Uses of the Round Towers of Ireland, $c. 53 



" A. D. 898. Copcch pp a paice Uajan Gngcoipe mpi Cealc, D'ej." 



r 

 Here it may be observed that the word Ua^cm appears at first sight doubtful; 



for, according to the rule for deciphering Irish contractions, when a vowel is 

 placed over a consonant the letter p (r) is understood to come before or after 

 it, so that c may be read either cpu or cup, though it is almost invariably the 

 former, and it might therefore be denied that cajdn is to be read qiuagdn But 

 it is very easy to prove from the context that cajdn cannot be read cupa^an ; 

 for any one at all acquainted with the idiomatic application of Irish prepositions 

 will see that ppip a means cui to whom, not a quo, from whom, as Dr. O'Conor 

 renders it ; and when this is established it will be seen that a jdn was a cogno- 

 men of Cosgrach, and not the name of a Tower or any other building. This is a 

 fact so obvious to an Irish scholar that it may appear puerile to dwell upon it ; 

 and I shall only add, that in a copy of these Annals in Trinity College, made by 

 Maurice Gorman, and also in that made for Dr. Fergus, by the celebrated Hugh 

 Mac Curtin, this word is correctly lengthened into cpuagdn. The adjective 

 cpuaj signifies pitiful, and also lean, meagre; and from it, by adding the termi- 

 nation dn, is formed the noun cpiia^dn, signifying a meagre, lean, emaciated, 

 macerated ascetic, who by mortification had reduced himself to a living skeleton. 

 But, though I have acknowledged my unwillingness to believe Dr. O'Conor 

 capable of falsifying the text of our Annals, to support any favourite hypothesis, 

 yet I must confess that he has laid himself quite open to the suspicion of having 

 done so, not only in the instance already noticed, but still more in the refe- 

 rences which follow. Thus, in support of his theory of the Anchorite use of 

 the Towers in Christian times, he refers to the authority of the Annals of 

 Innisfallen, p. 146, and to the Annals of Ulster at the year 996 ; yet in neither 

 place is there a word to support that hypothesis. We have indeed in the page 

 referred to a dissertation of the Doctor's own, in which the sacred fire of 

 the Druids, but not the Round Towers, is mentioned ; and, in his second refe- 

 rence, the Annals of Ulster, at the year 995 [996], there is no allusion to An- 

 chorite Towers, or to Towers of any description, unless we adopt Dr. O'Conor's 

 dictum on the fanciful etymology of a word. The passage is as follows : 



" iHn. fotCCC 1C J). Tenediait do gabail Airdmacha con afarcaibh dertach, na damliacc, na h Erdam, 

 na fidhnemead ann cen loscadh" 



