, County Louth is 130 feet high ; that at Fertagh, County Kilkenny, 112 feet high; Kilmacduagh, County Galway, Monasterboise, CouDty Louth and Kildare, are each 100 feet; one at Kells, County Meath, measures H'J feet ; Cloyne, County Cork, ia 92 feet high ; Deveni^-h, County Fermanagh, 71 feet; Tegbadow, County Kildare, 71 feet ; Cashel, County Tipperary, 55ft ; Kilcullen, County Kildare, 40 feet. The round tower at Swords, County Dublin, is 95 feet high, with a circumference of $:> feet, the wall* being 4ft Bin in thickneßß. It stands close by the site of an ancient monastery founded by St. Columba in 512, and with which the round tower was supposed to be coeval. It was in this monastery that the body of Brian Boru was brought after the battle of Clontarf. The most perfect of the round towers is in Antrim. It Btandi 80ft high, and is built on a solid rock The door, 7 feet above the ground, is towards the north. It is 2 feet wide and 5 feet high. There are four openings toward the top, correaponding to the four cardinal points of the compass. It is built with lime cement. There are two others of these towers in Antrim County, one on Ram's Island, the largest island in Lough Neagh, one and a half miles from the shore, and one at Annoy. Almost all the round towers are divided into imperfect stories of different heights, the floors supported by projecting stones put into the walls at building. Cashel tower is divided into fiveetories; Ferta?h has five, Kilcullen three, and Kildare six. The door of Cashel faces the south-east, those of Kilkenny arid Kildare couth, and the others almost all east. The door in the tower of Kilmaoduagh ie the highest from the ground, 24 feet ; the lowest is that of Swords, 2 feet. The circumference varies from 55 feet (Swords) to 38 feet (I'eghadow). Two round towers, similar in all reepects to the Irish type, are to be seen in the yet extant plan of the monastery of St. Gall, in Switzerland, of the first half of the ninth century, and in the Latin inscription attached to the plan they are said to be ad univerea euperspicienda. The church and towers as rebuilt at that date are no longer in existence, but the latter were probably introduced in honor of the founder of the monastery, who was the leader of a colony of Irish monks who, early in the Bixth century, carried civilisation and religion into the fastnesses of the Alps.