68 Mr. PETRIE'S Inquiry into the Origin and 



already examined ; yet, as it will be satisfactory to the reader to have every 

 tiling bearing on the question brought together for his consideration, I shall 

 insert them in this place. 



" How far those pillar-temples, or Round Towers, which form so remarkable a part of Ireland's 

 antiquities, and whose history is lost in the night of time, may have had any connection with the 

 Pyrolatry, or Fire-worship, of the early Irish, we have no certain means of determining. That they 

 were looked upon as very ancient, in the time of Giraldus, appears from the tale told by him of the 

 fishermen of Lough Neagh pointing [out] to strangers, as they sailed over that lake, the tall, narrow, 

 ecclesiastical round towers under the water, supposed to have been sunk there from the time of the 

 inundation by which the lake was formed. This great event, the truth or falsehood of which 

 makes no difference in the facts of the period assigned to it, is by the annalist Tigernach referred 

 to the year of Christ 62 ; thus removing the date of these structures to far too remote a period to 

 admit of their being considered as the work of Christian hands." History of Ireland, vol. i. p. 26. 



Mr. Moore then proceeds to examine the various theories, which have been 

 advocated in connexion with their Christian origin and uses, to which he makes 

 objections, which shall be examined in their proper place, and then resumes as 

 follows : 



" As the worship of fire is known, unquestionably, to have formed a part of the ancient religion 

 of the country, the notion that these towers were originally fire-temples, appears the most probable 

 of any that have yet been suggested. To this it is objected, that inclosed structures are wholly at 

 variance with that great principle of the Celtic religion, which considers it derogatory to divine na- 

 tures to confine their worship within the limits of walls and roofs ; the refined principle upon which 

 the Magi incited Xerxes to burn the temples of the Greeks. It appears certain, however, that, at a later 

 period, the use of fire-temples was adopted by the Persians themselves ; thoiigh, at the same time, 

 they did not the less continue to offer their sacrifices upon the hills and in the open air, employing 

 the Pyreia introduced by Zoroaster, as mere repositories of the sacred fire. A simple altar, with a 

 brazier burning upon it, was all that the temple contained, and at this they kindled the fire for 

 their worship on the high places. To this day, as modern writers concerning the Parsees inform us, 

 the part of the temple called the Place of Fire, is accessible only to the priests ; and on the suppo- 

 sition that our towers were, in like manner, temples in which the sacred flame was kept safe from 

 pollution, the singular circumstance of the entrance to them being rendered so difficult by its great 

 height from the ground is at once satisfactorily explained. 



" But there is yet a far more striking corroboration of this view of the origin of the Round 

 Towers. While in no part of Continental Europe has any building of a similar construction been 

 discovered, there have been found, near Bhaugulpore, in llindostan, two towers, which bear an 

 exact resemblance to those of Ireland. In all the peculiarities of their shape, the door or entrance, 

 elevated some feet above the ground, the four windows near the top, facing the cardinal points, and 

 the small rounded roof, these Indian temples are, to judge by the description of them, exactly simi- 

 lar to the Round Towers ; and, like them also, are thought to have belonged to a form of worship 



