Uses of the Round Towers of Ireland, fyc. 127 



off the coast of Erris, in the county of Mayo, erected in the beginning of the 

 same century ; and to that of St. Fechin, on Ard-Oilean, or High Island, off the 

 coast of Connaraara, in the county of Galway, erected in the seventh century. 

 In all these establishments the churches alone, which are of the simplest con- 

 struction, are built with lime cement. The houses, or cells, erected for the use 

 of the abbot and monks, are of a circular or oval form, having dome roofs, con- 

 structed, like those of the ancient Greek and Irish sepulchres, without a know- 

 ledge of the principle of the arch, and without the use of cement ; and the 

 whole are encompassed by a broad wall composed of stones of great size, with- 

 out cement of any kind. 



Such also, or very nearly, appears to have been the monastic establishment 

 constructed on the island of Fame, in Northumberland, in the year 684, by St. 

 Cuthbert, bishop of Lindisfarne, who is usually reputed to have been an Irish- 

 man, and, at all events, received his education from Irish ecclesiastics. This 

 monastery, as described by Venerable Bede in the seventeenth chapter of his 

 Life of that distinguished saint, was almost of a round form, four or five perches 

 in diameter from wall to wall. This wall was on the outside of the height of a 

 man, but was on the inside made higher by sinking the natural rock, to prevent 

 the thoughts from rambling by restraining the sight to the view of the heavens 

 only. It was not formed of cut stone, or brick cemented with mortar, but 

 wholly of rough stones and earth, which had been dug up from the middle of 

 the enclosure; and of these stones, which had been carried from another place, 

 some were so large that four men could scarcely lift one of them. Within the 

 enclosure were two houses, of which one was an oratory, or small chapel, and 

 the other for the common uses of a habitation ; and of these the walls were in 

 great part formed by digging away the earth inside and outside, and the roofs 

 were made of unhewn timber thatched with hay. Outside the enclosure, and 

 at the entrance to the island, was a larger house for the accommodation of reli- 

 gious visiters, and not far from it a fountain of water. For the satisfaction of the 

 reader I annex the passage in the original : 



"... condidit Ciuitatem suo aptam imperio, & domos in hac seque ciuitati congruas erexit. Est 

 autem ajdifioium situ pene rotundum, a muro vsque ad murum mensura quatuor ferine siue quinq'; 

 perticarum distentum, murus ipse deforis altior longitudine stantis hominis. Nam intrinsecus 

 viuam cedendo rupem multo ilium fecit altiorem, quatenus ad cohibendam oculorum siue cogita- 



