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more was used for a belfry, there being, towards the top, three pieces of oak still remaining, on which the bell was hung." He adds that "there were also two channels cut in the cill of the door, where the rope came out, the ringer standing below the door, on the outside." It is certain that several of these towers are at present used as belfries, but that circumstance affords no proof that such was the purpose for which they were originally designed. The same author, in the History of Cork, observes that "the use to which ancient Irish MSS. ascribe these towers, was that of imprisoning penitents." According to these authorities," the penitents were placed on the top of the tower, and having made a probation of a particular number of days, in proportion to their crimes, they were admitted to descend to the next floor, and so on, till they came to the door, which always faced the entrance of the church; where they stood, and received absolution of the clergy, and blessings of the people."

If the manuscripts on which this intelligence is founded, were proved to be as antient as the time of those customs which they affect to describe, there would scarcely be any necessity for further inquiry. But Dr. Smith is contented with merely terming them "antient ;" and their age was, in fact, unknown, but was probably not very great.

General Vallancey, indulging in a boldness of conjecture which has met with little respect from succeeding writers, attributes these towers to a Pagan origin, and supposes them to have been erected by the "old Irish, or Aire-Coti." These people he believes to have been the "Ar-Coti of Caucasus, and the AraCotii of Dionysius, from the borders of the Indus, whence they were called Indo-Scythæ; they there mixed with the Brahmins, who at that period built round towers for the preservation of the holy fire, in imitation of which those in Ireland and Scotland were built."

In other pages of the same Essay, General Vallancey contends that it is evident from Irish history that "in ancient Ireland, as in ancient Persia, there were two sects of fire-worshippers; one that lighted the fires on tops of mountains and hills, and others in

towers. The Pagan Irish worshipped Crom cruait, the same God Soraster adored, in fire, first on mountains, then in caves, and lastly in towers; this fire worship, says Irish history, was introduced by a certain draoi, named Midhghe. The pyramidal flame seems to have given the idea of the round towers, which were conical, and ended in a point at top, both in Hindoostan and in Ireland."

Although General Vallancey supposes the round towers of Ireland to have been erected by the worshippers of fire, he believes that they may have been applied to the use of bells at a very early period. This opinion he expresses in the following words: "That these towers were used as belfries, there can be no doubt; and why they should not have been so used before Christianity was introduced, I know no reason. The same cause existed, namely, that of assembling the people to devotion. The Egyptians had bells; and the Irish Ceol (Keol) a bell, and its diminutive Keolan, a little bell, was certainly derived from the Egyptian Kel, a bell."

Dr. Ledwich, who has examined with much critical severity the whole that has been written on the subject of these curious towers, is of opinion that the first specimens in Ireland were erected by the Ostmen, or Danes, and that the towers constructed by that people were " imitated by the Irish." He believes them to have been the " common appendages to wooden churches," and thinks it to be "more than probable that they served as belfries from the beginning, as five or six of them at this day certainly do."*

It arises, as an obvious objection to the above system, that no towers of this description are seen in the country whence the Ostmen, or Danes, proceeded. In reply to an objection so forcible, Dr. Ledwich presents the following, among other remarks: "Confining myself, as I ever wish to do, to matters of fact, and knowing that belfries abroad were distinct from the Church, and that the two Round Towers at Grymbald's crypt at Oxford, and

Ledwich's Antiqs. p. 159, and Introduction to ancient Irish Architecture, prefixed to the Second Volume of Grose's Antiqs. of Ireland, p. ix.

the Round Steeple to the Church of Aix la Chapelle, exhibited by Montfaucon in his Monuments of the French Monarchy, belong to the ninth century, I conclude the rotund figure of our towers was adopted from the Continent, between which and Ireland a constant intercourse was maintained, particularly in that age. 'Our writers,' says O'Flaherty, glory in many missioners of religion, professors of learning and piety, bred and born in Ireland, who were famous in France, as well in Charles the Great's time, as before and after him.' These missioners, who frequently revisited their native country, might have taken the hint of our Round Towers from what they saw abroad."

