Uses of the Round Towers of Ireland, fyc. 15 



usually set up in those places ; there is therefore no positive authority to say that these cloy/tads 

 or towers were used as belfries only, or that they took their name from that use." pp. 285, 286. 



To reply to assertions resting on such puerile conjectures as the preceding, 

 would be but a waste of time, and I shall only observe, that there is not a 

 shadow of authority to be found in the Irish history for the statement, that the 

 Druids called every place, or any place of worship, cloghad, or that the Round 

 Towers of Ireland were ever so called, as I shall prove hereafter. 



The theory thus dogmatically put forward by Vallancey having been com- 

 bated by Dr. Ledwich in his Essay on the Round Towers, first published in 

 the fifth number of the Collectanea, the former was followed by some remarks 

 on the Round Towers of Ireland in the succeeding volume, number 10, for the 

 purpose of supporting it. But, as this paper only shows that a tower somewhat 

 similar in size and form to the Irish towers exists in Bulgaria, and asserts from 

 a conjectural etymology of its name, Misgir or Midsgir, that it was a fire- 

 temple, I do not feel it necessary to insert it here. 



On this paper, Dr. Ledwich makes the following remarks : 



" I had almost forgot our author's Bulgarian round tower, which was a Turkish minaret. He 

 should have known that the Turks or Magiars colonized Bulgaria in 889 Gibbon's Rom. Hist. v. 

 6. p. 34, note 2. that then they were tolerably civilized. Forster's Northern Voyages, p. 39, note. 

 That Arabic inscriptions in Turkish mosques are common. Tollii Epist. Itiner. p. 150. And that 

 those on the Bulgarian tower are not old. Forster, supra. The Turks received the idea of belfries 

 or their minarets from the Greeks A. D. Y84 Sabellic Ennead. 9. 1. 1. Here are materials for 



a dissertation to convict our Author of the grossest ignorance, or unpardonable inattention." 



Antiquities, p. 166, note. (Second Edition.) 



But reasoning of this kind would make but li ttle, if any, impression on the 

 mind of an author like Vallancey ; he would acknowledge that the Bulgarian 

 tower, or any other, was a minaret, but what of that ? " The minarets," he 

 answers, " were originally fire towers !" See MS. comment on Ledwich's Dis- 

 sertation on the Round Towers of Ireland in Vallancey's corrected copy of the 

 Collectanea de Reb. Hib., preserved in the library of the Royal Irish Academy. 



In the twelfth number of the Collectanea, General Vallancey returns to 

 the Round Towers again, and finds them employed for various purposes not 

 previously thought of. Thus, in the preface to this number, he tells us they 

 were first erected in Ireland by the African sea-champions : 



