80 Mr. PETRIE'S Inquiry into the Origin and 



" RESEARCHES AMONGST THE ROUND TOWERS. 



" The public attention has lately been directed, through the press, to the discovery of a human 

 Skeleton, within the basement of the Round Tower of Ardmore, in the County of Waterford. Since 

 then the lower portion of a second Skeleton, consisting of the femoral and tibial bones, were found at 

 a little distance from the former. And, in the nave of the ruined church adjoining, Mr. Windele 

 discovered a fragment of an Ogham inscription, containing nine letters ; this had, probably, been 

 removed at some distant time from the cemetery. These discoveries opened up a new subject of spe- 

 culation to the antiquaries. An opinion advanced by O'Brien, the author of" the Round Towers of 

 Ireland," that, amongst their other uses, these buildings were occasionally, in part, appropriated to 

 sepulchral purposes, like some of the Gheber Towers of Persia, and the Ceylonese Dagobs was now 

 regarded of greater value than it was supposed it was originally entitled to. Sir William Betham 

 at once declared that he fully adopted that opinion ; he was fortified in it by the facts previously 

 known, that in the Towers of Ram Island and Timahoe evidences of ancient interment had been 

 found. Others again, unwilling to abandon previously cherished hypotheses, suggested that Ard- 

 more Tower may have been erected in a more ancient Christian cemetery, belonging to Declan's 

 Monastery ; and the absence of the head and feet of one Skeleton, and of the whole trunk of the 

 second, they alleged proved, that in digging for a foundation for the Tower, the builders merely 

 cut a circular trench, amongst the graves, leaving undisturbed the narrow space within its peri- 

 phery, and consequently, such portion of human remains as lay interred therein. This was certainly 

 an ingenious solution, but then why all this hermetical sealing of that portion of the Tower above 

 these remains, first laying down a concrete floor, then four successive layers of solid mason work, 

 and finally above these a second floor of concrete. Even rejecting this, as of no account, it is con- 

 tended that it is not a necessary consequence that the Tower must have been Christian, altho' it had 

 been erected within a more ancient cemetery Men died and were buried before Christianity, and 

 there were Pagan as well as Christian burial grounds. But in this case, laying aside all the strong 

 and stubborn arguments in favour of the pillar tower having been a Heathen Temple, dedicated to 

 the Sun, or fire, there are two or three special considerations peculiar to Ardmore. In the first 

 place, the lands on which it is situate are called Ardo, the height of the fire, secondly, the ancient 

 life of St. Declan, whilst it is particular in its mention of the churches and monastic buildings, is 

 totally silent as to the Cuilcagh or Tower, which it would not have been, did this, the most re- 

 markable of all the structures at Ardmore, owe its origin to that saint or any of his successors. 

 Then again, the finding of the Ogham fragment. In a question of this kind this may be considered 

 as of importance. The Ogham writing has been generally considered as Druidical, as the original 

 literary character of pagan Ireland, whose descent has been traced back to Babylonia and Perse- 



polis the ancient of days. In Ireland the majority of inscriptions in this character, hitherto brought 



to light, have been obtained from localities of decidedly a heathen origin. Bealahamire ( the place 

 of the field of adoration') near this city, possesses 2 Beallanranuig in Kerry, where 7, and Cool- 

 coolaught in the same county where 6 remain, were both ancient pagan cemeteries ; 5 inscribed 

 stones form the imposts of an old Pelasgico-Irish cave at Dunloe ; 2 similar stones occupy a like 

 situation in a similar cave, in a Rath west of Baudon ; all this is strong evidence of the Pagan cha- 