We must consider this mode of argument, as to the derivation of the fashion observable in the towers of Ireland, to be extremely unfortunate. It is by no means an acknowledged fact that the turrets termed by our author "two round towers at Grymbald's crypt," were built in the ninth century. The external evidence that St. Peter's at Oxford, beneath which church is placed the crypt of St. Grymbald, is a Saxon structure, rests entirely on a paragraph that first appeared in Camden's edition of Asser's Life of Alfred, and which is not found in the MSS. of that author now extant. There are, indeed, some weighty reasons for believing that this church was built at a later period, by the AngloNormans. * At whatever date might be erected the "towers" at the east end, they have little connexion of character with the lofty, rotund, structures in Ireland. They are, in fact, merely diminutive turrets, forming part of the eastern façade of the church; and are similar in no other points than those of being round, and having a conical capping.

It is equally improbable that the peculiar mode of design evinced in the Irish towers was 66 adopted from the continent." The church of Aix la Chapelle, writes Mr. Whittington, in his Survey of the Ecclesiastical Antiquities of France, "was constructed in the manner of the ancient Basilica, with two porticoes, or colonnades, one over the other, on each side, like the churches of St.

* See an Essay on the subject of St. Peter's in the East, Oxford, in Britton's Arch. Antiqs. vol. iv.

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Lawrence and St. Agnes, which were built at Rome about the same time."

Such churches of the 9th century as still remain on the continent, or are accurately described by credible writers, evince that debased modification of Grecian and Roman architecture, to which we attribute, in an ensuing page, on sound authority, the introduction into Ireland and Britain of the style often denominated Saxon. They exhibit, observes Mr. Whittington, "the most striking examples of barbarous deformity. The architects of them employed the most costly and beautiful columns to support diminutive arches, and high masses of wall, disfigured with uncouth painting, or covered with glittering, but frightful, mosaic work." We cannot believe that from such subjects of architectural study the Irish Missioners derived the model of those plain, aspiring, and massy towers, which have survived the wreck of all contemporary structures.

Dr. Ledwich places great value on the support which his argument, as to a Danish origin of these towers, receives from the similarity of opinion entertained by every author" for the space of 542 years, that is, from Cambrensis to Molyneux." But it is obvious, that all these opinions are conjectural, and comparatively modern. We have noticed the long interval of inquiry which took place between the time of Cambrensis and that of Lynch, who wrote in 1662. The coincidence of opinion in desultory modern authors, all destitute of historical document, is no potent auxiliary in the development of facts relating to antiquity.

The most judicious remarks, on the curious subject of these fabrics, are contained in the work entitled" A Historical and Critical Inquiry into the Origin and Primitive Use of the Irish PillarTower," by Colonel Hervey De Montmorency-Morres, published in 1821. This truly respectable writer believes that the founders of these towers were our primitive Cœnobites and Bishops, munificently supported in the undertaking by the newly-converted Kings and Toparchs; the builders and architects being those monks and pilgrims, who, from Greece and Rome (as history proves) either preceded, accompanied, or followed early missiona

ries into Ireland in the fifth, the sixth, and the early part of the seventh centuries." The use to which they were applied he believes to have been that of affording a place of security, in times of war and danger, to the sacred utensils, the reliques, books, precious ornaments, and other valuables of a contiguous religious establishment. In these conclusions as to the probable date and appropriation of the buildings, we fully concur; and shall present, when describing examples to which such passages bear immediate application, some prominent arguments afforded in that work.

There are two towers in Scotland, similar, in nearly every point, to those seen in Ireland. One is situated at Brechin, and the other at Abernethy. Both are connected with churches; and concerning the church contiguous to that first named, Dr. Ledwich presents the following remarks: "the church of Brechin is supposed to be founded, A. D. 990, its round tower is probably a century earlier; for in Ireland the latter preceded the erection of sees by many ages. The Irish clergy were the only teachers of religion among the Picts in those times; Tuathal Mac Artgusa, being called Archbishop of Pictland in 864, as Tighernac, the Annals of Ulster, and Mr. Pinkerton declare. Brechin is in the same shire of Angus with Dunkeld, over which Artgusa presided, so that the round tower of Brechin can be ascribed to no other founders than the Irish Missioners, who constructed such in their native land."

We think it extremely likely, for the above and many other reasons, that the two round towers in Scotland were designed and erected by persons proceeding from the contiguous shore of Ireland. But there are some circumstances connected with the remarks of our author, as presented in other parts of his dissertation, which require notice. The tower of Brechin, we are told, "has on its western front two arches, one within the other, in relief; on the point of the outermost is a crucifix, and between both, towards the middle, are figures of the Virgin Mary and St. John, the latter holding a cup and a lamb at the bottom of the outer arch are two beasts couchant."

The arches, as represented by Dr. Ledwich, are pointed, and

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