“No less diversified have been the opinions respecting the use for which the round towers were intended, and on this subject some strangely absurd doctrines have been advanced. Some people have supposed them to have formed chains of telegraph stations spread out over the whole island; but the absurdity of this notion is sufficiently shown by the position of some of the towers upon low ground, in the corners of valleys, and on remote and solitary islands, whence nothing could well be seen, and nothing, therefore, made known. This opinion is, nevertheless, still entertained by many.
“Others suppose the towers to have been fortresses, erected in the early ages of Christianity as places of refuge, in case of danger, for the priests and their church treasures. I can hardly think, however, that any people could have selected such a style of architecture for places of defence. The defenders within would have had to stand upon each other’s heads, and their only means of annoying their enemies would have been the four small openings at the top, eighty or a hundred feet from the ground. Besides, had the round towers been military places of defence, they would probably have all been destroyed in the course of the constant wars by which the island has been afflicted, whereas the round towers have evidently been preserved by the people with great care, and have ever been looked on by them with the greatest veneration.
“The notion that the round towers were built by the early Christians as steeples to hang their bells in is equally untenable, for, though they are frequently found in close vicinity to the ruins of churches, yet no kind of steeple could be worse constructed for such a purpose, as the sound of the bells would scarcely have been heard through the small apertures at the top, except by those who had already assembled around the tower.
“Many other opinions have been hazarded, but all at variance with the popular tradition, which represents the round towers to have been the temples of the old fire-worshippers from the East, who came over with the Phœnicians. The poet Moore and other Irish antiquarians are disposed to adopt this tradition, the more so as the pyreas of the Ghebers, according to the account of several travellers, bear the closest similitude to the Irish towers, and because the worship of fire is known to have been at one time the prevailing religion of Ireland. The dark interiors of these towers have been well calculated to show the sacred fire preserved there to the greatest advantage, and the height of the entrance-door from the ground would be explained by the sanctity of the place, to which only a few were probably allowed to have access.
“The great height of the towers has been objected to as entirely superfluous, supposing them to have been applied to such a use; but it may have been customary to place the sacred fire in an elevated position, as an additional mark of respect, and then the towers may have answered more purposes than one; from the windows at the top signals may have been made to summon the faithful to prayer, or the apertures may have been used for astronomical observations, intended to fix the time of the religious feasts.
“Christian emblems have been discovered in some of these towers. On the summit of that near Swords, in the county of Dublin, is a small stone cross, and in others even representations of the Virgin have been found; but these, there cannot be a doubt, are of modern addition. That churches and cemeteries should so often be found in the vicinity of these towers is nothing surprising, for a building that has once become sacred in the eyes of a people, generally retains a portion of its sanctity, even though the original religion may be utterly swept away. Most of the early Christian churches were erected on the foundations of heathen temples, and a large portion of the Turkish mosques were formerly Christian churches.
“Generally, where in the vicinity of a round tower there occur the ruins of churches, these are in number seven. This has been explained by supposing that, previously to the appearance of St. Patrick, Christianity—but not Roman Catholic Christianity—had been introduced into Ireland. This ante-patrician Christianity is said to have been introduced by the Apostle James, who first preached the gospel in Ireland, and established the Eastern Church there, with the rites of the Eastern Œcumenic Synods; and the frequent appearance of seven churches close to each other is accounted for as a reference to the seven celebrated churches of the East.
“In this hypothesis, though stoutly denied by the Roman Catholics, there is nothing improbable, and, if true, it affords another remarkable proof of the early connection between Ireland and the East. In no other Christian land in Europe do we constantly find the ruins of ancient churches in groups of seven.
“We effected a landing on Scattery Island, called in ancient times Inniscattery, and at present occupied by a few tenants of a Mr. M’Kean, who graze their cattle there. ‘It is a very old ancient place,’ said one of the boatmen, as he was carrying me through the water on his shoulders, for we had come to a landing-place where the tide had left one foot of water over a large extent of coast. This pleonasm of ‘old ancient’ might be applied to many parts of Ireland, where old and older ruins are constantly found in close contiguity.
“In general, where there are seven churches, in Ireland, some ancient saint is named as having lived and died there, and as having belonged to the first preachers of Christianity in the country. At Scattery it is Saint Senanus, whose grave is still shown amid one of the ruins, and whose fame has been extended far beyond his native isle by one of Moore’s melodies. These ancient ruins, however, have many graves of a more modern date; for bodies are still brought over from the mainland to be interred at Scattery. On the occasion of such a funeral, one boat serves generally as a hearse, and the mourners follow in other boats.