“On leaving Kilrush I entrusted my person and my portmanteau to a small boat which I had engaged to carry me over to Scattery Island, and thence to the coast of Kerry. The morning was warm, and not a breath of wind disturbed the surface of the water, but the sun was completely concealed by a thick yellow fog, which scarcely allowed us to see beyond the length of our boat. Nevertheless, my boatman brought me in safety to the little green island, which I was about to visit for the sake of its interesting ruins, and by the time we reached its shore the fog had sufficiently dispersed to allow us to distinguish the remains of its ‘Seven Churches,’ while the lofty column of the round towers presented itself at first as a dark line, and then gradually broke with more distinctness through the turbid atmosphere.
“These Round Towers are the most interesting remains of antiquity that Ireland possesses. Like most travellers in Ireland, I was soon infected with a passion for round towers; but as this passion is one of which few of my friends in Germany are likely to have a distinct idea, I believe that some introductory remarks on these venerable buildings will not be out of place here.
“These Round Towers are built of large stones, and when seen at a distance look rather like lofty columns than towers, being from the base to the top of nearly the same thickness. They are now, indeed, by no means all of the same height, many of them having fallen into ruins; but those which remain tolerably complete are all from 100 to 120 feet high, from forty to fifty in circumference, and from thirteen to sixteen in diameter. At the base the wall is always very thick and strong, but becomes slighter towards the top. Within, the tower is hollow, without any opening but a door, generally eight or ten feet from the ground, and some very narrow apertures or windows, mostly four in number, near the top.[[74]] These windows are usually turned towards the four cardinal points of the compass.
“In all parts of Ireland these singular buildings are found scattered about, all resembling each other like the obelisks of Egypt. Sometimes round towers are found in solitary islands, sometimes on the side of a river, or a plain, or some secluded corner of a valley. The whole number of them, according to the map of Ireland published by the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge, is, at present, 118; of these fifteen are in a perfect state of preservation, and of thirty-six little more than the foundation remains.
“The general name of ‘Round Towers’ is very little characteristic of these remarkable buildings, for towers are seldom otherwise than round. Some writers have called them ‘pillar temples,’ but this name assigns to them a designation which it is by no means certain that they bore. The characteristic peculiarity of these towers consists in their resemblance to mighty pillars, and the most appropriate name for them would, in my opinion, be ‘pillar towers.’
“In no part of Europe do we find any similar building of antiquity. In Scotland, it is said, two or three pillar towers exist, and these, it may be inferred, were reared by Irish colonists. In the far east only we come to erections of the same character and dimension; the first thing that a traveller is reminded of on seeing an Irish round tower, is a Turkish minaret.
“No authentic records exist to guide us to a knowledge of the time when these towers were built, or of the use for which they were intended. Everything proves that they have existed from a very remote antiquity, and the most opposite conclusions have been adopted with respect to the period and object of their erection; none of these hypotheses carry conviction with them, but of many, at least, the absurdity can be shown with little trouble.
“Some, for instance, have maintained that these towers were built by the Danes; but these sages appear to have forgotten that round towers are found in parts of the island where the Danes never set foot, as, for instance, in Donegal and the remote counties of Connaught. Besides, had these been Danish erections, how came the Danes not to leave any of them in England?
“Popular tradition assigns them to the Phœnicians, and learned antiquarians ought not too hastily to reject popular tradition, for often the memory of a people undergoes less corruption and change in the course of a thousand years than do the records preserved in books. There is nothing very improbable in the hypothesis that these towers were built by the Phœnicians, who are known to have visited the island and to have exercised power there.
“Travellers have recently discovered in the Persian province of Masanderan towers precisely similar to those of Ireland, and in India erections of a similar kind, dedicated to religious purposes, have also been met with. This, taken in connection with the shape of the Turkish minaret, makes it extremely probable that the round towers have had an Oriental origin. Many have been staggered by the great antiquity which such an hypothesis would assign to the Irish towers, but they are buildings of wonderful solidity, and there is nothing at all extraordinary in the supposition that these stones may have remained in their present position for some thousands of years. Have we not even brick buildings of Roman erection, that are known to have been built before the Christian era?