44 Mr. PETRIE'S Inquiry into the Origin and 



net, out of which he might have neither opportunity nor inclination to extricate 

 himself. 



One or two assertions of Mr. D' Alton's own, relative to the supposed anti- 

 quity of the Towers, must not, however, be allowed to pass without observation. 

 These assertions are : 



1. That "the Irish Annals can alone support the investigation, and in the 

 most ancient of these the Round Towers are recorded." JEssay,-p. 136. 



For this statement Mr. D' Alton refers to Dr. O'Conor's Rer. Hib. Script, 

 vol. i. Proleg. p. 2. p. ccvii., but the passage referred to does not bear out Mr. 

 D' Alton in his assertion. It only shows, from Irish authorities, and those not 

 the ancient Annals, that Towers existed in Ireland at a very remote time, 

 but offers no evidence as to their shape, or that they were of the description 

 of those now the subject of investigation. On the contrary, the instances 

 quoted the Tor-Conaing, Tor-Breogan, and the Towers of Maghtuirreadh, 

 or Campus Turrium, in Mayo and Sligo, must, as our whole history shows, and 

 as even Mr. D' Alton himself would be necessitated to allow, have evidently 

 been of a totally different description. These Towers have been sufficiently pre- 

 served to our own times to enable us to ascertain their exact character, and that 

 they were of the class of Cyclopean forts so common in this country, as I have 

 shown in my essay on Military Architecture in Ireland. 



2. After the unqualified assertion, on the authority of Miss Beaufort, that 

 the Psalter of Cashel expressly declares that they (the Towers) were used for 

 the preservation of the sacred fire, Mr. D' Alton adds : 



" And the brief but emphatic mention of them by Giraldus Cambrensis, which Dr. Ledwich 

 has so misquoted, does fully confirm this opinion. It occurs where he speaks of the consequences 

 of the alleged inundation of Lough Neagh. ' It is no improbable evidence of this event, that the 

 fishermen of that sheet of water at times plainly behold the religious towers, which, according to the 

 custom of the country, are narrow, lofty, and round, immersed under the waters ; and they fre- 

 quently shew them to strangers passing over them, and wondering at the causes of the phenomenon. 

 It is quite immaterial to the present purpose, whether or not such an inundation did actually happen. 

 It was the opinion in Ireland at that time that it did ; it was matter of history in the country, for 

 the annals of Tigernach, which relate it, were then extant upwards of a century ; and these annals, 

 with which Giraldus must have been well acquainted, fix its date to A. D. 62, a tune when he 

 knew Christianity had not dawned in Ireland ; yet he, believing the report, expressly says that 

 these towers, denominating them " religious," were of such antiquity, that some of them might 

 have been overwhelmed in that visitation ; that the fishermen of that lake actually distinguish them 



