Uses of the Round Towers of Ireland, $c. 47 



Cambrensis ; and we would have just as much reason to attach importance to 

 the delusive imaginings of the peasantry at the present time as to those of their 

 predecessors in ages so remote. 



3. That " the Ulster Annals even mention the fall of no less than fifty-seven 

 of these Towers in consequence of a dreadful earthquake, in A. D. 448." (O'Conor, 

 ibid. vol. 4. p. 2). The passage referred to is as follows : 



" 2llt. CCCCll btit. Ingenti terremotu per loca varia imminente, plurime urbes auguste, muri, 

 recent! adhuc re-edificatione construct!, cum Ivii turribus corruerunt." 



On this passage, however, which Mr. D' Alton so boldly pronounces to re- 

 late to the Round Towers of Ireland, Dr. O'Conor, with all his zeal to support 

 the same hypothesis of their pagan origin, only ventures in a note to propound 

 the following conjecture : 



" Quaere utrum htec referenda sint ad turres Hibernias, de quibus Giraldus inquit ' arctae sunt, 

 et alte, necnon et rotundae, more patrio.' " 



But, I may ask, do not the Annals of Ulster often record foreign events, 

 and quote as their authorities the chronicles of Marcellinus, Isidorus, and Beda ? 

 and with this example of Dr. O'Conor's cautiousness before him, should it not 

 have occurred to Mr. D' Alton, before he hazarded so confident a conclusion, 

 that these Towers might not have been Irish, and particularly as a reference to 

 the commonest popular works on general chronology, or universal history, would 

 have been sufficient to enlighten him? For example, in the Chronological 

 Tables of the Abbe Lenglet Dufresnoy at the year 446, as well as in the Uni- 

 versal History (vol. xvi.) at the year 447, he would have found the very same 

 statement as that given in the Annals of Ulster, with this difference only, that 

 these authorities designate the locality of the event as Constantinople, while 

 the Irish annalist uses the phrase urbs augusta, being the title always applied 

 by the ancient continental chroniclers to that capital of the eastern empire, and 

 the appellation by which Constantinople is always designated in the Chronicle 

 of Marcellinus. And what will be thought of the value of Mr. D' Alton's 

 assertion, when it shall be shown, that if he had referred to that ancient autho- 

 rity he would have found, that the passage in the Ulster Annals was but a 

 transcript, to the very letter, of the original words in Marcellinus ? That the 

 reader may see the truth of this at a glance, I here present him with the pas- 



