Uses of the Round Towers of Ireland, fyc. 17 



Farther on in the same Preface, the learned General informs us, that the 

 Round Towers were sorcerers' towers. Thus : 



" That the oriental aub were sorcerers, the learned Millius has very clearly demonstrated ; that 

 the Irish abh were sorcerers also, is evident from the common verb abh-faidhim, to prophecy, where 

 faidh a prophet, is compounded with abh. These were at the head of the Irish sorcerers, and I 

 shall hereafter shew that there was a presiding aub at each tower, and that the first name for 

 Christian, a bishop in the Irish language, was aobk-ill-toir, or, an aub of many towers, or places of 

 worship, for tdr not only implies a tower but every thing belonging to a church. 



" Hence toir-dealbach, a proper name, now written turlogh ; it originally signified a tower- 

 sorcerer ; see dealbha or tealbha, sorcery." p. cxxxiv. 



Still farther on, he informs us that the Towers were made for celestial 

 observations, a notion subsequently adopted even by Doctor O'Conor and other 

 learned men. The passage is as follows : 



" Thus Lucian tells us, that they had in the porch of the temple at Hierapolis which ' stood on the 

 knob of a hill, Priapus's three hundred cubits high, into one of which a man gets up twice a year, 

 and dwells seven days together in the top of the phallus, that he may converse with the gods above, 

 and pray for the prosperity of Syria ; which prayers, says he, are the better heard by the gods for 

 being near at hand.' This was the opinion of Lucian, but the fact is, these pillars, or round towers, 

 were made for celestial observations, as those still standing in Ireland, were by our Druids." p. clxv, 



A few pages after this, General Vallancey presents us with what he calls 

 " Further illustrations on the Round Towers," in which we find a new use to 

 which they were applied : thus, in speaking of the dancing festivals of the 

 Canaanites and other ancient nations in honour of the Heavens, he writes : 



" In Syriac, chugal, a circuit, to turn round. One of the services paid to this attribute, by the 

 heathens, was, to dance, or move in circles ; and, in this manner, our Irish Druids observed the 

 revolution of the year, festivals, &c., by dancing round our round towers; and from the Syriac 

 chugal, the word clog was formed, implying, any orbicular form, as, the skull, a round tower" &c. 

 Vol. iii. p. 482. 



General Vallancey, in a few pages after, furnishes us with a quotation from 

 an ancient Irish MS. the Glossary of Cormac, Archbishop of Cashel, in the 

 tenth century which would appear to set the question of, at least, the Pagan 

 antiquity of the towers at rest for ever. It is as follows : 



" Gull or gaill, i. e. carrtha cloche, a stone column, or pillar, that is, one of the ancient round 

 towers, (Cormac's Gloss. Vet.) is aire is bearor gatt, (says Cormac) disuidiufo bith ceata ro suighidseat 

 in Eire, i. e. they were so called, gatt, by the colonists who settled first in Ireland." Ib. p. 483, 

 VOL. XX. 1l D 



