12 Mr. PETRIE'S Inquiry into the Origin and 



Nothing, but its artfulness, can exceed the audacious mendacity of the fore- 

 going passage. " Let it now be remarked," he says, " that the opinion of every 

 author, who has spoken of our Round Towers for the space of 542 years, that 

 is, from Cambrensis to Molyneux, is uniform in pronouncing them Ostman or 

 Danish works." Would not the reader imagine from this that there had been 

 a long list of writers summed up in favour of the hypothesis, of which Cam- 

 brensis and Molyneux were but the first and last ? Such, surely, would be his 

 impression ; but let us see whether the facts are of a nature to justify it. In 

 the first place, Cambrensis himself has not written a syllable indicating his belief 

 that the Round Towers were of Danish origin ; on the contrary, he expresses 

 his conviction that they were erected more patrice, after the manner of the 

 country ; and, secondly, from that writer to John Lynch, who was endeavour- 

 ing to controvert every position of Cambrensis (and thus probably originated 

 the conjecture relative to the Danes), not a single writer has said one word 

 upon the subject. To this he adds, with great apparent simplicity: " All these 

 authors, it will be said, follow Cambrensis, I grant they do ; (!) but would any 

 of them adopt his notions was it possible to substitute better or more authentic 

 in their room ?" Most admirable candour ! No one could have ever written this 

 but a person desirous of supporting an erroneous hypothesis by false assertions. 

 This attempted imposition of Ledwich has been so well exposed by the gene- 

 rally acute Dr. Lanigan, that I shall make no apology for presenting to the 

 reader his remarks upon it in his own words : 



" Ledwich has shamefully imposed on his readers by representing Giraldus Cambrensis as 

 having asserted, that the Round towers were built by the Danes. Now Giraldus says no such 

 thing, nor in the little that he has said relatively to their mode of construction, which is all com- 

 prised in the few words quoted above, does he make any mention of Danes or Ostmen. On the 

 contrary he plainly hints, that the architecture of them was purely Irish, more patrice. Besides, 

 from his having looked upon at least some of them as very ancient, it is evident, that he could not 

 have imagined, that they were erected by the Danes, whereas he. supposed that they existed in 

 Ireland before the arrival of that nation. Ledwich squeezed his misrepresentation of Giraldus out 

 of another of Lynch's meaning in the above quoted words. Lynch says, that the Round towers 

 are reported to have been first erected by the Danes, whose first arrival in Ireland was, according 

 to Giraldus, in the year 838. The sense of this plain passage is twisted by Ledwich, as if Lynch had 

 stated that Giraldus said that the Danes not only first came to Ireland in 838, but that they were 

 likewise the first builders of the Round towers. Lynch could not have even thought of attributing 

 such an assertion to Giraldus, whereas his object was to refute the supposition of Giraldus, that 



