46 Mr. PETKIE'S Inquiry into the Origin and 



name it. As already stated, it will be shown that these ecclesiastical Towers 

 were intended to serve for more than one purpose ; and under such circum- 

 stances it would have been impossible for Cambrensis to have characterized 

 them more properly than by the general phrase which he has in both instances 

 employed. And, as to Mr. D' Alton's bold assertion, that if they were for any 

 other then known Christian purpose, he would have been sure to name it, the 

 reply is obvious, that if Cambrensis had been writing a distinct treatise on the 

 subject he would indeed have been sure to name the purpose, or purposes, for 

 which the Towers had been built, whatever they might have been, but that it 

 would have been altogether unreasonable to expect a detailed explanation of 

 those purposes in an allusion merely incidental to the subject he had in hand. 

 That Lough Neagh was indeed formed by an inundation, though not, in the way 

 stated by Cambrensis, on the authority of a legend still applied to almost every 

 lake in Ireland, and that this inundation actually took place in the first century, 

 there is no reason to doubt, because it is recorded by the most ancient and trust- 

 worthy of our annalists, and the names of the very tribes, who occupied the plain 

 so covered, are also given in very ancient documents. But it by no means follows, 

 and indeed it is not at all probable, that Cambrensis, when he made his state- 

 ment, was acquainted with such authorities, for, if he had been aware of the true 

 circumstances and period of that inundation, he would surely have adduced 

 them in support of the truth of his statements, rather than rest their credibility 

 on a popular supposition, which could not be true ; and, if Mr. D' Alton will 

 have it that he was acquainted with such authorities, he should also allow that 

 the disgusting cause assigned by Cambrensis for this inundation was equally 

 derived from that source, though the whole existing body of Irish literature 

 might be searched in vain for a single evidence to show that the Irish were ac- 

 quainted with the existence of, much less addicted to, such crimes as those 

 ascribed to them by that political traducer. 



That the legend of the Towers seen in Lough Neagh, was current among the 

 Irish in the time of Cambrensis, as this writer states, I do not by any means wish 

 to deny : they preserve it to this very day ; but with this important difference, 

 that the architectural objects they now imagine to be visible are chimneys of 

 houses, tops of castles, and spires of churches, the lofty objects that are now 

 most familiar to them as the round belfries of earlier date were in the time of 



